In 1976, I found myself in the summer school reading program. One of the few perks of summer school was representing Lexington Fayette Urban County Public Schools in Lexington’s  Fourth of July parade. They asked us to dress as our favorite character from American history.  I knew I wanted to dress as a Native American.  In 1976, Cultural appropriation was a new idea on college campuses and would not appear in the Oxford Dictionary until 2018.  So in 1976, Mom and I read about native clothing in the World Book and I helped mom sew leggings and a breechcloth. Dad cut a heavy piece of industrial grade plastic into an ax blade and we affixed the blade to an old broom handle with a rivet and leather chordage.  I had the kind of headdresses often sold in tourist traps 40 years ago from a trip with the neighbors to Tombstone Junction. I put on my clothes, slipped out back and imagined myself slipping through the Kentucky Grasslands tracking the buffalo herds roamed there.  On the Fourth of July Holiday, I rode on a star spangled red-white-and blue float next to another nine year old dressed as Daniel Boone. We waved to the crowds and danced every time Les Anderson’s Fabulous Summer School Band broke into Elton John’s summer hit Philadelphia Freedom:

‘Cause I live and breathe this Philadelphia freedom. From the day that I was born, I’ve waved the flag… Oh, Philadelphia freedom. Shine on me… Shine a light… won’t you shine the light? Philadelphia freedom, I love ya. Yes, I do

Someone snapped a picture of Daniel Boone and I that ran in the newspaper. There is a lot to deconstruct in that memory. At some point during high school or college, I learned I needed to unlearn the happy history I absorbed as a child.  I remember weeping as I read about Chief Joseph and the Nez Peirce, smallpox blankets, the Trail of Tears, and so many other atrocities our nation inflicted upon Tribal peoples.  There is a lot to deconstruct in that memory, but sometimes when I hear “Philadelphia Freedom” that Bicentennial memory lands pleasantly in my mind.

Throughout the Bible, we see people infused with a deep pride in place, in their people and in the past- a deep love of their land, stories and ancestors. Christian Nationalism marries our natural pride in place and merges it with the idea that God especially loves one nation. It is true in places the Bible refers to the Israelites as a “Chosen People”, but we might best understand “chosen-ness” through Egyptian Slavery, 40 Years in the Wilderness, the prophetic rebuke,  the Babylonian Exile, and for Christians the cross. God’s calling or “choosing” leads to resisting evil, loving neighbors, bringing justice, widening the circle, and feeding others. God calls us to heal the world not soaking up its blessings!  If we believe that God favors one nation or race over we worship a tribal God? God loves the whole world, not just one people-group or nation. (John 3:16, Gal 3:28, Eph 4:25 & Isaiah 2)  A god, who loves some of their children more 

than others, is neither loving nor just.  

This week, I reread First Samuel and wondered if God is these stories. Samuel preaches genocide and holy war. Like a Broadway Play there are battles, palace intrigue, romance, and treachery.  Our passage is a patriotic hymn David wrote after the Philistines massacred the Hebrew Tribal Alliance, killing King Saul and Prince Jonathon. David, the giant slayer and future king, led an army of 600 Hebrew run-away slaves, indebted farmers and disposed peoples to fight with the Philistines. Would David’s Rebel Alliance betray his own nation? We do not get to find out, because the Philistine Kings send David’s rebels home. I am pretty certain the people in Samuel are not really understanding God’s direction. King Saul’s daughter slaps a goat hair wig on their life size household idol and tucks the idol under the covers to allow her husband, David, to escape out a palace window. (1 Sam 19) We know David is rebuked for stealing, murdering and adultery, but the household God is just a detail.  Perhaps the stories tell us what not to do, reminding us that God’s kingdom will not come through King Saul, King David, or King Soloman.  If we read these histories until the end of 2 Kings, we find the Palace, Temple and Jerusalem’s walls totally destroyed and the people once again enslaved this time in Babylon instead of Egypt. 

In Samuel 8 the prophets warned the people not to submit to another Pharoah or kings. “They will conscript your sons in the army or to do their plowing and harvesting, take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks.  Take your best fields, vineyards, and olive groves and give them to their donors. Take your best cattle and donkeys.  And make you slaves!”  The people refused to listen and said, “No! There must be a king over us… (who) will judge us, lead us, and fight our battles.” ( 1 Sam 8)

If we think God’s kingdom might come through a political party or a presidential candidate, we might consider that the devil tempted Jesus with titles, thrones, and power. (Matt 4)  Our nation will not be great because we elect Donald Trump or Joe Biden. We will make our nation better by ending gun violence,  improving test scores, providing healthcare, sheltering the unhoused, welcoming the immigrant, and bringing justice to the oppressed. We will not become righteous by confessions of faith or by slapping a copy of  ten commandments up in every classroom.  Jesus repeats Isaiah’s rebuke of their nation: “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from God” ( Matt 15 & Isaiah 29) It will not be our creeds, but our deeds that create a more Christ-like nation.

In Matthew 20, Jesus warns us, “You know that the rulers of the gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It must not be so among you, but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant…  I came not to be served but to serve.”  Jesus’ kingdom is not wrapped up in a national set of creeds but born of loving God and neighbors. A Christlike nation feeds people, offers healthcare, reforms prisons, abides in compassion, and practices forgiveness. (Luke 4, Matt 5-7 & 25) A Christ-like people prefers to serve rather than rule, meaning God is always on the side of the oppressed!.

I wish our collective longing for a strongman ended with First Samuel. It did not. During the German rise of Christian Nationalism, the Hitler Youth filled the churches.   Dietrich Bonhoeffer preached  “In the church we have only one altar. And that is the altar of the most high, the Only One, the Lord to whom alone is due honor and adoration…  We have no auxiliary altars for the adoration of the Furor (king, or  president). The worship of God, not the Furor, happens here at the house of God.” (Gideon)  When Jesus flipped over the tables in the Temple, Jesus lamented that the church was not a place of prayer for all nations! (Mark 11)    

We forget how the prophets thundered to the  “chosen”. Isaiah 1 blasts the nation 

Doom! Sinful nation, people weighed down with crimes, evildoing offspring, corrupt children!
Your princes are rebels, companions of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe and pursues gifts.
  They don’t defend the orphan, and the widow’s cause never reaches their ears.  Doom! 

 Stop bringing your worthless offerings. I can’t stand your church assemblies—
I’ll hide my eyes from you. Even when you pray for a long time, I won’t listen. Your hands are stained with blood. Wash! Be clean! Remove your ugly deeds from my sight. Put an end to such evil; Learn to do good. Seek justice: Help the oppressed; defend the orphan; plead for the widow. Your Nation will be redeemed by justice!

A Godly or Christian nation is one that bears spiritual fruit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5)  A Christian nation imitates Christ by loving neighbors, doing good to ungrateful and wicked people, offering loving-kindness to enemies, feeding hungry folks, leaving no one behind, offering comfort to the hurting, welcoming immigrants, providing housing, clothing the naked, forgiving, reforming prisons, speaking with grace, practicing compassion and honest confession. (Matt 5-7 & 25) We should  measure our nation by such standards, vote for leaders, and work to build such a nation one neighborhood at a time.

But hear the Good News: God does not abandon us, even when the nation’s walls cave in.  In Luke 19 and Matt 23, Jesus rebukes the nation and then weeps over the capital. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem! You who kill the prophets who were sent to you. How often I wanted to gather your people together, just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. But you didn’t want that. Look, if only you knew on this of all days the things that lead to peace, but you did not.!”  God is always rebuilding, renewing, redeeming, reconciling, restoration and reviving and calling us into this work. 

So David, shepherd, warrior, mercenary, poet, singer-songwriter, leader of the rebel alliance, wakes up on the wrong side of the battlefield, in the camp of the Philistines but his heart breaks for his people, for King Saul and Prince Jonathon. And David comes home and writes a patriotic funeral song, naming the wounds only a soldier knows.  

Oh, no, Israel! Your prince lies dead on your heights. Look how the mighty warriors have fallen! Don’t talk about it in Gath; don’t bring news of it to the Philistine streets,

Don’t let the Philistines’ daughters rejoice.  Curse these battlefields, may they remain dry and yield no crops.

Oh Jonathan, your arrows never wavered.  King Saul and Prince Jonathan! Father and son, so loved, so cherished! In living and dying they were never separated. Daughters of Israel, weep over Saul! 

The king dressed you in crimson, in jewels and in gold.  (We might wonder how David’s army of the disposed, indebted and run-away slaves felt about being forced to sing those verses.) Look how the mighty warriors have fallen in the midst of battle!

Jonathan lies dead high on that mountain. I grieve for you Jonathan! You were so dear to me! Your love was more amazing to me than the love of women.  Look how the mighty warriors have fallen! Look how the weapons of war have been destroyed!

David sings a kind of September 11 song. David weeps for Saul who had tried to kill him. David weeps for Jonathon, who he fought with, who he kissed out in the fields alone, and who he made a  lifelong covenant with. : “We made a solemn pledge in the Lord’s name binding us together in the Lord forever.” (1 Samuel 20) David models how to mourn.  I shared about David and Jonathon’s love with a trans student at Pride Sunday last afternoon. She laughed and said that she could not wait to quote the verse with her Bible thumping nemesis. 

Our sense of homeland, of nation, of patriotism is tied up in people: some like Jonathan and Saul.  I will never forget visiting The Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC with my dad a Korean Veteran. I watched dad run his finger along the Wall silently finding names of friends he served with. Perhaps David’s refrain “the mighty have fallen” was a statement of the high cost of war, one that David would not heed.  It reminds me of Jesus teaching in the Garden of Gethsemane that “all who live by the sword will die by the sword”. (Matt 26)  

What does it mean to love a nation, a people, a country?  Does it mean we think we are better than other nations, peoples, races, genders, or ideologies? No, God does not play favorites. (James 2)  Does it mean we ignore the evil, injustice and oppression wrought by our nation? No, Jesus preaches accountability (Matt 25) even as grace wins (Rom 8).  

I imagine every nation has a lot to deconstruct.  There is a lot to deconstruct in my Bicentennial memory, but long after the parade I felt a deep sense of pride in an imperfect place, people and past: mom and dad collaborating with me on a school project, my older cousins listening as I shared about the parade, my uncle Bud grilling his world’s best cheese burgers (was it government cheese or steamed buns), my moms foraged blackberry cobbler, fireworks dancing over the night sky, and all of us young folks grooving to Philadelphia Freedom. And it was a moment where I, a fourth grader who always felt “less than” at school, represented Lexington Fayette Urban County Public Schools. All of these things run together reminding me that I belong to something bigger than me. I am sure any nine year old in any nation might have felt the same sort of deep belonging, on a day like that.: a deep sense of not better than others- but just being loved and being home. Pride in place is not bad, but it is not an entitlement to ignore the sins of the past or present.  Indeed, love of nation should call us to work harder to perfect our union: seeking liberty and justice for all people- resisting evil, injustice and oppression everywhere in the world, and never becoming so self-consumed that we forget that God loves the whole world as much as God loves any of us. May our deeds help perfect our union, for loving and just actions change hearts in ways that posted creeds never can.  May our nation be redeemed and renewed by our justice, kindness, and compassion. Amen.