by Reverend Jason Shelby
I am a patriot. I am also a Christian, and that is what should always come first. We are all Children of God, and that is why God is on our side. It’s not because we are Americans that God loves us. It’s not for anything we’ve done or will do; it’s simply because we are. I believe we have the greatest country in the world, and I believe that we can be the greatest agents for positive change in the world. But it’s not because God is only on our side; we put God on a side to make ourselves feel more right. But we know, in fact we say every Sunday, that we are not right, but in fact sinful and broken. We strive for what is right, but we would do well to remember that it’s not the same thing as being right. Too often we make God into what we want God to be, rather than working to make ourselves who God wants us to be. God wants us to love God and our neighbor, and everyone is our neighbor.
When God gave the Israelites a kingdom, it was after they begged Him to do it. He didn’t want them to be like everyone else; he wanted them to live differently, to have Him as their King and ruler. They had two or three good kings and a slew of bad ones. Under their kings the kingdom was divided, conquered, taken captive, conquered again, dispersed, conquered, destroyed, and dispersed. Under the Romans it was renamed Palestine, after the Israelites’ most reviled enemy, the Philistines. Through Jesus, we were taught that the only kingdom we should care about is God’s, which is what God has been saying forever. On Independence Day it is good for us to thank God for these United States; what we have is a gift from God. But all that we have, all that is in this world, is a gift from God.
Rev. Jason Shelby is the rector at St. Francis Episcopal Church. Service times are 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. Sunday mornings. Pen
