Learning from a Foreigner

We Americans think we’re so smart. While non-Americans often love the idea of America, they’re not so wild about Americans. They consider us loud and arrogant. You know why? Because Americans tend to be loud and arrogant. God has blessed me with the opportunity to see various places in the world. It’s usually easy to pick out the Americans that are there. They’re the loud ones. They’re the ones who seem to carry a sense of entitlement to whatever they want: attention, service, a better bargain, respect, deferential treatment, an expectation that the whole world should speak English. Nothing personal here, but compared to others in the world, Americans do tend to be loud and arrogant.

And that’s a shame because there is so much we could learn if we’d shut the heck up and listen to those outside of our culture and our country. Travel to Latin America or Africa, and if you’re paying attention you’ll learn that time should be our servant rather than our master. That’s a hard lesson to learn for those of us who live by the clock, on the clock, and with a clock on our wrist when we’re awake and by our bed when we’re asleep. But instead of learning such a helpful truth, we Americans tend to categorize the non-time-conscious as lazy or unfocused or ignorant. And we arrogantly pronounce that judgment as we pop a couple of heart pills and swig our ulcer medicine. We can learn a thing or two from foreigners.

Just yesterday, one of my Russian friends preached in the church that I serve. His name is Pavel Ruseev. He’s really good at Russian but barely speaks a lick of English. He’s a pastor in Russia with a great vision to plant churches in a nation that doesn’t have a church on every corner or even in every town. I met him a couple of years ago in Russia and bonded with him immediately. He’s young, he’s passionate, he’s entrepreneurial, and he’s trying to do God’s work in a culture that’s blowing a 100 mph wind in his face no matter which direction he turns. I don’t see how he does this and keeps his sanity at the same time. Must be God’s grace. Anyway, he preached a very fine sermon yesterday on Jesus’ great commandment to love God and love others. But I don’t want to talk about his sermon; I want to talk about the three things he said that have stood out to him about American culture in the month or so he’s been here.

Pavel said he is amazed at the size of food portions in our restaurants. In Russia, a little dab will do you. In America, load up the plate—“Can you use a bigger serving spoon, please?” “Super-size that for me, would you?” My first thought was that he wouldn’t be quite so surprised about the size of food portions in America if he would just look at the size of so many Americans. We don’t miss many meals and we usually go back for seconds. Geez … who knows what Pavel might have thought had he visited an all-you-can-eat buffet! So many in the world are hungry, and we keep piling it on the plate. Pavel didn’t seem offended by this, more amazed really. But it kind of offended me. We Americans could do better, you know. I could do better. Eat a little less, share a little more, care about the hungry and find ways to help.

Here’s a second thing that stood out to Pavel: Americans do so much of life without having to get out of the car. He said, “You go to a restaurant, and you don’t have to get out of your car to get your food. You go to the bank, and you don’t have to get out of the car to do your business. In Fayetteville, I went to a movie and didn’t have to get out of the car to see it. I was in Arkansas a week-and-a-half before I took my first walk.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him that there are a few places in America he could even go to church without getting out of the car. Pavel’s right, you know. He lives in a culture that relies on public transportation and shoe leather. Only the more well-to-do can afford a personal car; everybody else walks or takes the bus. And if you take a bus you’ve still got to walk some distance to the bus stop. He talked about his grandmother who used to walk to the nearest church every weekend. It was 45 miles away. She left on Saturday and returned home late Sunday evening. “You do everything from your car,” he said. I’m just glad he didn’t ride with somebody who drove around a Walmart parking lot for ten minutes just trying to get the spot closest to the door. Even though getting plenty of exercise is not a problem for me, his comments made me want to use my body more and my machine less.

Pavel then said that the third thing that stuck out to him about American culture is this: so many, many churches. He had no idea. Oh, he knew America was far more churched than Russia, but he had no idea that there really was a church on almost every corner. This observation struck me at a deep level. On the one hand, I was grieved for Russia and the need for more gospel witness, more churches, more communities of faith for a people so in need of Christ. On the other hand, I was grieved for America: so many churches, so little gospel witness; so many churches, so few devoted disciples of Jesus; so many churches, so little impact on our culture, so little assistance to the poor and those in need—and why? Maybe it’s because we’re more about glitz than God’s glory, more about entertainment than worship, more about self than others, more about “our church” than God’s kingdom. Most American Christians see the church as an organization they can use to make their life a little better rather than as the bride and body of Christ which forms me as a disciple of Jesus and sends me into the world in His name and for His glory. How else can you explain the disparity between the number of churches and the lack of influence? Pavel’s words stirred in me a desire to be a better pastor, to love and serve Christ’s church more deeply and encourage others to do the same.

So forgive me, God, for being an arrogant American who thinks I know more than folks from other cultures. And thank you, Pavel, for teaching me a thing or two about my own culture. I’ve always wanted to be a lifelong learner—even when that learning comes through a foreigner.

God of the Nations—Even Ours

As we once again celebrate the birth of our nation and our blood-bought independence, I want to share Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address—perhaps the most theologically reflective address in the history of the U.S. presidency. Other presidents were known to call the nation in prayer during trying times. Franklin Roosevelt even led the nation in prayer on D-Day, June 6, 1944. Bill Clinton was fond of including numerous Bible references in his many speeches. On the campaign trail, Jimmy Carter stirred new interest in Jesus’ phrase “born again.”

Religion is nothing new to American life. Our Founders spoke often of God and Christ and freely quoted Bible verses. It’s no secret that many of our national monuments are inscribed with quotations from the Bible, and that most public oaths are taken with a hand on the Bible and end with “so help me God.” Even as late as the 1950s, America was very public in our God-talk and God-dependence, adopting the phrase “In God We Trust” (which had been on our coinage since 1864) as our national motto in 1956. Two years earlier, in 1954, the phrase “under God” was added to our Pledge of Allegiance. I’m a firm believer in the separation of church and state, but for some reason our Founders and a majority of Americans up through the 1950s never seemed to find that these kinds of things violated either that cherished American principle or the constitution. It’s only been in the last 50 or so years that the tide has been moving in the direction of expunging God from public life as much as possible.

Of course, one problem with these connections of the United States and God is that we will develop a kind of civil religion which is usually both civil and religious but not Christian. You know civil religion when you see it: perfunctory prayers at civic gatherings, the singing of God Bless America, the view that America is God’s chosen nation, that God loves America more than He loves other nations, the idea that American citizenship equates to being a Christian. Civil religion tends to wrap the Bible in the flag and employ the church to make patriots rather than disciples. This is dangerous for the nation and the church, and it's one reason why as a pastor I’ve never been one to lead patriotic services of worship. In fact, I believe the American flag belongs in the foyer, not the sanctuary. I just don’t think the church’s mission is to advance the cause of America. Doing so tends to stir a nationalism that borders on idolatry. And besides, Christian values and American values don’t always coincide. As Christians, we’re certainly to seek the peace of our own nation, but our concern, like God’s, is for all nations.

With all that said, here’s Lincoln’s second inaugural address. (Thank you, Library of Congress.) He gave it on March 4, 1865. Two things happened within a month of the speech: the Civil War finally ended and Lincoln was assassinated. You could say these were his last words. And what words they were! Lincoln had the audacity to speak of God's judgment on our nation. Has any public official ever wrestled with America and her faith in the Christian God more eloquently, boldly, or profoundly than Lincoln did in this address? And in the midst of our contemporary national sins and what seem to be the judgments of God on our nation, could any words be more timely?

_____________

At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention, and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it--all sought to avert it. While the inaugeral [sic] address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war--seeking to dissole [sic] the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.

One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether"

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

Old Glory

On June 14, 1777, the Second Continental Congress authorized the United States of America to adopt a flag to represent the new nation. And while President Woodrow Wilson called for the celebration of the American flag on June 14, 1916, it wasn’t until 1949 that Congress declared June 14 to be national Flag Day every year.

But you’d hardly know it. Flag Day is on most calendars but it is not a national holiday. The government conducts business, banks are open, the postal service is still going to deliver your mail. Groundhog Day gets more press than Flag Day. Perhaps if Flag Day had a living symbol, like Punxsutawney Phil, rather than a piece of cloth, Flag Day would get a little more hype.

But in some ways, that red, white, and blue piece of cloth we call our flag is a living symbol. At least it is for me. It lives in my present as I see it flapping in the breeze over a few local businesses, at the post office, and even on one of those stubby little poles people set into a small bracket on their front porch. I also see it a few times each week in the form of a pin tacked to someone’s lapel. (This being an election year and all, I see it on lapels more than usual.) And of course, you can’t watch a sporting event on TV without seeing the flag and listening to some celebrity sing The Star Spangled Banner before the first pitch or the kickoff or the opening tip. So the flag lives in my present.

And it lives in my past through my memories. There are pictures in my mind that are filled with the flag.

• The thrill in elementary school of getting to raise and lower the flag for a week, handling it as if it were a precious, fragile family heirloom (and it is).

• The first time I saw the flag flying at half-mast. I saw it flying that way at my school after John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I was only in the second grade at the time and didn’t understand all that was going on, but that flag at half-mast told me that something wasn’t right.

• Then there’s Neil Armstrong and company planting the flag on the moon.

• Newsreels in the late ‘60s of protesters setting fire to the flag in anger over the war or politics or who knows what. I’d be less than honest if I didn’t say that seeing those images set me on fire a little bit too. I couldn’t understand why anyone would do such a thing. I still don’t. I could understand angry Iranians burning our flag when they took our people hostage in 1979, but our own citizens setting it ablaze? Go figure.

• I remember the first picture I saw of my older brother after he joined the Marine Corps. There he was in his uniform and behind him, the American flag he had sworn to defend with his life. It made me proud.

• Who can forget the flag planted and waving on the ruins of the World Trade Center in 2001, and then the miniature flags displayed on countless cars and trucks in the months after 9/11?

• Or the numerous flag-draped coffins rolling off those massive military transport planes during times of war.

• And on a more personal note, I have often stood next to flag-draped coffins at graveside services I officiated. Retired soldiers folding it with such reverence, the slow-motion salute as they present it to the family, the ear-ringing 21 rifle shots, and the playing of Taps.

• What about the flag raised behind an American athlete who just won Olympic gold and the tears in her eyes as she mouths the words to our national anthem?

• Then there’s the first flag I see when I get off the plane that brought me home from some mission point in Africa or Russia or Europe or Latin America. It reminds me that I’m home.

I could go on—so many images and memories of the flag. I hope my memories have sparked some of your own. America has never been a perfect country, and there are plenty of things wrong in our country today, but through it all the flag sort of ties us together. It remains, in spite of our many differences, an enduring symbol of freedom, hope, and opportunity.

So on this Flag Day, I want to salute Old Glory one more time. And I want to say, “Thank you, God, for our nation, for our flag, for those who have sacrificed to keep it flying high, and for all it means to each of us.” It may not be a Hallmark holiday, we’re not waiting to hear if some animal saw his shadow, and there won’t be any office parties to celebrate or gifts to exchange, but it’s a meaningful day nonetheless. Happy Flag Day, everyone!

The 2010 National Day of Prayer

I just finished attending our Hot Springs National Day of Prayer service at the Convention Center. A bunch of people crowded in a small room and beseeched the Almighty for mercy and favor on our nation. (I’m sorry if that last sentence sounds a bit pious for me, but I did just come from the event.)

The conveners said at the service that this was the 60th anniversary of the Day of Prayer. I’ve been in the pastorate for 29 of those “days” and I’ve never been to one of these things before. Here’s why: based on who was putting them together I always figured (right or wrong) it was more of a political rally than a prayer meeting. Now I’m not opposed to Christians being active in politics, but political action has just never been my bag. A lot of church members over the years have tried to make it my bag, but I’ve stubbornly resisted, telling them that unless God leads me to take up that banner, I’m not taking it up. If they want to do that—more power to them. But I have never felt any Spirit-promptings in that direction.

In fact, I’ve never even been comfortable with the American flag in a Christian sanctuary or with those big blow-out patriotic services so many churches have around July 4. As I read the New Testament, Jesus said the church’s mission is to make disciples, not patriots. I’m certainly not against patriotism. I do love our country, and I cast my ballot when the voting times come. But God has given me a job that transcends geographical boundaries and political agendas. He’s called me to be an ambassador for Christ and His kingdom. So I try to put my focus there.

Anyway, when asked to participate this year, I told the woman who asked me that if the event was really just a political rally in disguise, I wasn’t interested. I talk politics with close friends, but I’m not interested in going public in that regard or in aligning myself with a group that’s pushing any particular political agenda or candidate. She assured me it was only about prayer. So I said yes. I had to leave the service a bit early so I didn’t get to stay for the whole thing, but I do appreciate the heart and the spirit of those who offered their prayers to God in behalf of our nation. Their prayers encouraged me and challenged me to be more fervent in praying for our nation.

Each pastor who prayed was assigned a topic: youth, media, branches of government, our city; you get the idea. I was assigned a more general topic: “Prayer for America.” I spent time this week praying through what I would say to God in such a public setting, hoping that it would be a prayer and not a sermon (occupational hazard, you know). My prayer sure didn’t sound as fervent as some of the other prayers today—I pray kind of quietly and reserved. But I trust I gave God back words He gave to me. So on this National Day of Prayer, I offered these words to the God who hears our prayers. If these words help you find your own words to pray for our nation, then I’m grateful.

__________

We praise you, our Father, because you are a great God. You spread out the heavens like a tent and rest your feet on the earth like a stool. You are sovereign over the whole wide world. You do anything you chose to do, any time you chose to do it, without seeking the counsel of any of us. Nothing happens that takes you by surprise. You know everything there is to know. You are the one true God. There is no one greater. You are God and we praise you.

Forgive us when we forget just how great you are. Forgive us when we ascribe supreme power to the kings and rulers of this world, forgetting that the only power they have is the power you give them. They are but drops in a bucket to you. You set them in place, and with the puff of your breath, you can inflate them to glorious heights or blow them away like chaff. So forgive us when we consider the trying times in our nation and forget that those are not the hands of world leaders on the wheel of history; your hands are on that wheel. You are large and in charge, so forgive us when we live in panic instead of in the peace that passes understanding. In these confusing times, we need you, Father. We pant for you as a deer pants for water. And so on this Day of Prayer for our nation we come to you in humility and need.

We thank you for our nation. You have been kind and patient with us beyond measure. Were we to count our blessings we would need more than a day of prayer, we’d need a lifetime.

• You have blessed us with freedom.

• You have sent rain and sun in such proportion that farmers have crops in the field, grocers have food on their shelves, and families have dinner on their tables. And thank you that even with all that there is still enough food to feed the needy in both our nation and the world.

• And thank you also for a government that allows every citizen a voice and an opportunity to be a change agent for good.

Thank you, Lord, for these good gifts.

We also give you thanks today for brave men and women who have gone before us and for those on the battlefield and the home front even now who have paid or are paying the highest price for our freedom. We are debtors to them all. Thank you so much for those who “more than self their country loved, and mercy more than life.” Watch over them and bless them today. We thank you, too, for visionary leaders and unselfish citizens who have served well and sacrificed much for our country in every avenue of life. And we thank you that we have used many of our blessings to bless so many others in need around the world. We are so thankful for our country.

But we confess, our Father, that all is not well. You have given us freedom and we have turned it into license where many do what is right in their own eyes. The moral decay so evident in places high and low betrays our freedoms and raises a fist to your face.

• You have given us amazing natural and financial resources and we have been greedy for more, wasteful with what we have, and arrogant about it all.

• You have given us a society built on the family unit and we have forsaken our vows, broken our promises, and broken our children to pursue selfish ends.

• Forgive us also when we have made truth a casualty, sex a god, and the value of human life dependent upon convenience rather than principle.

Our nation’s sins are legion, Father. Please, forgive us, and would you cast out Legion once again? Help us to repent in dust and ashes.

And your church is not guiltless either. Forgive your church in this nation when we contribute to the problem rather than the solution by living and behaving no differently than those who don’t even claim to know and love and follow you. Help us repent in dust and ashes too.

You teach us in your Word that you put leaders in place and that we are to pray for them, so we pray for them today. Would you please give them common sense and a great big dose of your wisdom so that they will govern wisely and well? And we pray other things for them too.

• Would you help them to seek the good of the state above personal gain, party favor, and private ambition?

• Would you help them avoid compromise with the truth, and to seek to serve rather than be served?

• Would you purge them from greed and selfishness?

• Would you teach them how to be fiscally responsible in the wake of overwhelming deficits?

• Would you show them how to wage peace instead of war so that the world can be a bit safer and our soldiers and their families can be together again?

• And maybe above all, Lord, when they get too big for their britches would you humble them; would you please help them feel so helpless that they will seek help in you?

Finally, Father, we pray for the church in our nation—for everyday folks like us gathered in this place and in other places around the country today.

• Teach us to be your church and not just another political action committee.

• Make us a praying people, a serving people, a Spirit-empowered people, a unified people in Christ.

• Help us to be humble and to be Christ-righteous rather than self-righteous.

• Help us to love one another, to love our enemies, and to pray for those who persecute us.

• Help us to share your word with love and boldness with every nation, tribe, and tongue within our borders.

• And since you have called us the salt of the earth and light of the world, would you please make us the salt that creates a thirst for Jesus in the lives of the lost? And make us a light so bright that as we let it shine, our nation will see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven—for yours is the kingdom and power and the glory for ever.

We pray these things with one heart in the name of our crucified and resurrected Savior—Jesus Christ the Lord. Amen.