DESERT PALMS PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Sun City West, Arizona

Citizenship

A Sermon Preached by the Rev. Dr. David S. Hodgson

May 30, 2010

Isaiah 6:1-8

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. 2 Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. 3 And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” 4 The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. 5 And I said: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” 6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. 7 The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” 8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”

1 Peter 2:1-17

Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation--3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. 4 Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and 5 like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in scripture: “See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

7 To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner,” 8 and “A stone that makes them stumble,

and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. 9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 11 Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul. 12 Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that, though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge. 13 For the Lord’s sake accept the authority of every human institution, whether of the emperor as supreme, 14 or of governors, as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right. 15 For it is God’s will that by doing right you should silence the ignorance of the foolish. 16 As servants of God, live as free people, yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil. 17 Honor everyone. Love the family of believers.  Fear God. Honor the emperor.

            [At the beginning of the service, in recognition of Memorial Day, Rev. Hodgson carried the flag forward to the Communion Table. Pastor Stan invited the congregation to stand. Lowell Watts, veteran and a member of the Aqua Fria Chapter of POW’s, came forward, turned toward the flag and saluted, holding the salute for several seconds.]

            Pastor Stan: Friends, to honor the veterans, I invite all non-veterans to please be seated, that we might honor all of those who have so faithfully served their country, and for all of us together to spend a few moments in silence. Veterans, we thank you for your service to our great nation, as we remember all who have given their lives in faithful service to keep us free. [Virginia plays the piano prelude, a stirring rendition of America the Beautiful.]

The sermon, Pastor David: My text is taken from the Book of 1 Peter, Chapter 2, Verse 16: “As servants of God live as free people, yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil.” Let us pray that it may be so. Teach us, O God, to know the truth that sets us free, and help us to make the earth like heaven above. These things we ask of thee, Amen.

            The world was still trying to get its collective mind around the life of Christ, to understand how that one solitary life had impacted the history of humanity, when two things became unmistakably clear. Number One, the spirit of that life was awakening and encouraging the spirit of human freedom in all who believe. The spirit of Christ was awakening the experience of human freedom in all of those who believe. And, Number Two, the spirit of that life was drawing into communities of faith those whom it had liberated.

It was almost as though common, ordinary mortals saw in the life of Jesus the prototype, the example, of what each and every human life was imagined by God to be or to become, and they longed to live into the fullness of that life with freedom, with great joy. It was as though society began to see in the model of discipleship the kind of community that God imagined all societies could be: a place where people lived together in harmony and where freedom became the leaven causing society to risee to new levels of its maturity. 

These were two distinct experiences, personal freedom and social responsibility, yet they were held together inexplicably by the same awareness of the risen spirit of Christ. The context in which those two miracles happened was the oppressive Empire of Rome, an empire which granted citizenship to but a few and held them in place, sustained that freedom, by an enormous slave population. It is estimated that there were four slaves in bondage for every three Roman citizens. 

That privilege was held in place by a system of laws that recognized the exclusive rights of the privileged few and held in place the bondage of the oppressed. But, as Christianity spread, performing the miracles of human freedom in hearts and awakening human responsibility in mind, there began to develop pockets of advanced citizenship in those communities of faith. Paul gives us the clearest glimpse we have of them. He said there were communities that often met in secret where Greek and Jew would come together as equals, totally transcending the prejudices of public life; where rich and poor would come together and share resources and needs in complete disregard for the class distinctions of society; where male and female would come together and treat each other as equal citizens in this emerging sense of society, and where slave and free would come together as brothers and sisters, demonstrating the incredible dignity of human life though it went unrecognized by the Empire. 

In time, as you know, those advanced forms of citizenship eventually rose to the surface and turned that empire upside down, causing citizens to lose their privilege and the oppressed to gain their freedom. At the time they did not have any of our contemporary scholars writing about the dangers of church and state, the perils of mixing religion with public policy, but they had one very simple formula that helped them live in their freedom. They had the experience that somehow their citizenship on earth must be a reflection of their citizenship in glory. That’s a strange kind of model when you think about it, since most of us imagine we experience life on earth first, then experience citizenship in heaven subsequently.

But suppose the other were true. Suppose the soul remembers what citizenship in glory felt like from before it was born and that in this life, every now and then, we catch glimpses of a nobler truth that once proved itself so in our lives. That would explain why so many people felt so much at home with the life of Christ. Somehow as he lived and taught he managed to remind people of a truth they already knew: that once in their experience there was a place where truth was more beautiful and more persuasive than falsehood; where love was a sign of strength; where generosity was the norm; where freedom was beautiful; where meekness was a sign of strength, and arrogance a sign of weakness. 

So powerful are those latent memories of the soul that I am convinced that’s why we are able to look at the present world and see it upside down and understand the perils of what we see, for we look at the arrogant and know this is not a sign of strength but of weakness. We look at the greedy and know this is not a sign of success, but of failure. We look at those who hoard and understand the tragedy by which they have lost the sense of generosity that makes life work. We look at those who doubt and understand how they have undermined the great gift of faith, and those who despair, for they have lost the power of hope. The virtues the soul remembers from glory are to be the standard by which we would live in community here. 

This much those early Christians knew: the gift of personal freedom was irrevocably tied to the maturity of community, the advancement of their community. It was freedom that became the leaven for the community that would cause it to rise to new levels of maturity. It was the community that provided the check and balance on that freedom, separate, yet tied together. 

The history of the world since the life of Christ appeared upon the earth has demonstrated that we have tried many social and political models to try to improve that fundamental revelation, and they have all failed for the same reason. They have failed because the architects of those systems have tried to separate personal freedom from social responsibility. Take the community away from freedom and freedom degenerates into chaos and anarchy, leading the way to human depravity. Take freedom away from the experience of society and it degenerates into socialism, conformity, mediocrity and the dissolution of human solidarity.

They need to be together, because both of them are gifts from the same God. If human beings are to live with freedom they are also to live with human community where faith in God can be celebrated, where the spiritual climate of the community and the moral values of the community can be the context in which freedom is exercised. 

I’m not sure where America is at this point in our history, but there are days in which I suspect we are trying to separate freedom from social responsibility once again. It does not happen quickly, yet it happens inevitably, the tragedy that comes of it.  Take God out of the equation for example by eliminating prayer from the public education of the people, remove conversations with God from the common life of all in public space and pretty soon God begins to seem irrelevant and unnecessary to the process, even though it is the spirit of God that awakens freedom.

Among the other disconcerting signs of the way people of faith even try to separate their freedom from the community they say, I can be spiritual without being religious. They mean, I can exercise my spiritual freedom without having it in check and balance with the faith of the community. It is not a promising situation, and take freedom away from experience of citizenship and it does begin to deteriorate. Generosity is replaced by hoarding; a sense of solidarity is replaced with a struggle for survival, the survival of the fittest at that, and we are never far from the barbarism from which we emerged. Personal freedom, communities of faith: they were intended for each other, and when we forget that we stand on the precipice of our own disaster.

I remember a season in my life when I was contemplating the inevitability of war and the evolution of humanity, but the horrors of it as well, and the price that was paid in one generation for the freedom that could be enjoyed in the next, and the loss that was sustained in one generation for the community that could be built in the next. I posed to myself the following question: How long is it between wars in the evolution of humanity? Before that question was even finished in its formulation the answer came. The distance between wars is only as long as it takes people to forget the horrors of the previous war, for it is in forgetting that the gift of the past is lost. It is in remembering the price that was paid that the inheritance can be enjoyed and bequeathed to the ages. When we forget, then, the barbarism from which we came, no matter how accomplished our civilization becomes that barbarism is never any farther away than one generation of forgetfulness. 

In a few moments during our offertory, Gloria Joyner is going to sing “God Bless America”. Let it be for us not as a symbol of national pride but as prayers of the people who understand that it is by the blessing and presence of God that freedom is awakened and responsibility is encouraged and created. Somehow in the mystery of that experience results secrets to success, for success lies in the way we are drawn to God with our common life. Evil is clearly the temptation by which it is destroyed. Therefore, as servants of God, let us live as free people, but let us always remember that we must never use our freedom as a pretext for evil.

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[Pastor Stan enters the sanctuary from the east door reciting the poem “Recessional”, by Rudyard Kipling. He continues across the front of the sanctuary and out through the west door repeating “lest we forget, lest we forget … ”]

God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies;
The Captains and the Kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget lest we forget!

Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,
For frantic boast and foolish word
Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!

[and repeating, “Lest we forget, lest we forget, lest we forget!”]

Amen.