July 09, 10:30am (Kevin Westling)
Claims about God get totally intertwined with claims about the nation, and they become indistinguishable for many people, so that the nation or the constitution or the flag becomes the “ultimate” value to which people give their all.
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Proper 9, Year C
“In this little courtyard...the Kingdom of God”
July 4, 2010
by The Rev. R. Cameron Miller
Good morning
and happy 6th Sunday of Pentecost.
I know,
you thought it was the 4th of July.
It is July 4th – out there;
but in here,
in this little courtyard
tucked away in the fold of this big old Church,
it is the 8th Sunday after Pentecost.
But it isn’t often that the American observance of Independence falls on a Sunday,
so it is an auspicious moment
to talk about why we do not have
an American flag at Trinity,
and why we don’t observe important events
in the worship, like Veterans or President’s Day.
Such omissions
cause some people to feel angry and hurt
but it is a matter of separation and respect.
Allow me to get basic,
to even start at the very beginning.
The word Religion in our culture
tends to bring to mind only particular religions –
like Judaism, Islam or Christianity for example.
To say the word, “religious”
brings to mind people who talk about God
all the time,
or who wear odd clothing
and who live strange life-styles.
In popular parlance we have separated out
spirituality from religion,
as if religious people are not spiritual –
which is an insultingly false dichotomy
that I will leave it alone for today.
The great 20th century American theologian,
Paul Tillich, defined religion as “ultimate concern.”
A religious experience, he said, is being grasped by something unconditional, holy, absolute.
What he meant by that is,
when someone struggles with asking about the “ultimate meaning” of life and of their own life,
then they are acting religiously –
they are having a religious experience…
even just by asking such questions
and reaching for answers.
So our intense questioning about
what is ultimate and what is less than ultimate
is itself a religious experience.
Just asking the questions
in the act of religious inquiry,
and engaging in a personal quest,
is itself a religious experience
just as much as receiving Communion
or having an out-of-body encounter.
Likewise, when someone feels an ultimate “obligation”
to something or someone else,
no matter what it is,
she or he is being religious.
When you or I
relate ourselves by action or devotion,
or by the investment of concentrated
time, talent and treasure,
in what we believe to be ultimate,
then we are being religious.
The word “ultimate”
points to the object of our concern
and to notes the passion of our action toward it.
So an ultimate concern
is something that would cause us
to sacrifice almost everything for it.
An ultimate concern
becomes the yardstick
by which everything else we care about is measured.
Is there something you would do
for the sake of someone else,
or even the sake of an idea,
knowing that doing it
would jeopardize your life or your future?
Is there something that you would refuse to do,
even if refusal meant a certain death or imprisonment?
If so, whatever it is,
is ultimate for you:
it is the thing about which you hold religious devotion
or through which you experience your religion…
even if it has nothing to do with God.
Please take note of that:
The ultimate concern does not have to be God,
in order for a person to be religious about it.
While Christianity makes the claim
that God and only God is the ultimate,
there are in fact religions built around other things.
John Wilson and Royce Clark
call such religions “Crypto-religion” –
crypto as in “hidden.”
We are in fact,
surrounded by hidden religions.
Many if not all of us,
have a religious devotion to things
other than God
that we have made ultimate
by the investment and devotion
of our time, talent, treasure and passion.
For many of us,
our work has become,
in practice, a religious devotion.
Our children may be ultimate.
Our marriage or partnership may be the ultimate.
It was interesting in the media this past week
when one of the accused Russian spies
said that his devotion to his country
was greater than his devotion to his children.
The media expressed shock at such an idea,
and yet that is standard practice for a soldier.
When one puts themselves in harms way
in the service of nation,
they are elevating nation to the ultimate –
greater than life itself.
The Russian was saying and doing no more
than millions of American have and are doing.
The nation as ultimate
points to one of the hidden religions among us;
a crypto-religion
we do not associate with being religious.
For instance,
what passes for Christianity in the United States,
is more often than not,
actually “Civil Religion.”
I was reminded of that fact this past week
as I drove across Ohio and Indiana,
then across Pennsylvania and back up to Buffalo.
All along the way I noticed churches
with massive American flags waving in the wind,
or even colorful digital flags
waving across the huge screens in red, white and blue.
When the nation or the constitution
becomes the “ultimate”
to which citizens are asked to pledge their lives,
or even give their lives,
the nation takes on the mythic dimensions of religion.
Claims about God
get totally intertwined with
claims about the nation,
and they become indistinguishable for many people,
so that the nation or the constitution or the flag
becomes the “ultimate” value
to which people give their all.
Now this is in contrast to
Judaism, Christianity and Islam,
each of which claim that making the nation,
or anything other than God the ultimate concern,
is idolatry.
God and only God is ultimate,
according to Christianity,
and nothing can replace or mediate God
as the essential meaning of life.
But this thing called Civil Religion,
American Civil Religion in this case,
is pervasive and powerful
and it is co-mingled with Christianity
to such a degree that millions
do not recognized the difference between the two.
I am presuming we know the
skeletal outline of Christianity,
so here are the bare bones
of American Civil Religion
as expressed in 21st century political rhetoric.
Our Civil Religion runs something like this:
The United States of America
is the biggest, best-est and onli-est
true Democracy in the world.
We are God’s gift of freedom and,
as Ronald Reagan used to say,
“The beacon of light upon the hill.”
In earlier times,
leaders and speech-makers spoke of
The United States as the New Jerusalem –
but that was before Americans
understood how complicated Jerusalem is.
Our way of life, according to this rhetoric,
is enshrined in The American Dream;
a dream that is never clearly defined
but has something to do with
owning our own home and upward mobility.
The American Dream
has become inextricably linked to Capitalism,
and “Free Market” Capitalism in particular,
which rooted in Consumerism.
The narrative of this Civil Religion
is told in numerous stories,
and through the image of numerous personalities
from George Washington to Joe the Plummer.
Anyone that threatens our way of life,
that is, anyone who threatens our ability
to own our own homes
and drive our own cars
and get wealthier by the generation, is our enemy.
We declare and warn the world
that will fight our enemies.
We will defend ourselves and the world,
for the sake of Freedom –
our special brand of freedom
the likes of which no one else
anywhere in the world has ever achieved.
American Freedom and the American Dream
are somehow rooted in and supported by
Biblically-based Christian faith.
Now when said like that, it sounds absurd.
Yet that is pretty much our political rhetoric
on the left, right and middle.
And it is true that when we strip down any religion
to its bare bones and rhetoric,
it has the tendency to sound absurd,
a rhetorical version of a wet dog.
That’s because every religion has its own
language and metaphors and mythology
that those within it are able to balance.
Anyway, under the terms of our Civil Religion,
it is our highest duty – the ultimate sacrifice –
as individuals and citizens of the nation,
to serve our country
by protecting the Constitution…
with our own lives if need be.
That is American Civil Religion in a nutshell,
and it’s Primal Narrative
is found in our earliest history,
and runs from the revolution against an oppressor
and continues with our advancement
against aboriginal tribes.
It is being graphically reborn
in the rhetoric of the so-called
Tea Party movement in 2010.
Christian churches participate in this rhetoric
and willingly give it a theological tinge,
some of them even unknowingly.
American Civil Religion’s Scripture
is the Constitution;
it’s altars are Arlington National Cemetery
and the Washington Monument;
and its authority to take and sacrifice life,
is absolute within the confines of the law.
Now…before you go home
and tell people Cam was belittling
the United States of America
and being unpatriotic on the 4th of July,
I am not actually saying anything against
patriotism,
nationalism
or the American Civil Religion.
If that’s your baby
I’m not calling it ugly –
at least not today on its birthday.
I am describing it in its religious mythology.
But I am also calling out
and naming
the distinction between Christianity
and The United States of America:
They are not the same,
they are not related,
they are totally different species.
In the very same way that most of us here
would distinguish between Santa Claus
and the Christian celebration of Christmas;
or between the Easter Bunny
and the Christian celebration of Resurrection;
there is a serious,
severe
and absolute distinction
between Christianity
and the United States…
or any country for that matter.
We do not have an American flag,
nor do we sing national hymns,
nor do we in any way
observe or celebrate events of nationhood,
and the reason is
that Christianity must never be domesticated
nor aligned with any country
or national agenda.
Most of the problems that Christianity has today
can be traced back to its
absorption into,
and alignment with,
the Roman Empire.
Centuries later,
Christianity became a thinly veiled rationale
for Colonial rape and violence
everywhere it was allowed
to be the cultural icon of European nationalism.
So, as Christians,
and as a community of faith,
we can be the critics of national behavior;
we can be the advocates of justice and peace;
we can assert a conscience for those
with power and wealth
that seem to have lost their conscience;
but what we cannot do –
as Christians and a community of faith –
is to become the religion of a nation,
or in any way
a pillar of the Civil Religion.
Instead, we must repent for those Christians
who have become domesticated adherents
of Civil Religion that they confuse with Christianity;
and we must call them
to leave their altars to false gods
and step away from an incestuous relationship
with nationalist mythologies.
Like the ancient Hebrew prophets –
Isaiah, Micah, Amos and Jeremiah –
we can call on our fellow Christians
to awaken
and return
to the covenant with God,
instead of worshipping a national idol
co-mingled with the nation.
So today is the 6th Sunday after Pentecost,
at least in this tiny little courtyard
in downtown Buffalo.
Whatever the actual date on the calendar,
whatever else is going on out there,
and whatever else you and I do today,
and whatever else we celebrate as citizens of the USA;
here in this courtyard,
right here and right now,
it is the season of Pentecost,
in the liturgy of the Holy Communion.
In this little courtyard,
for this moment in time,
we gather in the Name of a God without nationality;
recognizing no boundaries between nations,
no creeds between religions,
no ethnicity between cultures,
no races between genetic lineage,
no gender between sexes,
and no sexuality between people in love.
Imagine for just a moment,
the complete removal of religion
from political and nationalistic rhetoric
everywhere in the world;
and what a powerful momentum for peace
would be left in its absence…
So here in this place,
at this moment,
in this worship,
we declare sovereignty for the kingdom God.
