Following the scripture reading I read a parable called Finding Faith out of Peter Rollins' book The Orthodox Heretic. The central point for the congregation to consider dealt with what needed to happen in order for someone to receive the gospel.
After the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was liberated in 1945, shortly after the arrival of the British Red Cross to the camp, a particular supply arrived that Lt Colonel Gonin in his diary said did more for the internees who were liberated than anything else they had received.
Does anyone know or have a guess as to what that supply might have been?
"I can give no adequate description of the Horror Camp in which my men and myself were to spend the next month of our lives. It was just a barren wilderness, as bare as a chicken run. Corpses lay everywhere, some in huge piles, sometimes they lay singly or in pairs where they had fallen. It took a little time to get used to seeing men women and children collapse as you walked by them and to restrain oneself from going to their assistance. One had to get used early to the idea that the individual just did not count. One knew that five hundred a day were dying and that five hundred a day were going on dying for weeks before anything we could do would have the slightest effect."
He goes on describing the grotesque details of the ways in which people were attempting to survive. These descriptions are disturbing not for the mere content but because these are humans and yet everything about their scenario is distinctly anti-human.
What we know from scripture is that that which is anti-human is anti-God. Humanity is not God but, being created in God's image we reflect what God is like and who God is. When humanity is denied to the other then we are denying God. The more we deny the image of God in one another we usher in the sorts of hell that concentration camps are. And so I will return to this diary entry and what this supply was but this morning I want to talk about symbols. John Calvin, from where our tradition comes, was very opposed to the presence of symbols in worship. we have often been told that the communion table is in fact just a table, not an altar.
I know also that there has been some controversy about the presence of a national flag in the sanctuary. I might add that outside the United States there is no such thing as a "Christian flag" unless an American church brought it with them, primarily into missions in Latin America and Africa.
While some churches in the U.S. may have been presenting a "Christian" flag on their grounds or in their sanctuary as early as 1910 the practice did not spread widely until it was introduced by Lutheran churches during WWII. Theres churches felt a need to show solidarity with the U.S. and placed a national flag in the church, but as tends to be taught in most mainline seminaries a national flag of ANY nation is technically, technically blasphemous if placed in the sanctuary. Because as a Christian sanctuary we are to acknowledge that our God is the God of all nations and not merely partial to our own. So the "Christian" flag was placed alongside the national flag to, in a sense, theologically excuse its presence. This made perfect sense for the Lutheran churches of the time. Many still held services in German and their worship services were being monitored by the government. Since that time the practice spread. Many congregants came to see the presence of flags as the "norm". Flags became part of the scenery of the American sanctuary. Most ministers are not comfortable with them, but most have also decided that the argument is not worth their job. It does deserve to be said that while flags are in many sanctuaries across the U.S. they are not everywhere. Many churches I have served keep them in the social hall and New York Ave. Presbyterian Church in Washington D.C. where I visited in April has a pew labeled "The Lincoln Pew" where President Lincoln sat in worship during his presidency, but they do not have a national flag or "Christian flag" in the sanctuary.
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| Rubber Chicken window - You either see it or you don't. I'm told one parishioner thinks it's a wrench. |
I am giving you this background not to say the flags need to be removed but to pose the question I believe needs to be defended for every symbol we place in our sanctuary. That question is 'What purpose to they serve in the practice of worshiping the God of all nations?' John Calvin would want ALL our symbols removed. The cross, any special decoration on the table, and especially the tree at Christmas. Calvin would see all of this as idolatrous. We're lucky our windows don't depict specific images, even though I'm pretty sure that one is a rubber chicken. Once you see it, it cannot be unseen.
The thing is while on a theological level, I am not fond of its presence, I can see a potential purpose for a national flag in a sanctuary. If the flag's presence in this space reminds us that our nation is under God and is subject to God and that it is at most our secondary allegiance rather than an implication that the church of Christ, which is universal, is subject to an Earthly government. If it serves to remind us to be thankful to God for the sacrifices others have made for our privileges, if it reminds us to also be penitent for our nation's sins remembering that we cannot be perfect so a symbol representing our nation represents both good and bad. If it reminds us to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and to God that which is God's, then... okay.
And here I am referring to our Gospel reading this morning. In my position regarding the presence of a national flag I am in the place of a pharisee in this passage. In verses 14 and 15 we read that it is not what goes into the body that defiles it, but what comes out. So whatever symbols we present in this sanctuary, those are ultimately not the issue. The question is how does your worship of God in this place change you? Do you defile by how you live when you leave here?
I once read of a group of homeless people in Philadelphia who were squatting in an abandoned Catholic Church. The archdiocese was trying to have them removed and one morning they woke to see that the squatters had placed a banner over the doors of the church that read "How can you worship a homeless man on Sunday and step over one on Monday?"
Does what happens here cause you to bear good fruit in the world, or do you in Jesus' terms defile yourselves, and this sanctuary? Are you able, upon leaving this sanctuary, to honor God in your neighbor be they immigrant (documented or not) or veteran? Family, friend, or stranger? Gay/straight, Christian/not, male/female, slave/free, Jew/Gentile... sound familiar?
We are all one in Christ Jesus and all bearers of God's divine image, so as I close with the rest of Lt Colonel Gonin's Diary entry I would like to propose one new symbol to remind us of the image of God in one another. [Put on *Bright* red lipstick and place on table]
"It was shortly after the British Red Cross arrived, though it may have no connection, that a very large quantity of lipstick arrived. This was not at all what we men wanted, we were screaming for hundreds and thousands of other things and I don't know who asked for lipstick. I wish so much that I could discover who did it, it was the action of genius, sheer unadulterated brilliance. I believe nothing did more for those internees than the lipstick. Women lay in bed with no sheets and no nightie but with scarlet red lips, you saw them wandering about with nothing but a blanket over their shoulders, but with scarlet red lips. I saw a woman dead on the post mortem table and clutched in her hand was a piece of lipstick. At last someone had done something to make them individuals again, they were someone, no longer merely the number tattooed on the arm. At last they could take an interest in their appearance. That lipstick started to give them back their humanity."
As we continue this journey exploring who we are as a church I want you to consider the symbols we have in this place. We say that ALL are welcome here. What are symbols and practices we have here that might exclude people? What are the ones that are inclusive? What might you want an explanation for?
Most importantly what allows you to leave this place better prepared to serve God's people?
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Excerpts from Gonin's diary were found here: http://www.bergenbelsen.co.uk/pages/Database/ReliefStaffAccount.asp?HeroesID=17&
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