Earlier this week Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber tweeted a call for a liturgy for the pastors who have and are, in an act of rejecting Christian nationalism, removing American flags from their churches.
This hit close to home for me, as my church, pastored by my father, removed the flag from our sanctuary a year or so ago. I did not think this should have been a contentious issue—it seemed bizarre to me that the flag had ever found its way into the sanctuary in the first place, but it caused intense division and we lost long-term members over it. I was angry. This church was a place where I have found solace and comfort that I had previously thought absent from Christianity, and it pained and angered me to see people I loved so divided over the removal of a flag from a holy space where it never should have been.
This distinctly unholy American mingling of love of God and love of country has tarnished the reputation of the church and muddied the message of the Gospel. If we worship our nation—and make no mistake, the level of neglectful patriotism demanded and adhered to by many Americans is, indeed, worship—and choose to be willingly blind to our collective sins, we are no better than the rich man that spoke to Jesus, and could not bear to part with his wealth. If we choose patriotism over peacemaking and confuse American values for biblical ones, we have forfeited our witness. We have lost our saltiness, and cannot be made salty again without a fundamental shift in values. If we want to be taken seriously by our neighbors, if we want—as we claim—to be the hands and feet of Jesus, we must do better.
Liturgy for the Flag Removers
God our Father
Meet us in these spaces
That are holy
And wholly yours
On American soil, yes,
But soil that was first
Shawnee and Cherokee and Chickasaw.
God our Mother
God who crosses borders by night
And cradles babies in her arms
On the cold floors of detention centers
Show us our sins.
Show us the harm we have done
By both our action and inaction.
May our hearts break at the families
We have torn apart and
The neighbors we have abandoned.
May our broken hearts move us to
Tired arms and calloused hands.
READ: Nationalism and the Undermining of Global Missions
Holy Spirit,
Remind us that there is
No such thing as a Christian nation.
Do not allow us to hide behind
Flags and banners
And disguise atrocity
And cruelty
And ignorance
And selfishness
As patriotism.
Remind us that you are not
An American God
Clothed in red white and blue
Any more than you are a
Ugandan God
Chinese God
Chilean God
Russian God
Guatemalan God.
Remind us of your teachings:
To love our enemies
And turn our cheeks
And feed the poor
And welcome the stranger.
To be peacemakers
And wound-binders
And servants.
Remind us that you walked in sandals
Not cowboy boots
And that pulling ourselves up
By our bootstraps
Was not part of the beatitudes.
There is no space for manifest destiny
In the Good News of the Gospel.
Lord have mercy
On we who have sought
Hollow solace
In the shadow of the flags
That stand (imposters)
On sanctuary stages.
May we not litter our
Sacred spaces with
The flags that we do not
(Ought not)
Worship.
Christ have mercy
On our American dreams.
Replace them with
Hunger for righteousness
And justice.
May we chase after peace
In lieu of picket fences.
Amen.