AN_APPROPRIATE PATRIOTISM

July 5, 1987, 11:00 a.m. Worship Service
John M. Buchanan
Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago

Scripture
Isaiah 26:1-8
Mark 12:13-17

",..Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's,
and to God the things that are God's."
--Mark 12:17. (RSV}

The Romans never did understand it. They.were not heartless
tyrants. Pax Romana, the Peace of Rome, was built not solely on military
power, but also on law and a sense of justice and tolerance for the customs
and traditions and religions of conquered people. Their occupation policy
did not include persecution of other religions. In fact, the Romans were
proud of their tolerance which they thought showed how civilized they were.
What they couldn't understand about their Jewish subjects and then the |
Christians, who they understood to be a sect of Judaism, was their simple
denial of the Emperor's supremacy.

When the Legions carried the Roman Eagle through the streets, Roman
subjects were required to bow, It wasn't asking much actually; just a
little respect... I was at Wrigley Field yesterday - and it came time for
the "National Anthem" — sky was a glorious blue, ball park filled - 4th of
July - and the two men next to me, witha little boy, spoke another
language, and talked loudly during the "National Anthem" and didn't remove
their Cubs hats - and I didn't like it much... The eagle represented the
Emperor himself and the sovereignty of the state. The Jews refused to do
‘it. "God alone is sovereign,” they said. Astute Roman governors avoided
the confrontation. One time a troop took the stanchion into the Temple and
in a contemptuous gesture stuck it in the court yard with the eagle on top
and a riot ensued - which was one of the political mistakes contributing to
the end of the promising career of Pontius Pilate. That is. another story.
The Christians, these fanatic, messianic Jews, took up where their brothers
and sisters left off. “Jesus Christ is Lord," they said and refused to bow
to the eagle.

And so the conflict has been there from the beginning. The earliest
Christian Creed was the simple statement, "Jesus Christ is Lord." The
‘power of that affirmation is political as well as theological. What it
meant was, "The Emperor is not Lord. The state is not Lord. Jesus Christ
is." And in that simple affirmation Christianity, as Judaism has always
done, deprived Rome and every totalitarianism which followed of the
absolutely essential foundation upon which totalitarianism rests — namely,
the supremacy of the Emperor, King, Fuhrer, Commissar, Party or State.
“Jesus Christ is Lord," was not a theological abstraction. It was, more
often than not, heard as a political declaration. People who said it were

not scolded for bad theology or rebuffed for bad manners but thrown into
Jail, or to the lions, for treason, as enemies of the state.

\ The conflict has been there from the beginning... in Old Testament
stories about Jeremiah taking on the King and the King's minions - in the
name of the one sovereign Ged. It is there in the best and worst of human
history.

Thomas Beckett, for instance, 12th Century Archbishop of Canterbury,
whose struggles with conscience and political expediency, between loyalty
to his King and loyalty to Ged, led to his "Murder in the Cathedral“ in
1170. Thomas More, for instance, !6th Century English statesman, whose
joyalty to Christ and church came into conflict with his loyalty to the
crown. More chose Christ and his conscience and lost his head. That's a

great, poignant tale of a Man for All Seasons precisely because his
patriotism - his love for England was so prefound.

And, of course, that remarkable gathering of young radicals in
Philadelphia, 1776, assembled to discuss the future of the Crown's colonies
in the New World. The issue was very real for them. They were British
subjects, many of them born in Great Britain. Before they became American
patriots they had to decide to commit treason against their country. They
had to struggle with their deep and noble love of their native land: their
loyalty to its institutions. We are inclined to forget, I fear, that the
men who signed the Declaration of Independence committed treason and in the
act, declared loyalty to something other than state and ‘King.

One of them was a minister, a Scottish presbyterian, Pastor of the
Church and President of the College of “New J Jersey at Princeton. John

_ Witherspoon was his name. When a document entitled "A Declaration of
Independence" was ‘submitted ‘to. the assembly by Mr. Jefferson from Virginia,

the Reverend Dr. Witherspoon rose to speak to it..
He said:

"That noble instrument upon your table, which
insures immortality to its author, should be subscribed
this very morning by every person in the house...
although these gray hairs must soon descend to
the sepuicher, I would infinitely rather that they
descend thither by the hand of the executioner than
desert at this crisis the sacred cause of my country."

It is an old and complex issue. We will hear a lot about it in this
Bicentennial year of the Constitution - because it is there that the
uniqueness of our approach to the matter is enshrined. And it is nowhere
presented with more strength than in our text this morning.

‘A group of his opponents hoped to discredit Jesus by asking him a
guestion to which there is no good answer... a little like a Ted Koeppel
interview: "Is it lawful to pay taxes to the Emperor?" The tax in
question was a head tax which went directly into the Emperor's treasury.

It was not a heavy tax but it was very much a symbol of the fact that Judah
was under the heel of Rome; in much the same way that the hated Stamp Act

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became a symbol] of oppression for the American Patriots. The Zealots,-a
radical: political organization: of: highly patriotic.Jews, held ‘that-:the “tax
should not be paid and recommended civil disobedience: Many secretly
supported: them he oh

However Jesus answered the question he was going to be-in trouble,
If. he said, "Do not pay the tax... {t-is illegal," he would:have- been
arrested: by the Romans for sedition. If he said, -"There is no issué here.
The tax is legal: pay it," he would have been discredited asa 2

colljlaborator,.a Roman sympathizer.

Jesus! response.is.. remarkable: ."Let--me sec-a.coin.. The: imagesof-
Caesar was on the coin, a silver denarii; .the very -coin required to: pay the
tax. it was Caesar's money. “Give it to him," Jesus said. “It's his”
anyway". vedas “Render to. God what t belongs to God." : ee

The simplest-~ but-worst + interpretation of that text. is that: Jesus
drew -a<line between the. sacred.-and the: profane; religion: and politics;
church and ‘state. It. seems-at first. that he was talking about: the doctrine
of two realms, spiritual and political, so popular’ in’ Western theology =»
“fhe City of God and the City of Man." In fact. when this text makes’ an
appearance in public discourse, it's usually on behalf of the separation of
religion from: politics. .. That, however, would: have been: totally foreign to:
Jesus... Instead, in the highest prophetic tradition of Judaism,°Jesus: was .
ascribing to Israel's oldest creed::° God isthe only Sovereignece Jesus’
simple response drips with sarcasm.. His hearers knew that, felt the —
sarcasm and understood exactly what Jesus was saying. Caesar is thrown a-
crumb. "“Here,.... look at his “picture.:: give him what he deserves. - about .
25 cents worth... The Lord God, ‘the sovereign and-oniy King of creation, owns |
everything. = You owe’ everything you: have, everything you are, to Him.'

His provocateurs are amazed. ‘Their question illicitea an answer they
didn't expect,:.nor want... .Godis lord of all. Lord of individuals. <Lord
of religious institutions; Lord of Emperors and -Empires.:* We're still
amazed. It is, because of this text,. very difficult to. appropriate Jesus
into every revolutionary. cause that.comes along: But it is even
more difficult. to. make him into a. conservative supporter. of-the status quo.
He didn't say .- "withhold the tax," the revolutionary ‘gesture, and he
didn't say. "it ‘doesn't matter, your religion has no political dimension,"
the classic conservative position. He said, do what is appropriate and
remember ‘that God alone is sovereign. :

Sometimes we forget that tension. The title of the sermon.suggests
its antithesis - Is there an ‘inappropriate patriotism? The answer: is’:
yes. when patriotism ascribes to nation the sovereignty that belongs to
God alone> when the dark. side of patriotism invests blind: loyalty: in:
state, or political. system-or ruler. Klaus Barbie was: found: guilty of ?-:
crimes against: humanity := deportation ‘of Jews to Nazi concentration camps.
He never expressed regret: “What: is there to regret?" he asked. "1 ‘am.
proud to have been a commanding: officer of the: best-military outfit:-in' the”
Third Rich.". Like Adolf Eichmann - who simply obeyed orders and made::the
trains -run-on-time,:Barbieis-an’example: of patriotism gone crazy.He
rendered far ‘too much to. Caesar. History and: today's newspapers are: full-
of examples of blind.patriotism which becomes bigotry and intolerance. In

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Northern [reland, the chauvinistic pageantry of the Protestant Orange
Orders is very patriotic. So is the overblown romanticism of the ‘IRA.
Adherents of both causes maintain strenuously that they are blowing up
buses and machine gunning civilians because of their pure and intense lave
of country.

Somehow patriotism on its way to becoming bigotry always stops along
the way and picks up some religion. The Ku Klux Klan has always combined
the symbols of religion and the hot rhetoric of intense patriotism. So did
the Nazis. Every tyrant has understood the potential of the combination,
and some of the saddest chapters in our history have resulted... The Bay
Pilgrims came here to exercise freedom of conscience and when they got
political power they banished dissidents and hanged Quakers.

"America ~ Love it or Leave it," the bumper sticker urged, betraying
a very basic misunderstanding of both America and an appropriate love of
it.. What this experiment is all about is that people are free here to
disagree with their government and the majority of its citizens. True and
appropriate patriotism is knowing how unique and precious that liberty is,
appreciating it and celebrating it. Appropriate patriotism is never. blind
and uncritical. ;

There is a wonderful passage about the Fourth of July in Will
. Campbell's recently published memoir, Forty Acres. and a Goat. Campbell

keeps.a small farm in Tennessee. where among other things he collects bells.
He writes: ;

“I ring the big bells on the Fourth of July.
Some of my neighbors used to think I was the most
patriotic: citizen in the valley. And I do love my
country... It is home, It is curs..." And then
Campbell goes on to tell how his patriotic beli
ringing is also a lament,... for the slaves who
lived and worked and died on his farm, "for the
Iroquois and Sioux, Cherokee and Navaho..." And
the very moving passage concludes with his
patriotic gratitude for “the great counter ideas:
tolerance, helpfulness, the notion of community..
{W..Campbeli, Forty Acres and a Goat, p. 277}

"

True and appropriate patriotism loves this nation at its essence,
that special core of liberty - which has its roots in the stubborn refusal
of our.forebears to hand to the emperor the obeisance that belongs to God.
That reservation - that final protection of the individual's conscience is
the essence of it. At-our-best we celebrate and defend the integrity of
the individual and the personal liberty that attends it. At its best the
nation itself protects the place where the individual relates to God... the
conscience, the soul. That's the essence of what historian Sydney Meade
called The Lively Experiment. What totalitarianism of the left-or right
needs.and. demands for its own is here allowed to be free. ;

The best patriotism is free to insist that the job is incomplete
until the nation lives up to its dreams for itself. Honest patriotism
laments that tolerance and justice and fair play are not always extended

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equally... The best patriotism is self critical and realistic about the
human conditfon and Knows that majorities don't always protect rights of
minorities, that a majority which is convinced of its morality will quickly
conclude the immorality of the minority ~- which is what is so basically
- anti-American about the_“Moral Majority." The best patriotism knows with
Reinhold Niebuhr that, “Man's capacity for justice makes democracy
possible... Man's capacity for injustice makes. democracy necessary.”

. : (The Essential Reinhold Neibuhr, edited by R. McAfee. Brown,. p. 160]

The best patriotism is not content with individualism ‘so celebrated
that: greed becomes the norm, and personal gain the chief end of our
existence.. The best patriotism cannot be content with the overt exchange
of public good for our war machine: with our status as first in the world
in military expenditures and our declining status in most of the other
human categories. We are now...

-Tth in life expectancy
-10th in per ‘student investment in education
-17th in infant mortality

~2énd-in the ratio of physicians to-population
~ The best patriotism laments that precisely because it. loves so much
what is good and noble and hopeful about the essence of: this country. The
best patriotism strives for a recovery of the sense of: the commonwealth, a
sense of the Public Good, the Community, the Covenant, the people, the
sense of ourselves and our hope as a nation. The best. patriotism sees
political activity -.as a: responsibility - a noble calling. In terms of
the text, it hears the "render to Caesar" imperative. as a call to.
responsibility and involvement —-not- in spite of faith, but because of it.

Several years ago we took a group of young people ona trip overseas,
ambitiously called an Adventure in Peacemaking... with a stop at a Peace
Community in Northern Ireland and Iona, a community dedicated to the study
of peace, and the American Submarine Base at Holy Loch... It was an
important experience. It’ included some very tough discussions with
Europeans who were not at all fond of American foreign policy, or American
people. It included working in a peace community in Northern Ireland. and
seeing the devastated neighborhoods of Belfast. It included being briefly
detained at the border and searched several times. I will never forget. it,
nor will I forget what I read on the plane home. -I had stuck a small. book
of essays by Joseph Sittler in my duffle bag, and I finally got around to
Al it after we were all safely in our seats. It was’a providential oo
Ow coincidence. It was the week before the Fourth of July. Sittler was
writing about “A Proper Love of One's Country."

| "Before the word America can set one thinking or planning or
resolving or defending, it ought to set one dreaming and remembering. And
out of this dreamed procession of America as a concrete place will be
poured the ingot of a tough and true patriotism. | Have you...never gone
inwardly wandering among the myriad impacts of this magnificent land?--the
sprawling, opulent South of the stark red earth and the blithe and lazy

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skies;. the tragic, lonely beauty of New England, its neat white. houses and
Stone. fences, so proper to its prim certainty; the sweep of the Middle West
_With its little towns set astride ten thousand Main Streets that. become
white concrete ribbons stretching across a countryside of incredible
fertility and scope; the terrifying distances of. the western states. where
farmers' families of-a Saturday night still “run into town"--eighty miles-~
with- ease; ‘and the fabulous West Coast, majestic at the top where: Rainier .
sparkles; rich and worldly- wise at the center where the jJand enfolds: in
long arms the lovely bay, and the fantastic glitter and ‘brashness at the
bottom. where ‘Sprawis: and ‘brawls the: City of the. Angels.

“Our ‘American lives are-impoverished if they
lack a sense of identity with the country around
them,

“Loving, personal identification with one's
own land has never been a breeder of arrogant
nationalism. Indeed, a person's love for his or
her own land can be the basis of respect for other
people's love of their land. Just as only those
who have convictions know the meaning of tolerance,
so none can assess at right value the land-loves of
other people except those who know and deeply. love
their own." -[J. A. Sittler, Grace Notes and Other
Fragments, ‘p. 101,102)

That lovely passage from the pen of a ‘distinguished theologian, it
seems to me, is very close to an appropriate patriotism.

-A love that creates tolerance, understanding and openness to others.
_7A love tough enough to be demanding, self critical.

vA love hopeful about. the future.
“oa love of liberty.

-~A love that directs us inevitably and inexorably to the Lord and
Sovereign of all.

Jesus said: “Render to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God the things
that are God's."

The most important and sublime article of our faith is that God is
the Lord of all - even Caesar. And that, therefore, it is God who is, as
the hymn contends, “Author of Liberty.'

And so... "To Thee we sing:
Long may our land be bright
With freedom's holy Light;
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God, our King."

Amen,

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