students of jesus

Abraham was as a stranger in a foreign country. He lived in tents and sought a city whose builder and maker was God. Still, in an attempt to save the detestable cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, he bargained with God for their good.

Daniel took the words of Jeremiah to heart and sought the prosperity of his exile city, a city responsible for the desolation of Jerusalem. Daniel gave the best of his counsel and wisdom in order that a pagan capital would thrive.

The Son of Man wept over the very city that would rise up and kill him. He drank the cup of wrath that was due to the privileged—and unfaithful—people of Israel.

From these examples I have learned to love my country, not because it is the truest, best, or perfect, but because this love is part of living as God’s agent of mercy among his people. Love of one's country, its cities, people, and customs is work of God. It is the middle way between two more common approaches to any society.

The first approach is judgment, and today is an easy day to judge America. Today is Black Friday, the Bacchanalia of consumerism that strangely follows Thanksgiving Day. The Twitterverse and blogosphere brims over with distain for this American excess, and Christians lead the way in critical remarks. Believers chastise others for so quickly abandoning the grace and gratitude of giving thanks in favor of buying and getting more, more, more. Yet even the critics have quickly abandoned another kind of gratitude, that of loving your neighbor. How can we show mercy when today we heap judgment?

The second approach is less prevalent in America today but it still exists: “My country, right or wrong.” Just a generation ago large segments of Evangelical Christianity enjoyed confusing the American Ideal with the Kingdom Stone. We loved America blindly and described her as “the last, best hope for the world.” This, too, is excess, practiced in the post-war decades in a way that substituted our calling to be strangers in a strange land for the hope that America would establish God’s kingdom on earth. It was foolish, too.

For Americans, Black Friday is as good a day to love America as any other day, because this is where we are planted. I am thankful my country, freedoms and flaws together, like Nineveh, the Father has mercy on the lost.