Monday, June 29, 2020

Bunting Going Up ---- Daily Reflection for June 29, 2020


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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