Galatians 5: 1 & 13-25
Saint Luke 9:51-62
Flags in the sanctuary and crosses in the public square. How did such signs of our unity become such symbols of our divisions?
More than a few churches have been divided to the point of collapse by where or even if the American flag should stand in the sanctuary.
Just this June the Supreme Court of the United States had to decided whether a “Peace Cross” erected with funds raised by “a group of mothers in 1921 ... to construct the large memorial for 49 of their fallen sons, hoping it could evoke the crosses that stood over the local boys buried far away in Europe”1 could stand on public land. Turns out it could.
There seem to be some (because there always are some) who take umbrage in seeing a flag in church or a cross in public space for the very same reason: It is a mixing of church and state. To some, a flag in church implies a loyalty to the state equal to that of the cross. To others, a cross on public land places one religion above all others.
Maybe I am one of the dying breed of moderates in religion and politics that sees flags, and crosses, and menorahs, and an Islamic star and crescent not as something that threatens but as an opportunity to understand one another’s cultures and traditions.
In these matters I may be what one of my heroes, George F. Will calls himself, “an amiable, low-voltage, athiest.” A flag in the sanctuary does not raise my hackles but neither does symbols of faith in public places. However, I do have to acknowledge with Dr. Will that “there are some people who only feel half alive if they are not incensed about something.”
To me, it is not flags or crosses that matter so much but rather as Adam Sutton wrote in Friday’s Chicago Tribune.
The idea that our political and cultural leaders in this country are touting leadership styles that amount to thrashing around on the floor with plugged ears screaming, “Not listening!” is a disgrace. This “Us vs. Them” attitude held by our country’s leadership is an existential threat.2
And we can play into this whenever the only things that bring us together are chants like “Lock her up!” or “Collusion with the Russians.”
Jonathan Haidt in his book, The Righteous Mind, called this “tribalism” and it is not so much about disagreement but rather that my tribe can’t even talk to your tribe anymore. Once known for our “shining city on a hill” optimism it seems that every thing from political parties, to block parties, to family get-togethers have become fertile battlegrounds of irreconcilable differences.
In a very fine article in The Christian Science Monitor called “Outrage nation: Can America overcome its addiction to anger?” the authors made a clear distinction in what they called “righteous anger” which can be [the] appropriate response of an individual encountering injustice and what they called “narcissistic rage.”
Righteous anger has its basis is reality. It comes when a person has to stand or sit in the back of the bus when there are seats up front. It comes when one finds themselves being not being hired because of their gender, race, or orientation. It is the idea behind “Evil only triumphs when righteous people do nothing.”
Even this kind of anger is difficult to handle. The ancient thinker Aristotle, said: “Anybody can become angry, that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way ... that is not easy.”
The other kind of anger, the kind we see much more often is the the explosion of “narcissistic rage”. That is anger that has been transformed into some kind of personal attack.3
It is the anger of our politics that comes from both side of the political aisle.
It is the feigned outrage that those of us who do not live our lives enmeshed in the world of Washington or engrossed by the talking heads of the cable news networks both left and right can see from space.
We can see it when someone says: “I know your not a racist but...” “How could you say that about me?” “If you’re going to take that position I’m afraid we can’t be friends” Or, worse yet, when we see people thinking about ways to destroy another person or group over any thing they see as attacking or rejecting them.
All this, believe it or not, is exactly what is happening in today’s Gospel.
This is Jesus and his disciples first visit to Samaria. Jesus will be back to talk to a Samaritan woman near a well at midday and heal ten lepers with the thankful one turning out to be a Samaritan. Jesus will paint Samaritans in an especially good light in the parable of the good Samaritan but this time he and his disciples are off to a terrible start.
Historically there was a deep hostility between the Jews and the Samaritans. To put it simply it was about intermarriage and worship styles. The Samaritans were a mixed raced people who married outside of their traditions and did not worship in Jerusalem. The Jews tried to keep their blood lines pure and were more orthodox in their religious practices. So it should come as no surprise to anyone that this village rejects Jesus and his disciple’s message.
What is surprising is James and John’s response. “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?”4 It’s an all-caps warning that in rejecting Jesus this village will “SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE.”5
Jesus has only one response to the disciple’s narcissistic rage and it is an all-caps “NO”. He rebukes them in the strongest of ways possible.
We don’t have the exact words but they might have been something like “What are you? Nuts! We don’t reduce people to briquets just because they don’t believe they way we do! We don’t go around setting fire to the homes of others just because they don’t agree with us. I don’t know where you got that idea,” I can imagine Jesus asking, “but you didn’t get it from me!”
Jesus followers are not to lash out and destroy because such measures are counterproductive to the gospel which we proclaim. This kind of rage always has us looking back and remembering every slight, every unkind word, every past deed. Jesus says we need to say good-bye to the these none productive attitudes. We need to not only say good-bye to them but bury them along with anything else that keeps us from really following him.
What Jesus is inviting us to is a call to freedom, real freedom. No looking back, no excuses, no hitting back and those whom we have perceived to have wronged us. To put it directly the Christian life is not one long political debate where we try to score points but an offer to be free.
Alexis de Tocqueville warned in his 19th Century classic on life in America, “Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.”
How is freedom rightly used?
Let me close with a story of how and where such freedom can be seen. It is also a story about why you should listen to sermons.
Over thirty years ago I asked my friend Steve Samuelson, then the chaplain at Carthage College to preach for me when I was in Racine and he told this story about his father-in-law, Karl.
He commanded a landing craft on Omaha beach and his best friend was another young man named Leonard Lewis from Detroit. They were linked by being married on same date, and having daughters born on same date!
At the landing on D-day Leonard was killed and Karl blamed himself. For decades, Karl called Leonard’s wife every June 6, crying on the phone at the dining room table.
When my friend Steve and his family took Karl on a pilgrimage to find Leonard’s grave at the Normandy National Cemetery and Memorial they found amid all the crosses that Leonard’s grave was marked with the Star of David. Leonard was Jewish! When Karl was asked why he never mentioned it he said, “I never thought it was important.”
Maybe the things that we think are important really aren’t? Maybe being angry and expressing a desire to get even is not the best way to live. Maybe acting like spoiled children and not listening to each other is not the way to exist on a national, local, or even personal level.
Maybe like Kurt and Leonard we can learn from Jesus to ignore our differences and work for the common good always remembering those other wise words from Alexis de Tocqueville: “America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.”
Greatness only comes out of goodness. May God continue to make all of us good for it is only then that we will really be great.
___________
1. Harry Bruinius, "It's 40 Feet Tall and Concrete. Is 'Peace Cross' a Civic or Christian Symbol?" The Christian Science Monitor, February 27, 2019, , accessed June 29, 2019, https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2019/0227/It-s-40-feet-tall-and-concrete.-Is-Peace-Cross-a-civic-or-Christian-symbol.
2. Adam Sutton, "Our ‘Us vs. Them’ Attitude Is a Counterproductive Disgrace," The Chicago Tribune, June 28, 2019, Morning ed., sec. J., p. 14.
3. Harry Bruinius, "Outrage Nation: Can America Overcome Its Addiction to Anger?" The Christian Science Monitor, December 07, 2018, , accessed June 30, 2019, https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2018/1207/Outrage-nation-Can-America-overcome-its-addiction-to-anger.
4. St. Luke 9:54. (NIV) [NIV=The New International Version]
5. Joshua Berlinger, "Trump Tweets Explosive Threat to Iran," CNN, July 23, 2018, , accessed June 29, 2019, https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/23/politics/trump-iran-intl/index.html.
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