God’s Marathon: It’s More Than About Us

A Pledge of Primary Allegiance

Psalm 148 … The Acts of the Apostles 11:1-18

 

Crisis breeds community.

And so it did with the Boston Marathon tragedy. And the community it created was good.

The tragedy hit us – and it hit us hard.

  Perhaps because it struck so close to home.

  Perhaps because we know someone who has run or participated in it otherwise.

  Perhaps we even know someone who was close to the finish line – or know someone who knew someone.

  And perhaps – just perhaps – because the media had such a field day and we couldn’t help but get caught up in the drama.

Combine a sacred American tradition with the scent of terrorism with the social media with cable news running to catch up and stay up: Some would say it was the perfect storm.

The Boston Marathon tragedy. It hit us – and it hit us hard.

  Because it’s all about us – the U.S.  

  Right?

Of course not. We all know that. Though we have been tempted to think otherwise – and in similar times of felt national crisis continue to be.

We will continue to be tempted, for example, to overlook the focus of the Psalm we sang as a Call to Worship and Hymn of Praise combination today – a Psalm similar to so many others: “Praise the Lord from the earth … Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth.”

Earth  … Earth … Earth. A word found 126 times in our 150 Psalms. More than twice the mention the nation of Israel gets. The nation that birthed these Psalms.

Earth  … Earth … Earth. The praises of this Psalm and the griefs found in others are not about a nation for the Psalmists – not primarily.

Just as our praises as well as our griefs are not ultimately about us. The U.S. Us.

 

Just as Cornelius discovers in our Acts scripture today that his primary allegiance is no longer the Roman Empire.
 
Galilean Jew Peter, meet Roman Centurion Cornelius. Potential state terrorist in the empire’s eyes – sworn to nonviolence, yet ever dangerous: Meet your very present imperial oppressor.

To use a metaphor from one of hymns in our hymnal, these two are drawn together in the Spirit’s tether when class, kinship, ethnicity – their very identities – would enforce, indeed demand, the wide gulf between them.

Just how powerful is the Holy Spirit that makes them as one in this story? As every church historian of the first three centuries of the Christian faith knows, one could not be a follower of Christ and simultaneously serve in the imperial forces. A different place – a different time. The pledge of primary allegiance was so much stronger then.

So for Cornelius to repent and become part of the discipleship community – the Greek word repentance signifies a revolution of one’s mind – was truly revolutionary!  He could no longer serve as a centurion – an officer in the empire. Not only that, he would now be considered by the empire to be a traitor.

Even though he would now become, by his new identity, a full-time peacemaker. In the longer Acts 10 version of the Acts 11 story we just heard, Peter welcomes Cornelius with these words, in part: “You know the message (God) sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ – he is Lord of all.” And Cornelius accepts Peter’s testimony here – and more besides.

“Preaching peace by Jesus Christ – he is Lord of all.” For Cornelius to accept these two things … Well, first he must lay down his arms – again, one could not be a peace-preaching Christian and be in the military. And then, by saying Jesus is Lord of all, he would in the empire’s eyes disclaim that Caesar is Lord of all. “Hail Caesar!” “Caesar is Lord!” “King of Kings and Lord of Lords”:  Pledges of allegiance so basic, so foundational, so essential to the subjects of the Roman Empire that switching them all to Jesus, the Christ, signifies treason – especially a centurion, for Caesar’s sake! This new pledge, as Cornelius knew, promised persecution in various forms, all of them deadly: tortures, wild beasts, crucifixions. Just saying “Jesus is Lord!” could cost him his life.

This was the bad news for Cornelius, and for the church of Peter and Cornelius. And the resurrection good news for which they sacrificed all? They called one another brother. And they called one another sister. There was no language for parental figures. There’s was a new family – classless, raceless, rankless … shameless.

Being and creating this whole new family proved central to the earliest Christians, as Rodney Stark has pointed out in his groundbreaking book The Rise of Christianity. Stark writes that the earliest churches grew – like ours – in the cities, where the Apostle Paul and others focused their ministries. Many were compelled to leave their traditional communities and flee to their new urban “home” … sound familiar? And these new city “homes” comprised a population density in the first century similar to downtown Bethesda’s, just a few blocks away: over 100 per acre,

See where this is going? Crowded in these cities, uprooted from their communities of origin, the Body of Christ began to surge with its promise of new affiliation, new family, siblings in the faith, each receiving – as Acts twice records it – according to their need. Spiritually … as well as economically.

 

We may never be as radically communitarian as the first century Christians were – not economically, certainly. Our crises have never bred that type of community. And yet, we at BPC have something special to offer as we embrace the population surge on our very doorstep to the east of us – in the high-rises between the Bethesda Metro stop and this Sanctuary. Those residing, for example, in the 1300 new housing units expected to open in the next two years, those who would ambulate to worship here rather than fret over limited parking.

We can embrace our downtown Bethesda friends – many young adults toting world-beating ideals, or at least world-changing ones – (we can embrace them) with good news that the federal government employing so many of them cannot embrace them with. We can embrace them with the good news that as they become more and more aware of the limitations of their ideals in the face of massive federal bureaucracy, and as they begin to pine for their university days or their family-of-origin of yore, that here at BPC they can find a rootedness and a sustenance in their lives promising them a new and perhaps even primary identity. A new identity, that a primary allegiance to the government, or even a nation, can never spiritually provide for them.

A new sense of family and friends in the faith who understand that life is not all about us – call the “us” the U.S., or call the “us” a church turned inward. A new sense of family and friends in the faith that is dynamic, diverse, spiritually open (Peter’s transformation) and socially prophetic (Cornelius’s transformation).

A body of Christ where Presbyterians, like Peter the Jewish Christian, no longer insist on particular liturgical diets for someone to belong. A spiritual home, where government workers, like Cornelius the Roman centurion, discover that their ultimate allegiance is to a God in Christ Jesus that swears allegiance primarily – and, yes, ultimately – to a faith identity and not a national one.

What good news that is – the best news there is – we have to offer these spiritual pilgrims in the environs of the nation’s capital!

 

Our Psalms and Acts scriptures today make it plain, and they make it clear:

It’s not ultimately about us – as an established nation, and as an established church. Instead, if we keep the faith of preaching and practicing the peace that Cornelius – and Peter – came to comprehend in this riveting first church story, no terrorist can win. Only God in Christ can win.

God in Christ, the marathon runner of grace who would be crucified by allegiances other than his primary kingdom of peace, yet who refuses to give up on us if we would choose otherwise.

God in Christ – the marathon runner – who will cross the finish line only when the Peters and the Corneliuses of the world have become reconciled and transformed.

The Prince of Peace preoccupied with transforming the human race not by countering terrorism – not primarily – but by building among us new trusts. Trust in the common good that we saw in the mass pursuit and capture of the marathon bombers. Trust in the Beloved Community – the church universal – that actively practices the ways of peace and refuses, in the end, to imitate violence with violence.

For at the finish line – as at the starting line: It’s all about God in Christ – history’s true marathon runner. Often wounded … always victorious. Often crucified … always risen. 

And because it’s about God in Christ – creator and recreator of the human race, and more – it’s never, ultimately, all about us: one nation, one church.

Not one nation, but one creation. Not one church, but one people of God.

One creation – one people – who yearn for the healing of a new and primary allegiance in their lives … and who then find it residing in churches such as ours.

Whoever has ears to hear: Let them hear!