God and Country/Resident Aliens
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
David C. Wright
Jer. 29:1-10; Phil. 3:20
July 4, 2010
On a nearby
church, you will find the words “For God and Country” engraved
in large letters across the front of the building. That’s
an interesting statement, given that we live in a nation which
has taken great care to separate the power of the church from the
power of the state. For a variety of reasons, that separation
is probably a good thing. But it creates difficult questions
regarding the relationship between religion and government that
often end up in our courts. For example, should military
chaplains be allowed to pray publicly in the name of Jesus? Should
a cross honoring WWI vets be permitted on public property in the
Mojave desert? Should a county in Virginia be required to
allow a Wiccan priestess to open their board meeting in prayer? Is
the National Day of Prayer constitutional? And of course, there
are the ever-popular disputes over Nativity displays and displays
of the 10 Commandments. It isn’t always easy to resolve
these disagreements, and they have created confusion about the
proper relationship between Christians and government.
What is the role
of the Christian in a secular state? Should we be trying to make it more
Christian, as some believe? Or should the church just avoid any entanglement
in matters of politics? Or, should we see the government as an adversary
of the church, as some do? God and country. How do the two relate
in 21st century America?
I think the writing of
the prophet Jeremiah is helpful in answering that question. Jeremiah spent
most of his career preaching a very unpopular message to the people of Judah
in the 6th century B.C. He warned them that their sinful ways would lead
to God’s judgment. For delivering this unpopular message, he was
derided, beaten, jailed, and thrown in a cistern. But in the 29th chapter
of Jeremiah, we find that his prophecies concerning Judah had come true. Babylon
had defeated Jerusalem and had carried its leaders and most skilled people off
to Babylon. When false prophets told these captives that they should pack
their bags because they were going to be coming home soon, Jeremiah responded
with a letter to the captives. Listen to what he wrote, especially concerning
the role of God’s people in pagan Babylonian society. (Read Jer.
29:1-10)
1 These
are the words of the letter that
the prophet Jeremiah sent
from Jerusalem to
the remaining elders among
the exiles, and
to the priests, the prophets, and
all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had
taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.
4 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel,
to all the exiles whom
I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:
5 Build houses and
live in them; plant gardens and
eat what they produce.
6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take
wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage,
that they may bear sons
and daughters; multiply
there, and do not decrease.
7 But seek the welfare of the city where
I have sent you into exile,
and pray to the Lord on
its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
8 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:
Do not let the prophets and
the diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that
they dream,
9 for it is a lie that
they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, says the Lord.)
10 For thus says the Lord:
Only when Babylon's seventy years are
completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you
back to this place.
Once again, Jeremiah
is bringing bad news to his people. Seventy more years of captivity before
they will return home. The guy just couldn’t catch a break! But
verse 7 is where I’d like us to focus: “But seek the welfare
of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf,
for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” (Jer.
29:7) Although they were exiles and aliens in the strange land of Babylon, they
were resident aliens. That’s a designation we still use in
this country for people who live here, but maintain their citizenship elsewhere.
And it’s a good metaphor for Christians today. We live here on earth,
as residents of the USA, but our primary citizenship is elsewhere. We’re
resident aliens.
Let’s talk first
about the resident side of that. According to Jeremiah, God’s people
were to “seek the welfare of the city” in which they were residents. That
same theme is picked up in the New Testament where Paul tells his readers to “Do
good to all people” (Gal. 6:10) and Peter reminds Christians to “honor
everyone” and even to “honor the emperor,” who at
Peter’s time was the pagan tyrant Nero. (I Peter 2:17)
So, how can Christians
today “seek the welfare” of the place where we live? As individuals
we can be involved in the kinds of things which improve the quality of life for
our community. Some may do so through their careers- working in business,
for the government, in law enforcement, working in education, as social workers,
working in the trades or in the judicial system. Others may seek the welfare
of our community as volunteers- with the PTO, in service clubs, in hospitals,
or in programs that assist the poor like SCCAP and Habitat for Humanity. Still
others work for the welfare of the community by advocating change to make things
more just and fair for all people. As individuals we can “seek the
welfare” of our community in many ways.
And we can also do this together as
a church. As a church we should assess the needs of our community and find
ways that together we could meet unmet needs- be that by providing a Christian
pre-school, an after-school program for middle schoolers, day care for elderly
folks, a ministry for intellectually-challenged young people, or by teaching
English as a Second Language. Our Visioning and Planning Task Force will
be taking a look at this and asking for your input.
We can also do what Jeremiah
specifically commanded the Jewish exiles to do- to pray to the Lord on behalf
of the place where they lived. Presbyterian pastor and writer Eugene Peterson
puts it like this, “Far more of our nation’s life is shaped by prayer
than is formed by legislation. That we have not collapsed into anarchy
is due more to prayer than to the police. Prayer is a sustained and intricate
act of patriotism in the largest sense of that word.”
The biblical teaching
is that God’s people ought to be involved in the communities in which they
live, seeking the welfare of those communities. In June of 1955 the Southern
Presbyterian Church held its General Assembly in Richmond, VA. The hot
issue that year was the “Brown vs. the Board of Education” Supreme
Court decision mandating an end to segregation in the nation’s schools. As
the General Assembly was attempting to reflect theologically on the issue of
segregation, the delegation from Mississippi objected, maintaining that the work
of the church was spiritual in nature and that it had no business commenting
on political matters. After much debate, the General Assembly rightly disagreed. It
understood that seeking the welfare of the nation where we reside involves getting
our hands dirty by taking on political matters that affect the welfare of the
people. We do not have the option to withdraw and focus only on “spiritual” things.
But there is more in Jeremiah. Those
Jewish exiles faced a challenge. They were to live in Babylon and seek
the welfare of that community, but at the same time they needed to remember where
their real citizenship was- Jerusalem. After all, God promised them that
in 70 years they would return once again to their real home. They were
resident aliens, strangers in a strange land. They needed
to take care that they didn’t forget the customs, values, beliefs, and
traditions of their true home. And while they lived in Babylon, they needed
to be sure that their Babylonian-born children were instructed in the ways of
Jerusalem, so that when the time came for their return home, they would be prepared.
The Jewish people learned
that lesson well. Thousands of years later, Joseph Stalin, the tyrant who
brutally ruled the Soviet Union for 25 years, said that he never trusted the
Jews of his day, because they always had a divided loyalty. They understood
that their real home was not the USSR, but Jerusalem.
The Apostle Paul picks
up that same theme in his letter to Christians living in Philippi, Greece, who
possessed coveted Roman citizenship. He wrote, “But our
citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Phil. 3:20) Remembering where
our true citizenship lies is an important part of our relationship with our country. We
are resident aliens in this world; our true citizenship is in heaven.
And that’s part
of the reason we gather to worship and study each week. It is to help
us to remember who we really are. We live and breathe in a culture that
has values and priorities that are different from ours. It prizes power
and success, having lots of things and enjoying every pleasure we can. It
believes security can be found in wealth or military might. It often values
how someone looks more than their character. It is sometimes quick to use
violence to resolve conflict. Those are not our values. But, living
in such a society makes it very easy for us to forget who we are and Whose we
are.
So each week we come together to rehearse and remember these things. That’s
one reason regular participation in worship, Sunday School, Bible studies, and
small groups is so important. That’s why spending time alone with
God each day is so important. Because living in a world such as our’s
creates subtle pressures on us to conform- to adopt the dominant values and beliefs
of this culture. And we begin to forget that where our true citizenship
lies.
In their book, Resident
Aliens, Wil Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas remind us that in addition to seeking
the welfare of our land and maintaining our own distinctive identity, that the
church is also called to live as an alternative community in the midst of our
world. That our very life together witnesses to the values of God’s
kingdom for others to see. The way we care for one another. The
way we deal with each other even when we vigorously disagree. And we also
proclaim to the world that spiritual needs- for identity, meaning, and security-
can never be met by any country, including ours. These needs are
met only by our relationship with God. One of the most important
things that the church can do for our country is to be the church- as a demonstration
to the world of how God intends life to be lived.
Sir Thomas More was one
of the most brilliant men in England in the early 1500's. He possessed
a great wit and was able to get along with all kinds of people. He was
also a man of deep faith. He spent his life in service to his country,
first as a lawyer, then as a diplomat, and finally as Chancellor- second in power
only to the king. But in 1532 he resigned as Chancellor because of King
Henry’s decision to declare himself ruler of the church so he could divorce
his wife and marry Anne Boleyn. Thomas More protested this decision. He
also refused to attend Anne’s coronation after the marriage. For
this he was convicted of treason and sentenced to death. No one, including
Henry, really wanted to see Thomas More executed. So just before More was
scheduled to be beheaded, he was asked to recant his previous statements and
support the king’s action. His reply: “I am the king’s
good servant, but God’s first.” And that commitment cost him
his life.
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