True Allegiance

“They live in their own native lands, but as aliens; as citizens they share all things with others; but like aliens, suffer all things… Every foreign country is to them as their native country, and every native land as a foreign country…”

Living as I do in the midst of so much Christian nationalism, in which to be un-Christian means to be un-American (and vice versa), these sentences hit me with a blunt force. How it restored my hope, to read such a clear statement that we follow and serve a King whose suffering love extends to all peoples, and that as his followers we are to be known for the same.

“They are passing their days on earth, but are citizens of heaven. They obey the appointed laws, and go beyond the laws in their own lives.”

In my History of Christianity class (which is where I came across this “Letter to Diognetus” in the first place), the teacher remarked that while Rome had many gods, Rome’s real god was Rome.

Rome’s gods were subservient to the Rome’s dreams and Rome’s thirsts, Rome’s lusts and Rome’s rages; and Rome allowed people to keep their gods as long as they swore allegiance to the idea of Rome and the strength of its legions.

During the 2nd and 3rd centuries, Christians were singled out for persecution because they believed it was Christ (and not the empire) who would bring healing and peace to the world.

My question for today is simply this, and I ask it sincerely and with all seriousness:

Do we believe in America more than we believe in Jesus?

Do we believe in America more than we believe in Jesus?

In our pride and our hurt and our “strength” we have declared that we will love those who love us, and hate those that hate us. We blunder across the stage of the world swinging futile arms. We work ourselves into frenzied tangle swinging at that which cannot be fought with human powers. We try to douse fire with kerosene, as if believing it to be water.

Is it in the strength of men that we place our hope?

Can the gun and the sword and bomb bring us salvation?

No, our salvation is found in the cross, and in the way of the cross, and in the Spirit that gives us the strength to walk that path in love, in union with Christ our Savior and our Friend.

Babylon Besieged

(note: I actually didn’t mean to post this on the anniversary of 9/11. I didn’t write the poem with 9/11 specifically in mind and I did a double-take when I noticed this morning that I had posted it by accident on the hallowed date. Nevertheless, in a more general way I did write the poem in dialogue with a world that is filled with violence, that has been made weary and frayed by too many wars and bombings and genocides and lynchings and disappearings. It is in this world that I hold out my hands to Christ and ask him to give me a new song to play.)

Babylon Besieged

Children starve and nobles dance
But the poor weep
While we cannot
And I
I am a rich young ruler
Who has never known what it means to be alive
Though perhaps now
I am beginning to learn.

In such a world
I could have sung a brazen song, pretending
Life like a prop against the gate
Of Babylon besieged
But why
Should I disguise the sting of your poison?
My bloody heart.

I remember a day when
Golden sunlight anointed the dust
And I saw our future written in the clouds
The bombs fell so slowly
That the children played in the patterns
Of their shadows on the rooftops.
We have lived with death
And forgotten its meaning.
We have lived without life
And forgotten our purpose.

Today was born in smoke
I can’t see the city- I can’t see the street
Nevertheless, life has always been beyond my reach
And that is why I’m kneeling on the gravel
Here and now Friend
Reaching out my hands to you.
Will you fill them overflowing
With foolishness?
With a life I’ve never had?
I dream of a life
My city cannot understand
But I’ve heard your call
And I pray to you
Give me a heart.

My faith is kneeling in the bloody city
Beyond the irreversible stutters
And statics of the bullets
Of shells bursting in air
Beyond the dollars and dusts that numb the scars
Of souls malnourished
And overcoming all lonely tears and propaganda fliers
And overflowing dumps and empty hearts
Love cries a new song
Triumphant in death but never dying.

My Irreplaceable Friend,
In you I play a new song
Because you are the breath
That moves in me to love.
Here in Babylon the besieged
You are my breath
You are my love
You pick me up off the pavement
You set me on my feet again.
And for that
You have my love
And my devotion forever.