For your July 4 Weekend Sermon Fodder

REDISCOVERING AMERICA

Mark 3:31-35

A distinguished professor of American Church History once expressed the relationship of the church to the nation in the following slogan. America, he wrote, was "a nation with the soul of a church." If we asked about the American church, though, we’d have to say, in my view, we have a "church with the soul of a nation." These two slogans mark the parameters of the dilemma American Christians face when they gather for worship on the Fourth of July weekend. For on this weekend in particular, the "church with the soul of a nation" lionizes the nation presumed to have "the soul of a church." 

Unfortunately, truth - the truth about this nation - and integrity - the integrity of the church - are almost completely obscured. Illusion and expediency are the primary hosts at this bash! "The nation with the soul of a church" is a fiction. (That is, unless you have a pretty debased notion of what a church is!) Danny Collum, writing in Sojourners magazine, gives a sketch of a few of the facts about this nation which will suffice to make the point. He writes,

"The arrival of Europeans in the Americas was a matter of conquest, not discovery. The New World was built on stolen land and often by slave labor to boot. The USA's Declaration of Independence and Constitution were mostly framed by slave-owning white males. Much of our Southwest was seized by force from Mexico, which was itself a creation of Spanish colonialism. The whole of our cultural legacy is marked by patriarchy and the assumptions of white supremacy."

Enough said!

Don't take all that to mean that I think America is a terrible nation. I don't. But what I am saying is that America is just a nation. Not a chosen people; not a light for the nations; and certainly not a Christian nation, or "a nation with the soul of a church." What drives America are those needs and necessities which energize every world power — more lands, more markets, more natural resources and more geo-political clout to make the rest of the world do things it's way! In pursuing these things America is neither different from no better or worse than any other nation. Its greatness consists in the phenomenal success it has had in achieving its goals. America's Achilles' heel has been its veneer of Christianity which has sanctified and sanitized actions and attitudes unworthy not only of the Christian faith but of the ideals and principles embodied in our founding documents. This has been proclaimed by our country's wisest prophets, such as Langston Hughes in his famous poem "Let America be America Again":

Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be. Let it be the pioneer on the plain Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed-- Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

0, let my land be a land where Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars. I am the red man driven from the land, I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek-- And finding only the same old stupid plan Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope, Tangled in that ancient endless chain Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land! Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need! Of work the men! Of take the pay! Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil. I am the worker sold to the machine. I am the Negro, servant to you all. I am the people, humble, hungry, mean— Hungry yet today despite the dream. Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers! I am the man who never got ahead, The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream In the Old World while still a serf of kings, Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true, That even yet its mighty daring sings In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned That's made America the land it has become. 0, I'm the man who sailed those early seas In search of what I meant to be my home-- For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore, And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea, And torn from Black Africa's strand I came To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me? Surely not me? The millions on relief today? The millions shot down when we strike? The millions who have nothing for our pay? For all the dreams we've dreamed And all the songs we've sung And all the hopes we've held And all the flags we've hung, The millions who have nothing for our pay-- Except the dream that's almost dead today.

0, let America be America again-- The land that never has been yet-- And yet must be--the land where every man is free. The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME-- Who made America, Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose-- The steel of freedom does not stain. From those who five like leeches on the people's lives, We must take back our land again, America!

0, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath-- America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, We, the people, must redeem The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless plain-- All, all the stretch of these great green states-- And make America again! (https://poets.org/poem/let-america-be-america-again)

Perhaps the deepest tragedy of the mantle of Christianity draped over the shoulders of Uncle Sam is not the misuse of the faith to cover and justify national sins. No, the deepest tragedy lies in the acceptance by the church itself o the illusion of Christian America as reality.

This illusion of Christian America carries a high price tag! The cost of this myth is the very soul of the church! The church which believes in the "nation with the soul of a church" experiences a transformation, but not in the direction of holiness. No, it is slowly and inexorably transmuted into a "church with the soul of a nation."

Unable to distinguish between the will of God and the President's foreign policy the "church with the soul of a nation" forfeits it's prophetic voice. Having supped at table with the powerful for so long renders it insensitive to that other Supper it celebrates with its call to action for justice and reconciliation. Having lived the "good life," it has all but forgotten about the "abundant life" Jesus offers those who follow him. Protected by those who "live by the sword," the "church with the soul of a nation" has come to consider "dying by the sword" a mark of honor and wisdom and the non-violent resistance taught by Jesus impractical foolishness.

Once the "church with the soul of a nation" really believes in the "nation with the soul of a church," it has lost the capacity to do the one crucial thing God calls it to do and which America desperately needs it to do. It has ceased to be the fly in the national ointment, that gathering of "noisy non-conformists" (as C.S. Lewis once described the church).

What America needs most from the church is that it be the church. That it be the "little flock," the gathering of those who gladly accept that their commitment to Jesus Christ and his gospel makes them "strangers and aliens" in whatever geographical and cultural context they find themselves.

Oh, for the church to recognize itself as that transitional body of people whose "family" is found in every nook and cranny of the globe. Oh, for the church to be a gadfly people who call attention to the injustices that everyone else would like to ignore; who hold up the sufferers and the forms of suffering that we want to walk by on the other side of the street. Oh, for the church to exercise the shrewd innocence which names national pretensions and idolatries for what they are. Oh, for a church with the moral substance and stamina to hold the powerful responsible for their sins and to help them be responsive to the needs of the world community. Oh, for a church which can shed the blinders of "Christian America" in order to rediscover the real America, to see, appreciate and love it for what it is, warts and all! Oh, for a "church with the soul of a church," so that America might be America again, for the first time!

This is what Jesus is getting at in our text from Mark this morning. He is asking those who follow him to derive their sense of identity not from their kinship relations, but from the company of those who do the will of God. Jesus' query, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" forms a haunting backdrop to our reflections this morning_ For it is precisely the question I want us to focus on today.

How can the church "be the church" as I have recommended earlier? How indeed, especially in our North American context where for so long we have been accustomed to deriving our identity as Christians in tandem with our identity as Americans. How can we find "mothers, brothers and sisters" as Jesus instructs to in this passage?

Verse 35 provides us with the decisive clue — "Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."

Those who in word and deed embody the "shalom," or wholeness to which God calls us — it is they who are our "kin" in faith. And it is they from whom we will derive our identity if we choose to be faithful to Jesus.

On this day and in this country it is particularly important for us to find some "mothers, brothers, and sisters" to emulate. For, as we have seen, the thrust of American Christianity has been in a different direction, a direction we have found to be unhelpful and misguided.

There is, however, a thin tradition, a minority report within the church, which provides some exemplars for "doing the will of God" in our context.

Chief among these exemplars are two "brothers" distant from us in time and culture. Despite that distance, or perhaps because of it, we can see how their faith and insight into the gospel made it impossible for them to allow the European and later the American's treatment of the Native Americans to go by unnoticed.

I want to introduce you briefly to Antonio de Montesinos, a Spanish priest, and Roger Williams, colonist and the founder of the first Baptist congregation in North America. Antonio de Montesinos ministered in Santa Domingo and on the Sunday before Christmas in 1511 he delivered a sermon to a congregation that included all the royal officials, most prominently Diego Columbus, Christopher's son, along with a majority of the population of the city.

Speaking to the Spanish "powers that be" the priest announced his text, "a voice crying in the wilderness." Father Montesinos stated that the conscience of the Spaniards was as sterile as a desert. "I have come to declare it unto you," he continued, "I the voice of Christ in the desert of this island. Open your hearts and your senses, all of you, for this voice will speak new things...This voice says that you are living in deadly sin for the atrocities you tyrannically impose on these innocent people (the Native Americans). Tell me, what right do you have to enslave them? What authority did you use to make war against them who lived at peace on their territories, killing them cruelly with methods never before hear of? How can you oppress them and not care to feed or cure them, and work them to death to satisfy your greed? . . . Aren't they human beings? Have they no rational soul? Aren't you obligated to love them as you love yourselves? Don't you understand? How can you live in such a dream?"

You can well imagine that such a sermon ruined Christmas for Columbus' son, Diego, and the rest of the royal entourage! They tried to force Antonio de Montesinos to retract his comments by criticism and intimidation. And if that didn't work they'd tell the king on him! And they did.

But as Lewis Hanke writes in The Spanish Struggle for Justice in the Conquest of America, "the Dominicans were in no way awed by the summary orders from their Superior and their King, and fought back." Montesinos continued to be an advocate for the Indians, returning to Spain to plead their case. His efforts were instrumental in the adoption of the Laws of Burgos in 1512 which offered some expanded protection for Indian rights.

From your last class in American History you may recall Roger Williams largely for his advocacy of religious liberty, democratic government and the separation of church and state. His views on these matters, which we today take for granted, were radical enough to keep him in trouble with somebody most of the time.

But there is more to Roger Williams' story than even that! He lived out his views in a way that gave them wide currency. He lived among the Indians, learned their ways and their languages and advocated for them with the colonists. No colonial leader had the respect of and influence with the Indians that Williams had. He befriended them and by his mediation he prevented war and bloodshed several times.

In 1635 Williams was hauled before Boston authorities because of questionable teachings. Paula Womack relates the incident this way: "The first of the four charges against him was that he taught "that we have not our Land by Patent from the King, but that the Natives are the true owners of it, and that we ought to repent of such a receiving it by Patent.' He acknowledged the charges, and on the question of Natives and the land, argued against the right of a foreign ruler to grant sovereignty over occupied American territories. He argued the Indians were sovereign peoples and in no way could be considered subjects of the King of England. He said that just because England was Christian and the Indians pagan did not give the King ownership of the land, with the power to allot the land to whomever he chose by... royal decree. The laws of the nations entitled the Indians to as much land as they needed to live, and they had a right to run their governments and use their land as they pleased while respecting the rights of others. Williams insisted the Indians were the true owners of the land and if others wanted the land, they had to buy it from the Natives. A revolutionary human rights concept in Williams' day."

Antonio de Montesinos and Roger Williams — our brothers in the faith! They give us the gift of identity as those who "do the will of God" but offer other bounty as well Both provide models of that instinct for justice and the embrace of those who are different from us characteristic of any understanding of "doing the will of God."

And both show us that by the Church "being the church" and that by Christian people pledging their loyalty and their lives to God and to those "who do the will of God," the whole loaf of the state is leavened by the recognition of rights and the granting of respect to those previously shut out.

If the church will be the church and allow American to be just America we can avoid the illusion of a "nation with the soul of a church" and the scandal of a "church with the soul of a nation!" And for that we can give a hearty "amen!" and breathe the prayer, "God bless America."