Community Christian Church of Springfield, MO
Roger Ray, pastor
It is difficult to graph a timeline of the world's empires, especially since most of us tend to view the world from the perspective of the Bible, then to Europe and then to the Americas. In the ancient world there were long lasting empires that did not know about one another. While Egypt flourished, so did civilizations in Asia and South America. One of the longest surviving empires of the world was the Mayans and they were largely ignored in such global views until this year when their little calendar issue has received disproportionate attention.
But even if you broad brush the history of empires, from Egypt to Assyria, Babylon to Rome, Byzantine and Mayan, Arab and British and you come down to Soviet and American, the inescapable awareness is that empires rise and empires fall. And, seemingly, the cycle of rising and falling gets shorter as you walk down that historical timeline.
Early in the 20th century, the United States began to don its imperial robes. Colonialism was dying off but economic, technological and military colonialism was taking its place.
We were just one of the players in the early development of things like moving pictures, flight and computer technology but we grew and advanced so quickly that our TV and movie industry dominated the world and infused our culture, our fashions and our values into the whole of the world. There are pilots the world over but if you want to fly and talk to a control tower anywhere in the world, you have to speak English..... our toys, our rules.
Thirty years ago there were lots of kinds of computers as the industry was in its infancy and now it is either PC or Apple in a stand off that gets more like Coke or Pepsi every day.
Cultural empires expressed themselves, in the west, in Greek, then Arabic, Latin and then English and for those of us born in the second half of the 20th century, it is difficult to see that we too, are the kings on the cultural empire hill for only a moment in time. America will not always dominate the world's technology, culture, military and economy.
Our primary rival for our life times was the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union fell under the sheer weight of an arms race that they could no longer finance.... And now we are expanding our military presence in the Pacific as if we could launch enough ships to contain China. China's economy is growing and we are increasing our military spending in much the way the Soviet Union did thirty years ago and we will likely hand the baton of world domination to China because we lack the foresight to stop following in the footsteps of the Soviets.
Even in Afghanistan, long known as the graveyard of empires, we watched as the Soviet Union depleted their capital resources in a useless war there from 1979 to 1989 and we have been there from 2001 to the present trying our best to commit economic and political suicide.
We maintain more than 700 military bases in 130 nations, many of which are related to WWII issues even though that war was ended 70 years ago.
In American political debate, both the Democrats and the Republicans have had recent presidential candidates that tried to shine a light on the lunacy of this military empire we have built, Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul, two very different men from totally opposite ends of the political spectrum but they have both been portrayed as being members of the lunatic fringe. All politicians probably deserve to be seen as being at least a bubble off of plumb but these two have been escorted to the curb of political consideration because, as Ron Paul said, "Telling the truth is treason in the empire of lies."
Before I appear to be applauding Paul too much, let me hasten to say that he paraphrased that famous quote from his book from George Orwell who said that, "In an age of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
I don't mention the inevitability of the demise of the American empire to be upsetting nor to suggest that we should take steps to remain at the top of the mountain. I'm just making a observation about power.
We have two scripture readings in our service today when we normally have only one, but both of these are lectionary choices for the day, appropriately paired because they are in contrast with one another..... one of the precious times when the common lectionary gets it right.
The Old Testament lesson comes from the 17th chapter of Ezekiel where the prophet is triumphalistically declaring that the day would come when God would raise up the kingdom of Judah to rule the world. He uses the image of Israel as a mighty cedar tree growing tall and all of the birds of the air, representing the nations of the world, come to build nests in its branches.
This Zionist vision is repeated here and there through the Bible and is sometimes so subtle that even modern Americans seem to be persuaded that God wants to put this particular government and this particular piece of real estate in a prominent position. It is absurd if you allow yourself to think about it but the sum total of absurd things I have heard from American pulpits is a huge body of work that grows larger every Sunday.
But the gospel lesson demonstrates that Jesus was not taken in by Ezekiel's excesses of nationalistic enthusiasm. In our gospel lesson from Mark chapter 4, Jesus likens the Kingdom of God, not to a giant cedar tree but to a tiny mustard plant. He mocks Ezekiel saying that birds build their nest in the mustard plant but not any bird that is not intent upon almost immediate extinction because the mustard week only grows to be about a foot to a foot and a half tall.... It can be crushed by stepping on it and it dies in the first frost.
To rub it in just a bit further, the mustard weed was no kosher and was used only to feed cattle and sheep. Jesus chose the weakest, most disgusting and unlikely plant to represent the Kingdom of God and he did that just as Roman armies were carrying their fierce symbols of military might all over the western world.
A decade ago I was a board member on more than a dozen of our community's government and civic organizations. I was on the board of Burrell Mental Health, the Community Foundation, the Community Partnership, The Family Achievement Academy and several others.
At the time I was the senior pastor of one of the big steeple denominational churches in town and being seen on those boards was just the normal role for a person in my position but I begin to notice that even though my name was on the stationary of those organizations, they almost always entirely ignored everything I said.
They used me and my position to garner legitimacy for themselves while often doing exactly the opposite of what I felt was in the best interests of the city's poor, mentally ill, addicted and homeless. I came to realize that while power and position can be addictive that the real role of the prophet was not to be either on the stationary or at the board table but to be on the sidewalk shaking my fist at the board when they met.
If we are to "speak the truth to power" we have to first accept that speaking is our power. I am glad when someone from our ranks finds a seat in government or in authority but I am always suspicious of power because every empire eventually becomes an empire of lies.
We not only invaded Iraq under false pretenses, once our initial lies were uncovered, then the defense for occupation was that Saddam Hussein administered a corrupt government that violently put down protest and even tortured prisoners. But, of course, we also tortured prisoners, violently put down opposition and the amount of corruption and the hundreds of millions of missing dollars forces one to wonder, in a contest between our management of Iraq and Saddam's government which one was the most deadly and oppressive and corrupt.
Of course, I have no idea what the honest answer to that question would be but what I know for certain is that it is not a question that you will hear asked on any corporate owned news media channel nor in any denominational church because speaking the truth in the empire of lies is considered to be treason.
When Jesus points to the vulnerable, non-kosher mustard plant as the symbol for the kingdom where we want to hold our citizenship it is an anti-empire symbol.
As an American, I want my nation to be the one that delivers emergency relief aid. I even want my nation to be the one that helps to depose dictators, stop genocide and to encourage human rights around the globe. But I know that power always comes with economic heavy handedness, and we start saying things like, "Water boarding isn't torture because Americans do it and America doesn't torture....." So if speaking the truth is treason in the empire of lies, I just want to make sure that this church is guilty of treason. Or if you prefer George Orwell's wording so that speaking the truth in an age of deceit is a revolutionary act.... But no matter how you slice it, we should never be afraid to speak the truth to the empire because without us, they are sure to prefer their lies.
