Many of us said the pledge of
allegiance throughout our school years. Our hands cover our hearts when the
National Anthem is played. The American flag flies higher than any other on our
flagpoles. The Fourth of July is rapidly approaching, and we are making plans
to celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence over 200 years ago.
This post is a call to ask you: how much of your identity is wrapped up in the
country in which you live?
With the Supreme Court deciding
5-4 in favor of the legalization and institutionalization of same-sex
“marriages” in the Obergefell case last Friday, many Christians have been pushed
in uncomfortable ways as they think about “our” country, America. While the
Obergefell case is not the first time many evangelicals have had doubts about
the direction of this country and our place in it, nevertheless, it has brought
us to the point of asking ourselves how much of who we say we are is wrapped up
in being American. Is claiming a part of our identity with a country
counter-productive to the work of God in redeeming the entire cosmos, of which
the “United States of America” is only a part? Are we to identify with
something more holistic and supreme?
In this short post I am arguing
for a different view of our current situation – a view that would see us as the
redeemed people of God living in America, rather than Americans who are the
redeemed people of God. I understand that the distinction might seem pointless,
but I believe there is strong biblical evidence to support this view as well as
compelling reasons to adopt it.
Disclaimer: This is not a post advocating
a) the retreat from America and the larger culture, b) an aggressive assault on
America, or c) not cheering for the USA Women’s National Soccer team in the
finals. I think Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 7.17 and 22 should be a strong
anchor: “Only
let each person lead the life that
the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him… Likewise he who was free when called is a bondservant of
Christ.” God has placed us in America at this time by His divine
providence according to Acts 17.26, and therefore, we should not be trying to
flee, but humbly engaging the culture with the gospel wherever we can because
we know that our God is the God of all nations and is redeeming a people from
every nation, forming one Nation in Christ.
The two explicit passages in the
New Testament that urge the Christian community to think of itself as “exiles”
are Hebrews 11.13-16 and 1 Peter 2.11. Hebrews 11.13-16 reads:
“These
all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen
them and greeted them from afar, and For people who speak thus
make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had
been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have
had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better
country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called
their God, for he
has prepared for them a city.”
These verses come after the writer has described the faith of
the Jewish forebears and how they were living in expectation of the future
redemption God had promised. We find ourselves in a similar predicament—the
“already-not yet” to use a phrase we have begun to use. We, like the Jewish people,
find ourselves without our promised homeland here on earth.
We are creatures who are made for more than the physical
realm can offer us. To be sure, the physical realm is part of who we are—the
first man named “Adam” which is a word that meant “earth” in Hebrew—but Adam
was made for communion with God and the natural world. After the fall, humanity
tends to its identity only in one or the other: either by building up a life
solely in the physical world or by trying to escape the physical world through
any sort of mental or “spiritual” exercises (think meditation, yoga, chanting,
etc.). By trying to identify with the physical, we put on labels in order to separate
ourselves from others in an attempt to define our individuality—“American”,
“Southern”, “Georgia fan”, “Engineer”, “Mother.” Lecrae, a hip-hop artist,
describes himself as “not a ‘Christian rapper’ but as a ‘Christian who raps,’”
and his point is that his “label” or identity is first and foremost “Christian”
then, secondary to that, “rapper.” Christ came to integrate what we try to
segregate.
In 1 Peter 2.11, the apostle Peter urges his readers to
abstain from the passions of their flesh “as sojourners and exiles.” This verse
comes right after he acknowledged them as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession” in
verse 9. Peter told the saints who they are—the “elect… according to the
foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for
obedience to Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 1.1-2)—and points to their identities as “new
creations” in Christ to call them into a new lifestyle of holy living. One of
the beautiful things about the gospel of Jesus is that it is a reality in which
we stand, rather than one in which we are called to realize by our own works. Paul
says in Philippians 4.12 that he presses on to know the power of Christ’s
resurrection through his suffering and work, not because he needs to earn it,
but because “Christ Jesus has made [Paul] His own.” There is but one righteousness
that clothes a Christian, and it is the same righteousness that covers his
brothers and sisters in faith, so that no one may boast before the Father (Ephesians
2.9) and all may be joined together under Christ (Ephesians 2.19-22, 4.15-16).
By finding our fundamental identity in Christ, we are enabled
to relate to our brothers and sisters in Christ no matter where they are from
or what differences stand between us. We can become bringers of the gospel to
one another, knowing that it is the finished work of Christ that makes us stand
unified over any geographic or cultural dividing lines. We then, by God’s
grace, see the Christian man in Afghanistan as our brother and the Christian
woman in South Africa as our sister. We see the new believer who lives in
Bankhead on the west side of Atlanta as one with us. We can go to Argentina or
to Calhoun County as “ministers of reconciliation” knowing that the people
there who will believe were our brothers and sisters in Christ before the
foundations of the world according to Ephesians 1.4. God, in Christ, has broken
down the dividing barriers between people and has instead created a new people,
the true Israel, which is the redeemed and restored humanity in and with whom
God makes His dwelling. By identifying with one another in Christ, we can begin
to not hold up our American culture to the world as the example to follow, but
we can hold up Jesus. Galatians 3.26-29 says, “In Christ Jesus you are all sons of
God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no
male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are
Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according
to promise.”
When we think about the Supreme Court’s decision regarding
homosexual “marriage” let us not be crushed with hopelessness in “our” country that
we shrink from the world and hide away. Our country is not located on a map. Our
country has a king whose reign is everlasting and who is making all things new
(Jeremiah 10.10, Revelation 21.5). Our country has the Lamb who was slain (Revelation
5.6, 9). Our country has a Good Shepard who will lead his people to springs of
living water (Revelation 7.17). Our country has an eternal river and the tree
of life (Revelation 22.1-2). Our country will have the ultimate wedding
ceremony (Revelation 19.6-10). Our country is populated with people from every
tribe and nation (Revelation 7.9). Our country has no need for a temple or a sun
(Revelation 21.22-23). Our country is a far country of which we only see
glimmers of now, but soon we shall see it face to face (1 Corinthians 13.12). Our
country is where all of the sad things come untrue. Our country is coming soon.
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