July 3, 2005 Matthew 10:34-42
Flags and Faith
This weekend the General Synod of the UCC is taking place in Atlanta, with our own Jean Lutterman serving as a delegate, and with Mike and Amber Neuroth in attendance as well. I hope you’re following it, because there are several controversial resolutions being debated, and they are sure to make national news, dealing with such things as gay marriage, and divestment from Israel. Our own church has had a hand in two of the less newsworthy but still important resolutions – support for the International Criminal Court, and support for ministries in higher education. I was intrigued to find one resolution coming out of some of our more conservative churches, reaffirming “the Cross Triumphant” as the central symbol of the UCC. Apparently these churches feel that this traditional symbol, established in the very early days of our denomination, is in danger of being displaced by the comma – very prominently featured in the God Is Still Speaking identity campaign. Recall the Gracie Allen quote that inspired it - “Never place a period where God has placed a comma.” These churches want to remind us that our central symbol is still a cross, and a triumphant one at that. I’ll be interested to see how the delegates to the Synod handle that - if they have any energy left after dealing with Israel and gay marriage! Whatever they do, they will be faced with the truth that symbols are important!
Our scripture lesson for today, words placed in Jesus’ mouth by Matthew, but really directed at the early church, is not just about symbols but actuality. It reminds us that faith involves taking up the cross, separation, conflict, losing one’s life in order to find it. “I come not to bring peace, but a sword,” Jesus says – a statement that may not be comforting to us, but which would be readily understood by the first century church, enduring fierce persecution. The cross was central to their faith because they were living it. Our UCC Statement of faith speaks of “the cost and joy and discipleship” – a phrase borrowed from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor in Hitler’s Germany who paid with his life for following his faith in resisting the Nazis. When we speak of that, we affirm that Jesus’ way is costly, and that he often does bring a sword before he brings peace.
Tomorrow we observe the 229th anniversary of our nation’s independence, which is well worth celebrating! I do think we would do well to also remember the anniversary of the Bill of Rights, which comes in September, because that is the document that guarantees that we won’t take away from ourselves the freedoms that our ancestors fought so hard to secure. We have freedom of religion, of the press, of assembly, and of speech. Of course Mark Twain once remarked, "It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom and conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them." You see, while many have given their lives over the last two-and-a-quarter centuries defending those freedoms, there are those who wonder whether they ought to be practiced at all. They seem all too ready to sacrifice them for order, not only when there is a conflict between freedom and security, but even when they merely disagree with or are offended by the way some of those freedoms are expressed.
Provisions of the “Patriot Act” come up for renewal in a few months, and I hope we have a healthy debate about that, about the way it has been used to do all sorts of things that have nothing to do with national security – such as evict homeless people from train stations in Newark, New Jersey. Well, maybe our ultimate security involves creating a society that has no homelessness, but you get my point. And I am astonished, although by now I guess I shouldn’t be, that with all there is to do, all the problems we need to address, that Congress has once again passed a constitutional amendment to make it possible to outlaw flag burning, which the Supreme Court has long ago declared to be a protected form of free speech. It has a better chance now of passage in the Senate, and then would be sent to the states for ratification, providing along the way many opportunities for public servants to “prove” their patriotism or give their opponents grist for negative campaigning. Do we really need this diversion? Is flag-burning a pressing national problem? In fact, this amendment might actually invite some flag burning in protest!
Now, I can well understand the deep emotions attached to the flag, and how deeply offended some might feel when it is desecrated. I have never burned a flag myself, although I may as well have, in the view of one family from a former church of mine. It was the Sunday back in 1991 when the first President Bush had declared a “National Day of Thanksgiving” for the conclusion of the first Gulf War. I was no fan of that war, and was glad that my own church was not insisting we celebrate the day, in contrast to one of my colleagues, whose church wanted the opening hymn to be “The Star Spangled Banner” with a procession of flags. Plus we were having a visiting youth group present a musical with an entirely different focus. So while I did want to honor the soldiers, I was glad to not have to lift up the war.
When I arrived at the church well before the service, I was dumbfounded to find included in the altar flower arrangement four American flags. I assumed that the florist (we didn’t have a splendid flower committee like we do here) had assumed we were doing the National Day of Thanksgiving, and had given us an arrangement fitting for the occasion. In what turned out to be a politically courageous but pastorally callous act, I removed the flags and set them in my office.
What I didn’t realize at the time – because I hadn’t read the bulletin – was that the flags had nothing at all to do with the Gulf War or National Thanksgiving. They were requested by the donors of the flowers to honor the memory of their son, who had served courageously in the Army many years before, and who had died not in battle, but in this country under suspicious circumstances. I had spent many hours with this family, hearing their stories, and I knew their pride and their pain. I had performed the wedding of their daughter, and doted with them on their new grandchildren. All that was severed in an instant, when they found out what I had done. It didn’t matter why, and no amount of apology could ever make up for or heal the wound, and I never saw them again.
So, as I said, I can understand the deep emotions attached to the issue of the flag. I still get goose bumps when I see the Capitol dome, with the flag flying, especially at night, and I teared up when I heard the Dixie Chicks sing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl a couple of years ago, the most beautiful rendition I’ve ever heard....I can be as patriotic as anyone.
But that doesn’t change my conviction that a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning is simply wrong. For there is a principle that the flag itself stands for, and that is, as the Supreme Court has reminded us, even unpopular and offensive speech is protected. We are strong enough to hear it. We destroy ourselves when we begin to limit our basic freedoms. After all, the flag can be desecrated in many ways. The game of "Capture the Flag" didn't begin with the Supreme Court decisions. I recall for example during the late 60's and early 70's how what we called "The Establishment" adopted the flag as its own symbol. To wear it--often as a lapel pin--was as a statement of support for establishment policies and the status quo. They brought us "America: love it or leave it," which is an absurd idea! And then a curious thing happened: The counter-culture decided the flag was not the property of any one group of Americans, should not be co-opted by one faction, and so it began to turn up as patches for blue jeans, as belts and scarves, and in all sorts of counter-culture art forms. I wonder if they were not trying to say that patriotism and love of country were not the property of one political persuasion, that there were many ways to love one's country, that descent could also be patriotic, as it celebrated and espoused basic American values of freedom and justice.
What is desecration of the flag? It is Congress fiddling while Rome burns, taking up precious time to debate a constitutional amendment while ignoring more pressing matters such as homelessness, hunger, AIDS, education, the budget crisis, the rapidly deteriorating environment, the Patriot Act. It is politicians wrapping themselves in it for personal gain. It is using the issue as a political weapon. It is desecrating the Constitution to prevent desecrating the flag. But perhaps that, too, is part of the cost of freedom of speech.
I have never equated our flag and our country with the cross and the Kingdom of God, but I think there is a parallel in this case. Our faith requires a certain kind of vulnerability. I think that's what Jesus meant when he said, "Turn the other cheek, go the second mile, love your enemies, overcome evil with good," and as in the Gospel lesson for today, "those who lose their life for my sake will find it." That's one thing we celebrate at the communion table – Jesus’ laying down his life symbolized in the broken bread. God doesn't demand loyalty, but simply loves us. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, "God allows himself to be edged out of the world and onto the cross." God does not coerce, or force us, or require a loyalty oath, or deny us freedom....And so it is with the flag. Unless we have the freedom to destroy it, we are not fully free, for loyalty cannot be forced, it can only be freely given. We honor our flag best not when we seek to make it fire-proof or invulnerable, but when we strive to live out what it represents, and to extend the rewards of freedom to all people.
Garrison Keillor tells the story of "The Living Flag," something that used to be an annual event in Lake Wobegon. It began some fifty years ago, when a traveling cap salesman dropped by and unloaded over 400 red, white, and blue feed caps on one of the local merchants. When he discovered he could not easily sell all of them, he got an idea, and the living flag was born. On Flag Day, the entire town turns out, dons the caps, and arranges themselves in front of City Hall in the form of a huge American flag. It would have been an amazing sight, except that no one could see it. So, one by one, each of the four hundred began to leave their places, and go up in the tower of City Hall and look down upon the grand and glorious sight. But after three hours, less than half of the participants had gotten a look, and by then the ones who had were ready to go home, and so they started going up in groups of two and then five and finally ten, and pretty soon it was no longer the living flag but the kneeling flag and the sitting flag, with rather conspicuous holes where some of the stars and the fourth red stripe had been.
In the final analysis, the flag is not just a piece of cloth, it is all of us - we are a living flag, our own lives are beacons of hope and freedom and justice. It only begins to fall apart when we quit thinking of others and begin worrying only about ourselves, our own comfort and ease and protection and worry about getting offended. What Jesus said is still true -- We who seek to save our lives will lose them, and only as we lose our lives in freely giving ourselves to something and someone larger than ourselves - only then will we find the life that is life indeed, and know at last the joy of discipleship.
