The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
(Proper 8, Year C); July 1, 2007
Advent Lutheran Church, Morgan Hill, CA
Rev. Anita R. Warner
Texts: Galatians 5:1, 13-25, Luke 9:51-62
Galatians 5 1 For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. 13 For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. 14 For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." 15 If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. 16 Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, 21 envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.
Luke 9 51 When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. 52 And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; 53 but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. 54 When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" 55 But he turned and rebuked them. 56 Then they went on to another village. 57 As they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." 58 And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." 59 To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." 60 But Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." 61 Another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home." 62 Jesus said to him, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."
The God You Have
I grew up in a politically active and aware household. My father could well have had a career in politics, but that was not a life my mother wanted, and when he proposed marriage to her she made that clear! So he chose a life with her instead of a political career. My sisters and brother and I are all glad for that choice. In his younger days Dad had testified before the Michigan state legislature, in 1958, when an outdated state constitution was keeping state workers from being paid. He worked with the governors and other leaders to put emergency measures in place until a full constitutional convention was called a few years later.
My own first memories of being politically engaged was in 1973, when the Watergate hearings were nationally televised. During that time Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned. We watched live TV when the 25th amendment was triggered and President Nixon announced the appointment of a new Vice President. My dad was saying, “It might even be Gerry Ford.” Ford had served as a congressman from Michigan for 24 years.
I watched Dad swell with pride when President Nixon announced that Gerald Ford was appointed to serve as Vice President and asked Congress for his confirmation. I felt proud, too. Here was someone from our own state, our home team, being called up to serve in high office in Washington in troubled times.
We remained Gerry Ford fans in our household. My first personal political action followed the 1976 presidential election when Jimmy Carter defeated Gerald Ford for President. I was almost 13 years old and wrote a letter of condolence to Ford. A few weeks later I was excited to see a letter addressed to me on White House stationery. It was a response letter saying that the President is always pleased to hear from his young friends and that he appreciated my letter.
Fast forward to 2007. I remain interested in the political realm as it affects our lives. These last couple of weeks have been good ones for me, though different from any usual routine. The week before last I met with a research group from the Pastor-Theologian program. We met in Montebello, outside Montreal, Quebec. We’re working together on a book and also on continuing in some form this endeavor in learning together that has been life-giving form many of us.
Then 100 more pastors from a variety of denominations and some theologians came together for a national conference on the theme Jesus Christ Savior and the World. Some of the most thoughtful theologians on this theme and on public theology in the English-speaking world made presentations. They did not all say the same thing; but all said that the church has something to say in the political realm, indeed, that the church must have a developed and thoughtful public theology – for the sake of the world.
Then last week I spent with 25 middle school and high school youth on houseboats on Shasta Lake, along with Janet Renick, Lucy Walker and Carol Noble, and the Sonshine Ministries staff. In daily Bible studies we looked at the covenants God has made with God’s people. Those covenants are solemn binding agreements that define our relationship with God. One important covenant was given on Mt. Sinai and is known best as…. The Ten Commandments. And the First Commandment is the foundation for all the rest. Do you remember what is the First Commandment? You shall have no other gods.
For me, this covenant with God, for Jews and for Christians, is an excellent basis for public theology – and how we, as believers, relate to our nation.
What it means to be a believer is that God has first claim on our lives. The story of how the commandments were given is told in the prologue to the commandments: “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” – this is the presupposition of the first commandment. So you live by it because it is your story of freedom and mercy and it is the best story you know. The church has always believed that telling the old, old story is what claims people’s lives. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, therefore, you shall have no other gods before me.
This story has been given to us as well as to the Jews. God has a claim on us: for freedom Christ has set us free (Gal. 5:1). Christ gave his life to extend the covenant to us and to make a new covenant that God would be our God and we would be God’s people. You shall have no other gods calls us to give reverence and obedience to God alone.
There is a helpful distinction, I think, between loyalty and obedience. Dr. Patrick Miller makes this distinction in the book The God You Have.
I put it this way: I am loyal to my family. I am affectionate toward my family and hold my family as a whole in high regard. I desire good for my family and dedicate myself to them. My loyalty to my family does not require that I believe we are the best family in the world or the best possible family. Indeed, my loyalty at its best means that we will seek help for our problems. Loving another well requires a proper distance that devotion to God and obedience to God can provide. Loyalty to my family at best means humbly turning to God and engaging in the community in order to support one another in our family in living in joy and in finding healing for our ills.
Giving my ultimate obedience to my family would be a distortion of my relationship with them – and with God. Obedience belongs to God alone. Rather, my family has my love and my loyalty.
What is the first commandment?
Similarly, I have affection for my country and am loyal to it. I desire good for our country, though not at the expense of others. My loyalty to the United States of America, my patriotism, does not require me to believe there are no other good political arrangements in the world. I do believe that the constitutional democracy we enjoy is a gift and a blessing, and I give thanks for it; but every polity, even this one, is fallible and susceptible to distortion and idolatry.
Who keeps us safe and secure in our lives? Our government, our military, our economic system? No; those are all myths, though they are powerfully told in direct and in subtle ways. The truth is that God alone is our savior. We in the modern nation-state are also susceptible to privatizing our faith so that it becomes secondary to our economic and political commitments. But the first commandment asks us to put nothing secondary to God. This is not a call for religious fanaticism, because the God you have is one of peace with justice.
As Christians we are commanded to not have the political order and all the systems that sustain it as a god; and neither can we give up the political order. The claims of the political order and the economic order, and an improper reverence for all the systems and symbols that sustain them, are potential threats to our proper life with God. However, if we are willing to let our focus be on God rather than on what we have or on the state as savior, then the political order “can enhance human community and the common good by being the context of our life with our neighbor… Indeed, with a [government] of some sort, a large common good with the neighbor is well nigh impossible to achieve or discover.” (Miller pp. 39-40).
Jesus distinguished between loyalty and obedience as he went to Jerusalem. First he and his disciples passed through a village of Samaritans who did not receive them because they were on their way to the religious and political rivals of the Samaritans, that is, the capital city of Jerusalem. It wouldn’t have been unusual for Samaritans to refuse hospitality to religious pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. Jesus’ disciples thought that they should invoke God’s wrath and punishment – fire from heaven – down on those Samaritans. But when the disciples suggested that, Jesus rebuked them. God’s punishment was not for the disciples to command or control, no even in the name of Jesus.
What is the first commandment?
Then several conversations came up, having to do with loyalty vs. obedience. Along the road, someone said to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus let that person know that being a disciple wasn’t simply a choice of loyalty; it would require a life-changing obedience: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
To others Jesus asked that even burying the family dead could not interfere with the work of proclaiming the kingdom of God. These are harsh words and hard to imagine; why wouldn’t Jesus want families to show honor to elders? Wasn’t that a commandment too, after all?
I think it is because Jesus was using extreme speech to make his claims clear. The other commandments have meaning only insofar as they follow on the first commandment. When we have no other gods, when we give obedience and reverence to God alone, then we are free to show honor to those in authority, parents, government, and other authorities.
What is the First Commandment?
So Jesus is making a claim here: to be God. He is asking not just for loyalty, but for obedience, and obedience belongs to God alone. He is applying this commandment to himself! The kingdom of God must come first in our lives, or not at all.
What does this mean for us?
We are invited into the covenant people of God. This is God’s gracious gift to us in Christ. My ancestors are not Jewish; the God of Israel was not their God. They more likely worshiped nature gods, and perhaps Thor. But through the blood of his cross Jesus opened the kingdom of God was opened to all believers, Gentiles as well as Jews. We are all invited to live as the covenant people of God, secure in God’s promise, and to have no other gods but God alone.
No symbol, not even the flag, deserves reverence. You shall have no other gods means that God alone has a claim on our reverence and obedience. You shall have no other gods means that you entrust our lives to God alone. You trust the God you have, you trust that the God you have is good, and God will give you back all your loves – of family, of friends, and of country - in proper form when you have no other gods.