Patriotism - My Country ‘Tis of Thee¹

As we continue to experience the Word of the Lord together, Let us Pray. Almighty God, we count ourselves lucky when we think of all the wonderful things we have because of your grace. The greatest of these is a relationship with You. Deepen that relationship, so that we might find the joy of surrendering more and more to you. If these words are not Your Word, may they be forgotten and come to naught. But if they be Thy Word, may they adhere to our hearts, forever transforming us from glory into glory, into the creatures you would have us be, Thou who art our Rock and Redeemer, Amen.

Next Sunday is the 3^rd of July. I won’t be preaching to you that day. I’ll be recovering from taking the youth to Montreat’s Music & Worship Conference, and will be here, but intend to enjoy the drama that Tanya has arranged, from a book by Max Lucado. The drama is called You are Special, and if you read your Newsletter, you already know all of this. This is for the just one or two of you, I am sure, who doesn’t commit the newsletter to memory. So, this is my sermon on 4^th of July type material.

Open your ears and your hearts to hear The Word of the Lord. Listen. Matthew 22.34-40. The Grass withers, the Flower falls, but the Word of the Lord endures forever…Thanks be to God.

In many churches the tension is palpable on the Sundays closest to Memorial Day, the 4^th of July, or any national holiday. The tension is around the ideas of patriotism and nationalism. Is it appropriate for Christians to give thanks to God in worship for the history and values of their country and the sacrifices that have been made for them by their fellow citizens past and present? And the tension around that question seems to be centered around the fact that the line is drawn between pew and pulpit, that is, between the pastors and the faithful members of congregations.

The Sunday following Tuesday, the 11^th of September 2001 was a difficult Sunday for many ministers. Many church members requested, even demanded, that the congregation sing patriotic songs in the service. Some ministers agreed; others did not. Many of those who refused were greeted by anger and outrage, sometimes so great that ministers were eventually forced to leave, to move to new churches.

Most ministers had the same questions. “After all these years don’t people understand the difference between Christian faith and idolatry of American nationalism? Don’t they know that Jesus’ call to discipleship is not a call to unabashedly celebrate the American way of life?”

While those questions were asked, the people in the pew asked different, yet similar, questions. “It seems like the leaders of my denomination, including my minister, think it is a sin to love your country, a sin to be grateful to God for the sacrifices that many people have made in order that we may enjoy basic freedoms. Do they believe that patriotism is a sin?”

So, the question in the middle is obvious, Is patriotism a sin?

You know the answer to this, well before I tell it to you. Of course not, as long as… Of course patriotism isn’t a sin. Love of country is a good thing. So, being patriotic is not a sin. As long as. As long as you don’t forget the God prescribed order of things. God first. We are to love God with all our being, or in Matthew’s language, “with all our heart and soul and mind.” Only God is to be loved, worshipped, and obeyed. To love anyone or anything else in the same way that we are commanded to love God – with all our being – is idolatrous. It is to break the first. As the Scots Confession of 1560 puts it, “We confess and acknowledge one God alone, to whom alone we must cleave, whom alone we must serve, whom only we must worship, and in whom alone we put our trust.”

However, Jesus also recognizes a second kind of loving that is commanded by God. Good Jew that he was, Jesus knew there was not only a first table, but also a second table to the law. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Not that we are to love ourselves or our neighbors in the same way we love God, but we are commanded to love neighbors as we love self.

We live before God by means of two commandments. And it is important that we not reduce the one to the other, that we not confuse them, that we not get them mixed-up. That is what happens so often with our “isms” and our passionately held causes. Whether it is patriotism or whether it is our commitment to peace and justice or our commitment to inclusiveness, the cause consumes us. It, rather than God, can become our passion – that to which we are committed with all our heart and soul and mind.

It is not a sin to love. Instead, we are commanded to love. We are to love appropriately. God and only God is to be loved with all our being. To love country too much is not the call of God. But to love it too little is also not within the call of God.

So, is patriotism a sin? No. It is not a sin to love your country. As long as. As long as we understand that God and country are not the same. If we love and serve our country in the same way we are commanded to love and serve God, then that is sin. However, if we acknowledge that our country is a gift to us from God, and we hear the call to responsible stewardship to that gift, and we are grateful to those who have sacrificed to make it so, then that is exactly what is required of us. We dare not love our country too much. But we dare not love it too little. To do so would make us ungrateful for God’s grace, God’s blessings, in all things.²

So, that said, how do we find that good balance.

How should we love America? Let us not say, “My country, right or wrong.” That’s like saying, “My grandmother, abusive alcoholic or sober.” It doesn’t get you anywhere. Don’t just salute the flag, and don’t burn it either. Wash it. Love it. Care for it. And make it clean.³

“When citizens doubt (and question their country), patriotism becomes more informed. For Christians to render everything to Caesar – their minds, their consciences – is to become evangelical nationalists. That’s not a distortion of the gospel; that’s desertion. It’s wonderful to love one’s country, but faith is for God.”⁴

I see three kinds of patriots, two bad and one good. “The bad ones are the uncritical lovers and the loveless critics. Good patriots carry on a lover’s quarrel with their country, a reflection of God’s lover’s quarrel with all the world.”⁵

I don’t think Love it or Leave it is a well understood motto. Most folks think it means agree with America or get out. I think Love it and continue to work for change in it has the better verbiage to be well understood as a motto.

I love this country. But as a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ, I see it as my duty to question everything. In my faithful service to God, sometimes I find things in the country with which I don’t agree. So, I don’t leave it, I work for change in it. Because I love it.

Make no mistake, brothers and sisters, we are called to have a healthy love of our country. God calls us to nothing less. But our love for our country is to fall in line with our love for God, not the other way around. Let us be Patriotic in our love of country, and faithful in our complete devotion to God, and let us see the difference. Amen.