It's no secret to readers here that I have a hard time being patriotic in the ways patriotism is practiced in modern America. I haven't said the Pledge of Allegiance is decades. I stand out of respect, but in honest protest, I stay silent. July 4th, and all its related celebrations, are particularly rough. The social pressure to confirm is nearly too much. Nearly.
And every year, I end up having to explain why, yet again, there's a wide gulf of difference between being Christian and being American. In so many ways, those are mutually exclusive.
The problem started for me back in 1994. There comes a time in every Bible reader's life when the queasy-making parts of the Bible just can't be ignored. When it's time to admit that following Jesus, confessing him as Lord and God, means you recognize the Bible won't fit into modern categories.
It's almost like instead of reading the Bible, the Bible is reading us. Narrating a world we Christians inhabit. But a world we inhabit as pilgrims, foreigners in a strange land.
For me, that was 1994.
The text was Psalm 9.
It's a hard text to hear at Independence Day, precisely because it makes Americans queasy. "The nations have sunk in the pit which they have made; in the net which they hid has their own foot been caught." That, it seems to me, is the only honest response we Americans can make in light of what we ask ourselves to do. Taking warriors and thoroughly immersing them into 21st century barbarism. With all its lingering casualties.
"Those who know your name put their trust in you." Not in bombs or guns or armies. "You are the one who lifts me up from death." Not a massive State Security-Military Industrial Complex.
The text in 1994 was also Mark 4.
We like to white-wash that story. But I think it's a metaphor for baptism. Crossing-of-the-Sea stories in the Gospels are part of the re-presentation of the story of Israel (1 Corinthians 10.1-2), part of the Bible's grand liturgy of going through the waters (Exodus 15, Joshua 3, Genesis 6, Jonah, etc.).
After having gone with John back to the place of beginning, Jesus calls a new people to be immersed in the re-animation of these old stories. He invites them to follow him into the alternative reality he calls the kingdom of God, a reality that does not baptize the status quo but transforms it. This means going with him to "the other side". When you start to transgress boundaries, you can count on fierce opposition. The storm is an enacted parable in which the demon of cosmic opposition [Jesus uses exorcism language] is confronted on the journey to the other side. Fear, sometimes to the point of terror, is fundamental to faith. The promise is that of Jesus' presence, and that if we get in the boat and into the middle of the storm with him, we will see wonders we would not see otherwise.
It strikes me the response in Mark 4: They were "afraid with a terrible fear". "Who is this?" they ask.
And that's the question that's posed every year when we come to these national festivals like July 4th.
"Who is this?"
The Prince of Peace, who refuses violence and sword, who calls us to love enemies.
The Lord, the king, crowned and reigning from a cross. Slain, yet vindicated in the Resurrection. Whose blood brings a Kingdom of reconciliation and hope.
God, whose condemnation isn't destructive but loving. Whose judgment is to tear down walls we construct against one another.
See, because of who Jesus is, I have trouble celebrating July 4th as a Christian.