Bunting Going Up Reflection for June
29, 2020
As I walked my dog this morning, I
noticed the beginnings of red, white and blue bunting going up on
some of the houses in the neighborhood as part of the Civil Religion
we have about our nation. Pat, when she had more energy, would have
dug out some the decorations and then start buying pastries and
maling cakes with patriotic sentiments. I would usually haul out the
flag and hang it from the deck. When we lived in Lynchburg and Macon,
and in summers working on my Doctorate in Sewanee, towns that had
orchestras, we would go to the outdoor 4th of July
Patriotic concerts where the concert would start with the National
Anthem, have some pieces by Charles Ives, John Phillips Sousa, Aaron
Copeland, Irving Berlin, and old standards like America the
Beautiful, America, and others, and end with a fireworks display. On
the Outer Banks there was usually a patriotic concert at a church or
three and a couple of fireworks displays.
This year there will not be a fireworks
display or concert because of the pandemic. With the increase of
summer visitors we have doubled the number of Covid-19 cases in the
last 8 days, we went from 47 to 93 cases. That is but one symptom of
what happens when people come to a place in order to spend time,
money and energy solely on their own agendas with an “I deserve it”
mentality.
I am a loyal American, but I agree with
what the writer of the New Testament Book of the Epistle to the
Hebrews. Which in my humble opinion, and most scholars, is not
written by Paul, is not an Epistle and is not addressed to the
Hebrews, but it has a wonderful phrase when the writer speaks of
Abraham and others: “They confessed that they were strangers and
foreigners on the earth”
There are several ways of looking at
that passage. One is to say; “I am only passing through on this
earth, but I have a rent to pay of making this a better place to live
for everyone.” Another is to say; “I am only passing through and
I have to get as much out of this place as I can with no thought of
the future.”
In 1989 Stanley Hauerwas and William
Willimon, wrote Resident Aliens, a tome, an extended reflection
on that passage from Hebrews and the work of the church before, and after, it
became established as part of the state by the Roman Emperor Constantine in the 4th
Century. What I got out of reading it , was the thought that churches
should not be involved in getting out the vote for so-called
“Christian Candidates” who promise to pursue a nostalgic agenda
of a return to the “Good Old Days” of yesteryear of a Christian
Nation.
That vision of the “Good Ole Days” is an idol we worship
when it is inconvenient to serve God and follow Jesus. Instead that
vision makes God and Jesus into the image of ourselves; people of
privilege with a passion to increase our own comfort, power, riches
and control over others. It was the MAGA of the 1970's-80's. It is an attractive vision and very
popular, and in my worst days - it sneaks into my fantasies. I was
working at a Parish in Lynchburg at the time and about a half a mile
to the west was one of the main proponents of that agenda, the “Old
Time Gospel Hour ”, of Jerry Falwell and his Thomas Road Baptist
Church.
Rather, the authors suggest churches should spend their energy
by being models of how communities can be changed, by doing justice,
loving mercy and walking humbly with our God. The difference is
between changing the outward structures and decorative buntings of
coercive government, or reclaiming our souls and acting as catalysts
for change in the soul of communities; local, national, and world
wide in which we live. I have been preaching that Gospel over the last 30 years at around this time of year.
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