Luke 12:49-56
October 7, 2001
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church of San Francisco.
You see it everywhere today. On storefront windows, living room windows, taped on the back windshield of cars. And now the US Postal Service unveiled this past week a new first-class 34 cent stamp of an American flag with the words, “United We Stand.” After suffering the worst enemy attack on American soil since 1812, we find ourselves forgoing all previous divisions like Republicans and Democrats and say under the red, white, and blue, “United We Stand.”
After the attacks on America on September 11th, I placed one of our little American flags that we have used for our July 4th party in the front window. Maybe I was afraid of anti-Asian scapegoating or perhaps after seeing the horror on TV, I too had this desire to say to our neighbors that we are indeed united during this time of national crisis.
Since September 11th, it has been very difficult to preach on God’s word without thinking about what America is going through right now. I have told myself that I want to preach a message of hope, but I find myself preaching about warning. I want to preach about the love of God but I wonder if God has enough room in his heart to love the terrorists. I want to preach about a tomorrow’s future but I can’t get out of yesterday’s nightmares.
So the only way I know how to preach God’s word is to preach it from where my heart is today. And I only pray that the events that have so dramatically changed our world have also led you to be opened to what I have to say this morning.
Normally as Baptists we don’t like to mix religion with politics. But today I will. When we say together at the end of praying the Lord’s Prayer, “For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever,” we are talking about politics. Saying the Lord’s Prayer is like training in how Christians can become involved in politics.
Pledge Allegiance
Jesus was called the ‘Messiah’ by his followers. It means the anointed one, the one who is sent to rule over us. When we say that all kingdoms, power, and glory belong to our Father in heaven, we make a pledge of allegiance to God the King and his kingdom and throw all our other allegiances to the side.
If we would to take a trip to Washington, DC, you will see this world’s kingdom, power, and glory done in marble and granite. There, as in the capitol of any nation, you would find the principalities and the powers embodied in sculptural and architectural grandeur. Everything is bigger than it needs to be. And with granite, it makes it appear to be eternal.
Thomas Jefferson, in the Jefferson Memorial, is made to look like a god. Abraham Lincohn’s lap is so big that I can sit on it. Our nation’s wars are transformed into crusades. The Declaration of Independence becomes scripture.
When the Pentagon was attacked and one of the five sections burned and collapsed this highly classified building was not just where the country’s military worked, it was also a national shrine. One of our symbols of glory and power was on fire.
The World Trade Center Towers conveyed even more of our understanding of America’s power in the world. It was once the tallest in the world. It symbolized America’s economic power unmatched by anyone else in the world. And when the towers collapsed, we felt that our kingdom, power, and glory were no more.
One of the reasons why we are still so upset about September 11th is that our pledge of allegiance to the country’s symbols of kingdom, power, and glory is being challenged. And when we say together the Lord’s Prayer, we see that as Christians we have a problem with all of that.
Kingdom, Power, and Glory
The words, “kingdom,” “power,” and “glory,” are risky and dangerous words. The world loves these words. Kings build their kingdoms and defend them with extreme intensity. They use politics to exercise their power. And when they have tremendous power, they have glory that everyone pledges allegiance to.
Now in America we might say we don’t have a king. We have “power of the people, power for the people.” We say we live in a democracy. But do not make the mistake of thinking that because democracy has made us kings over ourselves, that the church’s quarrel with politics has been resolved.
Modern history has demonstrated that democracies are every bit as extreme as dictatorships in defending themselves. Within our short lifetimes, we have participated in many wars, seen many deaths, and read too many horrible headlines.
The crime rate in the United States suggests that modern democracy, by making each of us kings, gods unto ourselves, has devised a uniquely violent form of government and society. Our careless attitude about what our neighbor’s needs are has produced alienation and fragmentation in the fabric of modern life.
And let’s be honest. We all would like a little glory—that 15–minute of fame that we all deserve. We all long for moments when we shine, when we rise above the crowd and radiate success and achievement. There was a time when carrying an American passport meant that you can rise above the crowd because you are a citizen of the most powerful country in the world.
God’s Kingdom, Power, and Glory
When some ministers pray the Lord’s Prayer, they seem to suggest that America is a “Christian” nation and the horrible events on September 11 are the result of God punishing America. I take issue with this line of thinking because I don’t believe that when Jesus taught us to say, “Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory,” he met the United States. Today we are swimming against much of this stream of American theology.
In today’s gospel, Luke 12, Jesus has set his face toward Jerusalem. He is moving toward his final confrontation with the powers of this world. When Jesus was born, old Simeon prophesied that this Jesus would be the occasion for the “falling and the rising of many in Israel” (Lk. 2:34). Despite the peace that surrounded Jesus’ birth, our gospel today speaks about an urgent warning of what is to come.
Jesus said he would kindle fire on the earth to judge and define what’s going on. He mentions the baptism he received from John as well as his approaching baptism on the cross. To follow Jesus means that you have to choose. Jesus calls us to choose discipleship that would cause hard choices including divisions in the things that we hold dearly.
Of all the social units, the family was the most tightly knit of Jesus’ and Luke’s societies. A person’s family gave one a history and a place in the social order—an identity. That glory and fame we seek. The more highly placed one’s family was, the more important it was to preserve its integrity. You see, your family gives you prestige, power, and glory. Jesus is saying that if you choose God’s ways, it would lead to the breaking up of your power and glory for a new community to emerge.
To follow Jesus means that we break up our pledge of allegiance to our country’s way of “kingdom, power, and glory” to make way for a new community. Jesus confronts those who are up high, in power and glory. He comes, as one who is nonviolent, peaceful, but by the time the story is over, he will have defeated those who thought themselves to be omnipotent.
Jesus didn’t bring glory to himself. He brought glory to God. When we pray “For thine is the kingdom, the power, the glory,” we give glory to God not to ourselves. Paul writes in Philippians 2:5-11,
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
In his life and death, Jesus transformed our definition of “glory.” He showed us that glory comes from being in obedience to the will of God, even when that obedience meant suffering and shame. When Jesus speaks of “glory,” he is talking about a different sort of glory than that of the world.
Now that the shock of September 11th is fading from our memories, we are now confronted with the question of what is America’s response. The United States firepower is unmatched by any country on the earth. If we wanted to, we could annihilate bin Laden, the Taliban, and Afghanistan off the face of the map. The kingdom of America is powerful and glory emanates from it. Today I pray that we continue to practice restraint and patience. To have so much power amassed in the coalition forged by President Bush and his staff means that we can be patient. Our Christian response is to bring to justice those who committed such heinous crimes and to protect all others who are innocent. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we are mixing religion with politics.
The Kingdom is Now
Finally, the Lord’s Prayer says that this kingdom of God, this power of God, this glory of God, reconceived in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, is “now and forever.” This kingdom for which we pray is not “pie in the sky.” The kingdom is now. We don’t need to wait to participate in the glory of God. In Christ, the kingdom of God has been brought near to us.
In Luke, Jesus said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain’; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens.” What Jesus is saying here is that everyone should know by now how to read the signs of what is about to happen. We are ‘hypocrites’ when we say that we can’t see what’s going on with God’s kingdom that is so self-evident in Jesus. God is calling us as Christians to become familiar with the issues confronting our nation today and to bear witness of Jesus Christ as King of kings, Lord of lords and that God shall reign forever, and ever.
In Christ, the kingdom of God has been brought near to us. Usually, the kingdom of God is known to us only in glimpses. On Sunday, in worship, there are those wonderful moments when we know the kingdom is in its fullness. You come forward for communion, your hands empty, your life empty, and, in blessed bread and wine, you are filled. We know that the kingdom of God is here.
You stand before the Lord with some people you know very well and with some you are meeting for the very first time. But at the table of the Lord, we turn to the left and we turn to the right and say, “The peace of God be with you.” Suddenly, these people are no longer strangers but sisters and brothers, members of your family. We know that the kingdom of God is here.
Yet we pray “your kingdom come” and we pray “now and forever.” The kingdom is here, but not yet in its fullness. The kingdom is now, but also still coming. The Church can be
the foretaste of the kingdom of God, but the no church is the kingdom of God. Evil is still present, pain is pain, and tragedy is tragedy. God is not finished with us or the world yet. We are on the way, but we have not yet arrived at the end of our journey. By the grace of God, there is more.
In Christ We Stand
Today we are all displaying our American flags and saying that “United We Stand.” But this pledge of allegiance to America is not the allegiance that Jesus taught us to give. America is not God’s kingdom! When we follow Jesus, our faith means that we give allegiance to God’s kingdom, power, and glory.
God’s kingdom is breaking out when the poor are lifted up and the rich are sent away. God’s kingdom is erupting when the hungry get food. God’s kingdom is happening when Americans in obedience to God’s will think long and hard about retaliation and revenge even in light of the suffering and death caused to so many on September 11th. God’s kingdom is coming when a poor unmarried pregnant woman named Mary sings about the victory of God, the folks in the Pentagon, the Kremlin, and Ten Downing Street call out the troops. The kingdom of God is at hand when our congregation prays, “yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory,” Willie Brown and the people in City Hall ought to get nervous.
The church exists to sign, to signal, to sing about the tensions whereby those who are on the bottom are being lifted up and those who are on top are being sent down.
United we may stand as Americans still mourning over the lost of loved ones on September 11th, but it is in Christ that we stand to know that God is love in even the shadows of the valley of death.
United we may stand as Americans to disrupt the Taliban and capture the terrorists, but it is standing with Christ who comes into our lives to disrupt our allegiances and causes fathers to be against sons, and daughters to be against mothers, and in-laws to be against in-laws.
United we may stand as Americans to solve the evil of terrorism in the world, but when we are in Christ, we are able to stand today to work for peace because God’s kingdom, power, and glory is yet to come in its fullness.
We are not satisfied with the present arrangements, not at home in this world, not content with what we have. We want more. Our appetite for the living God has been whetted with a bit of bread and a sip of wine, and we want more. This is the reason why we have for you this afternoon the 2002 Proposed Budget. There is going to be a new year coming and we want to eat bread and drink wine next year.
By God’s grace, we shall have more. More than what America can offer. We shall feast at that great banquet open to all ages, nations, and peoples.
Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. And he shall reign forever and ever. Amen.
Let us pray. O Mighty and Powerful God, forgive us when we pledge our allegiance to this world. Teach us to seek your truth and to know your will. For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, yesterday, today, tomorrow, and forever. Amen.