What if the U.S. flag showed up at a church Bible study group reading Exodus 20:1-6? “The Big Red, White, and Blue in the Room” is a sermon that imagines that conversation.
The sermon, “The Big Red, White, and Blue in the Room” is the last of a four-part series on countering Christian Nationalism during patriotic holidays.
[See the end of this piece for links to the other sermons in this series.]
This is an excerpt from Chapter 21 of the preaching textbook, Introduction to Preaching: Scripture, Theology, and Sermon Preparation, which I co-wrote with Jerry Sumney and Emily Askew.
Using Expository Preaching on Exodus 20:1-6
In the Expository sermon form (also called Exegetical or Puritan Plain Style), the preacher moves through a biblical text to make its meaning plain for the listeners. Some preachers prefer to go verse-by-verse, while others might focus on an important word in a text and explicate that for the listeners.
In general, the outline of an expository or Puritan Plain Style sermon looks like this:
- Introduction
- Exposition of the biblical text
- Theological analysis of the text
- Application of the interpretation of the text
- Conclusion
Round-table sermon
For a sermon on Exodus 20:1-6, a preacher could work through each verse, but with a twist. Before preaching the sermon, the pastor could use a method of engaging the text developed by John S. McClure called “the round-table pulpit.” In this method, the preacher meets with a group of parishioners to study and discuss the passage with the idea that the wisdom and experiences of the members can and should inform the sermon.
This collaborative approach is reflected in the sermon by the use of certain rhetorical techniques that enable the whole congregation to experience the participatory and community-building nature of the dialogue. As McClure puts it, such an approach “implies that members of the community of the Word decide on ways to stand with and for one another by claiming tentative directions of thought and action as God’s Word.” (John S. McClure, The Round-table Pulpit: Where Leadership & Preaching Meet, Nashville: Abingdon, 1995, 24.)
As you read through this hypothetical sermon, think about how you might adapt this round-table approach for your own preaching context.
Sermon: The Big Red, White, and Blue in the Room
Introduction
The aroma of freshly brewed coffee filled the room as chairs scraped across the floor and, one by one, we unbundled ourselves from the evening winter’s chill. The Bibles waited patiently, evenly spaced around the table. We were gathering for our weekly study of the text in preparation for the sermon I would be preaching today.
But there was a special guest that evening. I had brought the U.S. flag down from the sanctuary and set it at the table. It stood silently at attention, gazing down at the Bible in front of it.
There was good-natured teasing about my inviting this guest to the study.
“There you go again, Pastor, being political,” said one.
“Well,” I responded, “if we welcome the flag into our sanctuary, don’t you think we should invite it to our Bible study as well?”
Amidst groans and arched eyebrows, Bibles flipped open to the passage under consideration, Exodus 20:1-6.
Exposition of the biblical text and theological analysis
Before we dove into the text, I gave some historical background about it.
Even though this story takes place on Mt. Sinai just after God leads the Israelites out of Egypt about 1,200 years before the birth of Christ, the book of Exodus was actually written about six hundred years later at a time when the Israelites were captives in the land of Babylon. Their sacred temple had been destroyed. Many of their people had been massacred, and the rest of them were now living in exile in this foreign land. They were forced to worship foreign gods and assimilate to the Babylonian culture.
So, I invited our Bible study group, and I invite you, to think about what this passage might have meant to the Israelites during the Babylonian captivity. Why did they need to hear this story about God giving them what we call the Ten Commandments?
Verse 1: Then God spoke all these words:
As soon as I read verse 1, “Then God spoke all these words,” one person jumped right in with a comment.
“Well, that tells you something right there,” the person said. “It must have been a big deal just to say that God spoke to them.”
We agreed this was an astute theological observation. If God spoke to Moses and gave them these commandments, then they still meant something for the people living in exile. And for us today!
Verse 2: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery
“Isn’t it interesting that God describes himself by what he did for them?” one person asked.
“Right,” I said. “So why is this important for the Israelites living in exile?”
“Because if God did this for them before, God will do it again?” someone suggested.
Heads nodded in agreement.
Verses 3-4: You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
But then we got to the third verse and the sparks started to fly. “I know what you’re going to say next, Pastor,” one person piped up before we even read verse 3. “That’s why you brought this flag down here. You think that the flag is an idol, don’t you?”
I held up my hands in surrender. “I do think that’s the case when it’s used in a religious worship space,” I admitted. “But I’m interested to hear what you all think as well. That’s why I invited you here. I want to know your thoughts about this. Because it’s been bothering me for a long time that we have the flag in the sanctuary. I’ve avoided bringing it up directly, but as I read this text, I’m really concerned about it.”
“Well, I think you’re making too much of it,” said one person. “It’s just a flag. It’s not a god or an idol. We don’t worship it.”
“Don’t we?” asked another. “They say you can tell what people worship by what they spend their money on. And I can tell you our military budget is out of control. We spend more on fighter planes than we do on schools.”
“Yeah, well those fighter planes keep us safe,” said a third person. “You know my son works on those planes as a mechanic for the Air Force and I’m proud of him and what he’s doing for our country. It doesn’t bother me at all to have the flag in the sanctuary. It makes me proud.”
“But does it make God proud?” asked another person. And we all got very quiet.
“Can you say more about that?” I encouraged.
Verse 5: You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me.
“It says right here in verse 5 that God is jealous,” the person explained. “I mean, I think that it’s weird that God would get jealous, because, I mean, it’s God, so why should he care? But apparently he does.”
“I think that’s weird, too,” said someone else, pulling up a Bible app on their phone. “It says here in Chapter 34, verse 14, that even God’s name is Jealous.”
“I guess I’d be jealous, too, if I went to all that trouble to get them out of slavery and they turn right back around and make another god for themselves and worship it,” another person said.
At that point, I reminded them about the situation in Egypt. “Remember that Pharaoh was considered a god who was in charge of all the mini-gods of the sun and the river and even the moon. That’s why Yahweh sent the plagues – to prove that Pharaoh truly had no power.”
“So God was like Toto in the Wizard of Oz, pulling back the curtain on Pharaoh,” one person suggested, and we all laughed.
“Yes!” I said. “Pharaoh wanted everyone to think he was all-powerful. But in fact, no human entity, no human-fashioned idol can come close to the power of God. Yet, if you can convince people you’re the great and powerful Oz, you can get them to obey you, be afraid of you, even kill for you.”
“Sounds a lot like our government,” a voice murmured.
“Bite your tongue!” said another.
“What? It’s true,” the person said in defense. “Think about what our country did bringing slaves over here from Africa. Think about what we did to the Native Americans. That’s what I think about when I look at the flag sometimes. I know it means a lot of positive things to a lot of people. But I can’t get the negative things out of my head either. So I actually don’t think that flag belongs in the church.”
“Not anywhere?” someone challenged.
“Actually, no,” the person replied. “I don’t think the flag belongs in the church at all. Not flying over the parking lot. Not here in the fellowship hall. And certainly not in the sanctuary.”
“What about in the Scout room?” another person asked.
“Well, maybe that’s okay,” the defender conceded.
Verse 6: but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.
At this point I drew the group back to the text. “What about verse 6, which tells us that God shows steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love God and keep God’s commandments. What do we make of that?”
Everyone paused for a moment to think. Then one person observed, “There’s certainly a much better return on our investment from following the commandments than there is from breaking them.”
“Yeah, like a thousand to four,” another added. “I like those odds!”
We all chuckled.
Application of the interpretation of the text
Then our conversation turned back to the flag. “Well, Pastor, what do you think our ‘guest’ has to say about all this? It’s been pretty quiet this whole time.”
“Well, personally, I think the flag would be hurt if we took it out of the sanctuary. That’s where it’s always been. It’s tradition!” said one.
“More than hurt,” said another. “If I was the flag, I would be pretty angry. I’d feel very disrespected if I was removed from the sanctuary. I feel like this whole conversation is unpatriotic.”
“But that’s the thing,” said a third person. “A church sanctuary isn’t supposed to be the place where we honor the flag. It’s supposed to be the place where we worship God. There are plenty of other places where the flag can and should be displayed and honored. But church shouldn’t be one of them.”
“I just don’t see why we can’t have both,” was the response. “You can love God and love your country. And I can tell you if that flag gets moved, you’re gonna have a big fight on your hands.”
“Hold on,” I said. “No one’s saying we’re going to move the flag.”
“Yeah, this isn’t worth fighting about,” someone added.
“Maybe it is,” another person countered. “Maybe this is something worth fighting about. Well, not fighting, but at least having the discussion like we’re having now. I mean, God wants to show us steadfast love. Isn’t God’s love worth having this discussion?”
Conclusion
At that point the coffee cups were drained and so were we. “This has been a really good and really important discussion,” I said to the group. “I’m proud of all of you for engaging this text and being welcoming to our guest.”
“So where do we go from here?” one person asked.
“That’s a good question,” I said. “And it’s one that I will pose to the congregation when I preach this sermon.”
So, where do we go from here?
Where does God want us to go from here? Do we keep talking? Perhaps expand the conversation? Or do we say, we’ve talked enough and it’s time for action? Do we do something different now? Or, should we not change a thing?
What do we think the Israelites would say to us standing at the foot of the mountain looking back over their shoulder to the land that had enslaved them? What do we think the Israelites in captivity would say with the Babylonian flag hung from every home, every government building, every sports stadium, and looming over the spot where their Temple once stood?
Better yet, let’s ask our guest. [Moving to the flag and addressing it directly.] So tell us: where do we go from here? Where do you go from here?
I would encourage us to keep talking and to keep listening – to each other, to the Bible, to the flag, and, most importantly, to God.
Amen.
Reflection on the sermon strategy
As we noted earlier, this version of the expository form diverges from the traditional verse-by-verse format. This was intentional in order to draw the listeners into the sermon through a story about the dialogue rather than a dry exegetical exercise or using a “preachy” tone.
The sermon still provided the necessary exegetical information, and the sequence proceeded in order through the verses. But by setting the stage with descriptive language (the aroma of coffee, the scrape of the chairs, the Bibles waiting patiently, the flag standing at attention), and by recounting the drama of the discussion, the expository form becomes a lively narrative instead of a scholarly treatise.
Finally, a word about the ending of the sermon that included the question posed to the flag, “Where do you go from here?”
There are different schools of thought about whether it is appropriate to end a sermon with a question (which we discuss in Chapter 22 of Introduction to Preaching).
But because this was a “roundtable” sermon that included different perspectives, ending with the question was intentional, in the sense that it allowed the listeners to provide their own answer to the question posed to the flag instead of imposing a final, authoritative conclusion.
Also, the ending was in keeping with the Central Purpose, which was to initiate a conversation about what it means to worship the God of Israel so that we can speak honestly about fulfilling the commandment not to worship other gods. Ending with a question was a way to rhetorically invite further thinking and conversation.
More information about countering Christian Nationalism
Faithful America has put together a very helpful collection of preaching resources and sample prayers as part of a toolkit to equip clergy and congregations to counter the toxic effects of Christian Nationalism and to bear witness for peace and love. These resources work well in the lead up to Flag Day, as well as for the week of Independence Day. To access the toolkit, sign up here.
Read the other sermons in this series exploring flag placement in the church through preaching:
U.S. Flag in the Church? Preaching on Patriotic Holidays
Flagging the Flag – Idolatry and Freedom: Preaching Exodus 20:1-6
This Flag Has Legs: A Sermon Inviting Dialogue about Flag Placement in Church
Read also:
Flag Placement in Church: How to Have the Conversation
The Rev. Dr. Leah D. Schade is the Associate Professor of Preaching and Worship at Lexington Theological Seminary in Kentucky and ordained in the ELCA. Dr. Schade does not speak for LTS or the ELCA; her opinions are her own. She is the author of Preaching in the Purple Zone: Ministry in the Red-Blue Divide (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019) and Creation-Crisis Preaching: Ecology, Theology, and the Pulpit (Chalice Press, 2015). She is the co-editor of Rooted and Rising: Voices of Courage in a Time of Climate Crisis (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019). Her newest book is Introduction to Preaching: Scripture, Theology, and Sermon Preparation, co-authored with Jerry L. Sumney and Emily Askew (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023).
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