I was 11 years old and my church league basketball team was playing Immanuel Baptist. Immanuel had this tall kid, Big 33, who I was supposed to guard. We couldn’t stop him. Between the quarters, our coach, let’s call him Coach Rupp, pulled me to the side and laid out a detailed plan that involved me intentionally fouling Big 33. Step one, as Big 33 lagged to get back on defense, I acted winded and jogged back up the court next to him.  In Coach Rupp’s second step I let the trailing official run past us while carefully watching the ref under the basket. Step three, when neither ref was watching, throw a hard elbow.  I executed the plan to perfection, committing what was clearly a Flagrant 2 Foul worthy of ejection.  Everyone in the gym saw it and went wild, everyone except the officials. Immanuel’s coach got so angry he received a foul technical for yelling. I felt ashamed but my Coach’s plan worked. I rattled Big 33 and we won the game. 

Maybe ten years later, Connie and I were dating when she came to watch me play church league basketball. That night my church team could not stop another Big 33. Coach Rupp’s training kicked in: “when facing a more skilled player try trash talk!” My trash talk worked like a charm as Big 33 focused on my taunts more than his jumpshot. We won the game in thrilling fashion as I stole the ball and hit the game winning  layup!  My treachery overcame Big 33’s athleticism. After celebrating with my teammates, I looked around the gym for my girlfriend but Connie was already gone. I caught up to her in the parking lot. She was frowning and strangely silent but missing those cues I excitedly inquired, “What did you think of the game!?”  She did not hold back, “PAUL PURDUE, you may be the worst sport in the world!  I was embarrassed to be in the gym with you!” Hoping for praise for the game winner, her words hurt, but  I shot back defensively,  “it’s just basketball!” Connie stuck a finger into my chest and declared “YOU are the youth Director of our Church!”  

Sunday night, I told Connie I might share that story. It turns out that she is still a little offended 35 years later.  Her critique went deeper than the 20 year old version of Paul Purdue, she questioned the culture that made such play acceptable in church. She wondered how I could be so committed to Christ and such a jerk on the basketball court, but also how our church so genuinely committed to “winning people to Jesus”  and “giving our lives to Christ” could produce a sports culture that Galatians 5 might describe as “the works of the flesh”?  Our gym culture was one of “competitive opposition, conflict, selfishness, and group rivalry.” Connie continued to preach asking how could “love God and love neighbor” and see other churches as rivals or even enemies? I am certain that my church-league basketball mentoring was more focussed on winning the game than being Christ-like or even a good sport. 

How is it that we so easily forget who we are created to be? How do we forget we are  created as beloved and called to love everyone! 

It is easy to forget who we are!  We forget that we all are beloved children and called to love our neighbors as ourselves? At times  in our workplaces, with our finances, inside our family systems, with our sports or entertainment choices, and it seems especially in politics we forget who we are, we forget our baptism.

This week my brother was involved in a terrible bicycle wreck, and had to be airlifted to Erlanger in Chattanooga. As one of his surgeons, Doctor Bender, spoke to us about the upcoming  surgeries, I noticed his surgical cap had a Big Power T for the University of Tennessee. For a flash of a second, my old Kentucky Blue Blood almost commented on that Big Orange hat.  How misguided is that to care about what about the hat a person was wearing, who was saving my brother’s life?    But we get caught up in lesser identities: Vol’s, Commodores, Republican, Democrat, Swifties, Small Town, or Americans.  

Why do we shut off parts of our life with labels and lesser identities that separate us from God’s redeeming, reconciling, renewing love? Remember your baptism!  Remember who you are!  Remember how we vowed to “serve as Christ’s representatives in the world”.  Let us never confuse our core identity with lesser allegiances found in the marketplaces, stadiums, flags, cars, neighborhoods, regions, political parties, denominations, national identities or celebrity cultures. 

Jesus came reminding us who we are created as beloved and called to love all people. When Jesus returned to his hometown synagogue, the crowd like many of us did not welcome the prophetic word.  The prophet word calls us away from lesser identities, challenging the ways we work, play, invest, spend, give, text, post, and speak. The prophets call us back to our core identity once a week in church, but the voices of the market gods, entertainment gods, sports industrialists, social media tempters, and politicians shout for our attention 7 days a week.  It is easy to forget who we are, and who God calls us to be!  

Spiritual living begins when we push away from the lesser gods that tempt us to place our identities in something less than Christ-likeness. Remember, your baptism into love, joy, peace, peace-making, kindness, gentle speaking,  forgiveness, giving without thought of reward, giving more than a tithe, reconciliation, resistance to evil, working for justice, celebrating with those rejoicing, weeping with those weeping, loving neighbors and enemies, and ending our sinful tendency to judge.  Remember your baptism, renew it each day with daily prayers and meditation. 

Friends, last week I talked about the difference between pride in place and Christian nationalism. (pastorpaulpurdue.com/2024/06/30)  Today, I simply want to say that any kind of nationalism is incompatible with Christian lifestyle. The first commandment bellows, “I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods before me, you shall not bow down to them or venerate them.” (Duet 5 or Ex 20)  If Christ is our Lord, then Caesar is not.  All other kingdoms, nations, states, regions, teams, political alliances, party platforms, cultural identities, and market forces must be absolutely secondary.  Yes, it is okay to root for Vandy, the Vols or Team USA, paint your face Red, White and Blue- but the moment we genuinely root against others we have forgotten who we are.  Love never rejoices when others are harmed, punished or put in their place. Love can not rejoice in evil ( 1 Corinthians 13)      

At the Tennessee Western Kentucky UMC Annual Conference we endorsed a prophetic word we all need to hear: “Christian Nationalism is a political ideology (and cultural framework) that merges Christianity and a particular type of American identity, distorting both the Christian faith and the United States Constitution. Christian Nationalism appropriates the name of Jesus Christ and the language and imagery of scripture to promote this ideology, in direct contradiction to the gospel Jesus preached, a liberating and loving gospel that the United Methodist Church embraces (Luke 4:16-21).  THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Tennessee-Western Kentucky Conference of the United Methodist Church denounces Christian Nationalism in all its forms as a distortion of the Christian faith, and commits to opposing it wherever it appears, for the sake of the gospel and the good of the human family.” (twkumc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/5) 

God is never on one nation’s side.  God loves the world. God critiques every nation.  Jesus taught us “But I say to you who are listening: Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you;  bless those who curse you; pray for those who mistreat you… Give to everyone … If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?…  If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive payment, what credit is that to you? No, instead, love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, for God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Creator is merciful.” (Matt 6) God is not an angry God, ready to zap people, and anyone who preaches such a theology fundamentally doesn’t understand who Jesus is or trust in God’s grace. Still, I am not sure how we can apply the Sermon on the Mount to domestic or foreign policy, but I am certain that any Christ-like policy considers how our actions affect our neighbors and even our enemies. 

God does not love, choose or bless America more than Canada or Mexico. God does not love Espicalians more than Pentecostals. God does not love democrats more than republicans, and neither should we. Love is the final prophetic word, and Love challenges all lesser allegiances.  It is easy to get caught up in lesser identities, it takes daily spiritual habits to remember who we are and who God calls us to be. These lesser identities, tied up in race or national identity are little idols. Christianity stands alone! Paul said in Philippians 3 “This one thing I do, forgetting everything else, I press on toward the goal, toward the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”  There is no Christian Nationalism, Christian Socialism, or even a Christian Nation. These regional additives dilute and confuse one true faith. The moment we place a nationalistic identity inside our Christianity, we have committed idolatry as we are no longer loving God with all our hearts, souls and minds, we have added something else. Furthermore, Love of neighbors demands that we resist forcing others to live by our rules.   Christ calls us to be the light of the world, we must not ask the government to shine our lights for us. Christ-like arises in people’s hearts and minds not in the laws of the land.  No government can create Christ-likeness, this is God’s work alone.  We must resist this idea of Christian nationalism, for it leads people away from Christ and into a lesser legalism.  So let us remember our baptism and serve as Christ representatives in the world, no political platform or party can do this work for us.  Let us place no other lesser ideologies before our allegiance to God. Amen