Author: John Tillman

Scripture Focus: Isaiah 65.1-2
To a nation that did not call on my name,
I said, ‘Here am I, here am I.’
All day long I have held out my hands
to an obstinate people,
who walk in ways not good,
pursuing their own imaginations.

From John: I love celebrating July 4th. It has always been an important celebration in our family and a frequent occasion for unofficial family reunions and gatherings. (Including one this year that will be marked by social distancing and mask-wearing in addition to typical activities.)

I learned from my family a deep sense of patriotism and love for country. Yet, patriotism can become an idol that displaces the Kingdom of God in our hearts. Patriotism is a sin when it raises our love for our earthly kingdom above that of Christ’s kingdom, when we begin to confuse the two as being the same thing, or when we dismiss biblical cries for justice and reform as being “unpatriotic.”

This re-post from 2018, is vitally important for us to regularly grapple with. When we celebrate earthly kingdoms, each of us has the opportunity to check our hearts and evaluate which kingdom we love more—ours or Christ’s.

Reflection: When Celebrating Earthly Kingdoms
By John Tillman

Celebrating the country in which one lives is not unbiblical but it can be a dangerous, idolatrous trap. In American churches, this weekend of July 4th, many worshipers will sing patriotic anthems with questionable theology or, in some cases, completely absent theology.

Hymnody has a long history of politically motivated and theologically dubious lyrics, usually expressing God’s divine blessing on the nation of the hymn writer. In 1778, New England hymn writer, William Billings, published this hymn as a declaration that the colonies were winning the war due to divine intervention. It’s a view that still survives in some quarters.

Let tyrants shake their iron rods
And slavery clank her galling chains
We see them not; we trust in God
New England’s God forever reigns.

Patriotism based on national pride is an easy idol to fall victim to. So is anti-patriotism. This is true whether anti-patriotism is based on national cynicism or idolatry of party instead of nation. Christians must avoid all of these.

In 1932 Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer struggled in a Memorial Day sermon with how patriotic days should be celebrated in his Berlin church.

When the church observes Memorial Day, it must have something special to say. It cannot be one voice in the chorus of others who loudly raise the cry of mourning for the lost sons of the nation across the land, and by such cries of mourning call us to new deeds and great courage.

It cannot, like the ancient singers of great heroic deeds, wander about and sing the song of praise of battle and the death of the heroes to the listening ears of enthralled young people.

Memorial Day in the church! What does that mean? It means holding up the one great hope from which we all live, the preaching of the kingdom of God.

No matter our country or party, by echoing jingoistic patriotic divisiveness we risk diluting the gospel of Christ. We must not be too enamored of any earthly kingdom. As Jesus said, our “kingdom is from another place.”

Wherever we live, we are in exile.
When we pray for our city, we are praying for the city of our exile.
When we pray for our country, we are praying for the country in which we are aliens, not citizens.
May we never settle for earthly kingdoms. May we yearn and long instead for Christ’s kingdom to come.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and of great kindness. — Psalm 103.8

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Isaiah 65 (Listen – 5:00)
Matthew 13 (Listen – 7:23)

This Weekend’s Readings
Isaiah 66 (Listen – 5:20) Matthew 14 (Listen – 4:14)
Jeremiah 1 (Listen – 3:00) Matthew 15 (Listen – 4:23)

Read more about Jeremiah, the Unpatriotic Prophet
Christians who see deeply into the problems of their country will often feel pressured not to speak about it for fear of being “unpatriotic” or “disrespectful.”

Read more about Be Yoked to Christ, Not Politics
It is increasingly difficult to defend being yoked to either the Republican or Democratic party while also being yoked with Christ. What fellowship can light have with darkness?

Scripture Focus: Isaiah 64.6-7, 10-11
6 All of us have become like one who is unclean,
    and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
    and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
7 No one calls on your name
    or strives to lay hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us
    and have given us over to[b] our sins.

10 Your sacred cities have become a wasteland;
    even Zion is a wasteland, Jerusalem a desolation.
11 Our holy and glorious temple, where our ancestors praised you,
    has been burned with fire,
    and all that we treasured lies in ruins.

Matthew 12.33
Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit.

Reflection: Treasuring Our Temples
By John Tillman

Isaiah’s visions held up shocking images from a not too distant future.

The most shocking image to Isaiah’s readers would not be destruction, fire, and death sweeping Jerusalem. It would not even be the king’s sons led away naked, castrated, and in chains to be eunuchs. (Isaiah 39.7) The most shocking would be the one thing Judah thought God would never allow to fall, the Temple, being razed and burned with fire.

It is difficult to overstate how confident Judah was that God treasured the Temple and, for the sake of his name, would never allow it to be defiled or harmed. It was unthinkable that the Temple would fall. 

Yet, the Temple had already fallen. God had already allowed the Temple to be defiled. The kings and religious leaders of Judah had done it themselves. 

They partnered together against the widows and orphans. They collaborated together to oppress the foreigners. Yet they called themselves righteous. The worship they thought that God so prized had become annoying noise that God could not bear to hear and wished would stop, because there was no justice established when they stopped singing about justice.

Comfortable, powerful, western Christians can be guilty of similar thinking. We easily feel that we are so special, so holy, so entitled to our place atop the culture, that we cannot imagine we might ever fall. 

Surely God can’t be unsatisfied with our glorious worship and the music industry it spawned?
Surely God wouldn’t allow our sanctuaries to be attacked, our institutions to be sued, or our rights to be stripped away?

There is a telling line in Isaiah 64.11, “All that we treasure lies in ruins…”  God will ruin whatever we treasure more than him. 

Judah treasured the Temple’s importance but not its inhabitant. They treasured the regalia, not the relationship. Through the Babylonian destruction, God did not allow the Temple to be defiled. He took the first step to cleanse it. May we take warning.

Our first step must be to join Isaiah in confessing our part in collective, systemic sin, saying as he did, “I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips!” (Isaiah 6.5)

It is by our lament for our sin that we are given mercy, forgiveness, and the hope of reconciliation, restoration, and resurrection.
May he purify our lips and send us forth.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
The Lord is King; let the people tremble; he is enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth shake. — Psalm 99.1

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle

Today’s Readings
Isaiah 64 (Listen – 5:00)
Matthew 12 (Listen – 7:23)

Read More about Family Tree
Our family tree is sick at heart and only sickened fruit can come from us without Christ’s intervention.

Read More about In Denial in Exile
Israel thought it was God’s nation…They listened to false prophets of God, who taught that God would miraculously bless them with deliverance, wealth, and freedom.