Dueling Prophets on the Fourth of July: Jeremiah 28

More monumental foolishness and dangerous demagoguery are uttered on July 4 in this country than on any other day of the year. Politicians elbow one another out of the way to spew all manner of patriotic gibberish, one upping one another as they troll for popularity and votes from hot-dog munching, coke-drinking or beer-swilling ordinary folks, glad for the day off. Millions of our fellow citizens are coated with blather about “the greatest country on earth,” “the last best hope of creation,” “the shining city on a hill,” blah, blah, blah. If I sound cynical, I fear I am, when it comes to these mountebanks of the lectern, these pariahs of the microphone. It is more than enough to give a girl indigestion and nausea, bringing on extra doses of Alka-Seltzer and Tums.

And those are just the politicians! What about the preachers? Far too many of the American clergy have so confused themselves and their parishioners about the matter of the separation of church and state that on “Fourth of July Sunday” (the designation itself runs close to blasphemy!) church goers are confronted with uniforms and flags, the sanctuary awash with “patriotic” hymns, the sermons more like political speech than Christian proclamation. In a church I served as interim minister, it was the custom that every Sunday, after the offering was taken, that an American flag led the ushers down the aisle while the congregation sang the fourth verse of “God Bless America.” And on the fourth of July (I was no longer pastor when that day occurred), I can only imagine what sort of confusing pseudo-patriotic shenanigans went on! I shudder to think!

Does it not astonish you that American flags continue to adorn our sacred spaces? And did you know that every Sunday the vast majority of those sanctuaries are breaking a long-held secular law, a law that states clearly that no displayed flag shall ever be raised above or stand at equal level with the American flag? Look it up! In most of those sanctuaries the Christian flag stands level at least with Old Glory, a clear violation of a legal statute. Notwithstanding that criminal act, the American flag should have no place in a Christian sanctuary. We gather to worship the God of all nations, not the tribal God of America.

Of course, the idea that America was founded by Puritans fleeing religious persecution enshrined in our original DNA both the significance of religion in the state as well as the sharp connections between the church and the state. In other words, the confusion I noted above about how church and state relate is part and parcel of the American thing. Little wonder we are still confused about it all!

And the Bible can only add to the confusion since in ancient Israel there was no such separation; the state was propped up by the “church,” and the “church” was often an arm of the state. Just listen to Amos 7’s description of the church of Bethel as “the king’s sanctuary.” That is a report of the 8^th century BCE, and that leads us to the remarkable account of the prophetic Super Bowl between Jeremiah and Hananiah in Jer. 28. We all know of Jeremiah, but only the Bible trivia expert can name Hananiah. Yet, he must have been a significant figure of his day, and was clearly an apologist for the last king of Judah, Zedekiah. The initial assault against Judah by the armies of the Babylonians in 597BCE had placed Zedekiah on the Judean throne as a Babylonian puppet. Some leaders have been exiled to the Babylonian capital, while many have stayed in Jerusalem.

In the “fifth month of the fourth year” of Zedekiah’s reign, thus in 593BCE, the fight to understand the Babylonian control of the world is raging. Hananiah is convinced that the exile is only a short-term event; it will last merely two years. This sounds very much like a man who is trying to assuage fears as well as curry favor with the state. Jeremiah’s response to such unfounded hope is scathing; “I hope that what you say is true, Hananiah, about peace in our time, but I am afraid the exile will be long and arduous.” Jeremiah in the face of the power of the state must speak the truth as he sees it. It is obvious that if Jeremiah pastored a church, there would be no Judean flag in his sanctuary!

 On this day in our yearly calendar, we must resist with all we have the collapsing of our belief in God with our love of country. Of course we may love our country as the great place it can be, but it can never become for us an echo of or a replacement for our love and honoring of God. Let this Fourth of July be a celebration of the courage and justice that our nation strives to embody. But may it not be a flag-waving, chest-thumping shout of America’s greatness with the help of our old buddy, the American God. There is no American God, only the God of all, all creation.