A Reflection of God's Love and Patriotism

“This is my song, O God of all the nations, a song of peace for lands afar and mine. This is my home, the country where my heart is; here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine; but other hearts in other lands are beating withing hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.  My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean, and sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine. But other lands have sunlight too, and clover, and skies are ev’rywhere as blue as mine. So hear my song, O God of all the nations, a song of peace for their land and for mine.  This is my prayer, O God of all earth’s kingdoms, your kingdom come; on earth your will be done. O God, be lifted up till all shall serve you, and hearts united learn to live as one. So hear my prayer, O God of all the nations; myself I give you; let your will be done. ” This Is My Song - ELW 887

Dear siblings in Christ,
        As we enter the month of July, we are often focused on celebrating our independence day, the 4th of July. It is good to be patriotic and proud of our country but if I am honest, the last 10 years or so, I have really struggled to get into the spirit of national pride, especially when so many seem to conflate their beliefs of Christianity and God with their national pride. So many people will often say things along the lines of God has made the USA one of the greatest countries in the world and blesses us over others, but in reality God blesses the whole world and loves no country more than any other because “God so loved the world” (John 3:16), not a single nation. And so the last many years, I have found myself drawn to the Hymn, This Is My Song, that can be found in the National songs section of the our hymnal and you can read through the lyrics above. This hymn is a great reminder as we look forward to celebrating our nations founding, that our nation is not the only beautiful one as well as is not the only one that God cares about, that God is the God of all the nations.
        Over these last 10 years or so, I have been more critical of the idea of bringing Christianity and God into our patriotic celebrations, especially as I have noticed the rampant Christian nationalist movement build more and more steam throughout our country. Yes, it is true that we as Christians are called to live our lives according to the teachings of Jesus, the fulfillment of God’s new covenant with all people. Jesus calls us, those who follow him, to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves, and through loving our neighbors as ourselves, those who do not already follow Jesus might come to know the love of God and Jesus and then become fellow followers. We are not called to force our neighbors into believing and acting just like us, that is not love, that is a control tactic. I feel like it is also important to remember that when our nation was founded, it was not founded to be a Christian nation. It was founded to be a nation of freedom of religion, freedom to practice whatever religion a person would like or no religion if they so choose. This nation was also created with the idea of separation of Church and State but yet there seems to be a growing vocal group of Christians who have been advocating and pushing towards the blending and blurring of that line, with groups trying to insist that the 10 Commandments (from the old covenant, pre-Jesus) be posted and the Bible be taught within public school settings. It would be one thing if these “Christian ideals” were paired with the work that Jesus called us to do, like feeding those who hunger (giving free breakfast and lunch to hungry kids so that they have the capacity to learn and grow), clothing and sheltering those without (creating a more robust low to no cost housing program for those who need a safe and warm place to live) and so on. But often those who seem to be pushing the idea that the USA is a Christian nation are only focused on saying they are Christians while trying to force others to comply to their view of Christianity, instead of leading with the guiding principle of love for all their fellow children of God no matter who they are and helping to advocate for laws and systems that truly would show and share God’s love with all throughout this country and world.
        As we gear up as a country to celebrate July 4th, I implore you to take some time to reflect on that ideas of religious freedom and separation of Church and State that this country was founded on. How might you go about living into your call as a Christian to love God and love your neighbors as yourself, without being complicit in the movement trying to force others into their misguided view of Christianity? How might you work to speak out against the Christian Nationalist movement, to show that God’s love is for all people no matter who they are or what they do and to work towards following Jesus’ call to care for and feed our neighbors (not just our Christian neighbors but all our neighbors)? And how might you help others see, that yes, we are proud to be Americans and to live in this country but we are aware that there are many other great countries throughout the world and that God does not favor one country over another, that God loves the whole world?
God’s Peace,
Pastor Tamara Siburg