Hope for God’s House?
a sermon on the separation of Church and state, the threat of Christian nationalism, and hope for not walking away
Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture:
“See, I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone chosen and precious,
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”This honor, then, is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,
“The stone that the builders rejected
has become the very head of the corner,”and
“A stone that makes them stumble
and a rock that makes them fall.”They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Once you were not a people,
but now you are God’s people;
once you had not received mercy,
but now you have received mercy. ~1 Peter 2:4–10, NRSVUE
Baptists have long been freedom-loving people. With all that’s happening right now to weaken the separation of Church and state, it’s good to remember that many of our spiritual ancestors were strong proponents of religious liberty for all.
For example, In 1635, Roger Williams was banished from the colony of Massachusetts. The following beliefs got him in trouble:
- Forced religion offends God.
- Public prayer should be condemned unless everyone present can be proven sufficiently devout.
- The Crown had no right to take lands from Native Americans without adequately compensating them for it.
After leaving Massachusetts, Williams established the colony of Providence, which is now Rhode Island. Providence was founded with a complete separation of Church and state, so it became a haven for religious minorities. While there, Williams also established the First Baptist Church in America, which is still an active congregation today.
18th-century Baptist Martha Stearns Marshall often preached alongside her brother and husband. In fact, many called her the best preacher of the three. While pregnant, Martha was jailed here in Virginia for refusing to stop preaching the gospel despite not being licensed. As the story goes, Martha continued preaching in jail, and she ended up converting the constable and magistrate who arrested her.
In the 1780s, Andrew Bryan, an enslaved man in Savannah, was arrested and whipped for preaching to a group of enslaved people, for unauthorized slave assemblies were against the law. Mr. Bryan’s church continued to meet, though, and it grew. By 1790 it officially became the First African Baptist Church of Savannah.
Around this time, Virginia Baptist and fiery preacher John Leland was busy persuading Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to protect the nation from the “spiritual tyranny” of state-established religion. Due to Leland’s influence, Madison fought hard to include the Establishment Clause in the Constitution’s first amendment.
In the past couple of weeks, the Supreme Court has ruled that taxpayer dollars must fund religious instruction and that public school teachers and coaches may lead public prayers at work. Do not be fooled. These rulings diminish the Establishment Clause and erode the wall between Church and state, the wall that Baptists like John Leland worked hard to erect. Our spiritual forebears were arrested, beaten, and banished for preaching and baptizing in ways not sanctioned by the state. We should know that the separation of Church and state is good for both and that coerced faith isn’t faith at all.
But many of our Baptist kinfolk and many evangelicals, in general, are thrilled for the current political power they have secured. Many Christians celebrate legislating their faith values as though America can or should be a Christian nation. Christian nationalism actually threatens democracy.
It fosters beliefs that a vote different from yours is a vote against God, so there’s no need to protect the right for it to be cast or counted. Christian nationalism says that immigrants and religious minorities don’t deserve the same rights and freedoms as those perceived to be “real Americans” and that kneeling in protest before an American flag is the same as protesting Jesus Christ and all that he stands for.
Not only does Christian nationalism threaten democracy, but it also weakens the witness of the Church in our country. Right now, Christians look like power-hungry people who prioritize doctrine and sin-policing over than the well-being of people. As a Christian who believes Jesus cares deeply for people and so much so that he willingly died for all of humanity, this reality makes me sad and angry.
Do you, like me, feel trapped? Like, on the one hand, our witness among those not of our faith suffers because they associate all of Christianity with Christian nationalism? And, on the other hand, those indoctrinated with Christian nationalism ignore us because we’re the wrong kind of Christians? Do you wonder if anyone not already here will look for a church like ours that believes that following the ways of Jesus is rooted in love, inclusion, grace, liberation, and justice, or do most people no longer believe that kind of Christianity exists?
The more that I sat with our scripture reading for this week, the more I began to see that maybe, just maybe, the Holy Spirit has a message of hope in it for Christians struggling with our present reality. At least that’s what I found in it.
Peter wrote his epistles after the second temple invasion. Rome had destroyed the temple, and many Jesus-following Jews were scattered throughout Asia Minor. These early Christians were being ridiculed and harassed, not by the government but by the people around them. Peter uses the image of a house to build up the discouraged believers. They had lost their traditional ways of worshiping, and they had lost their literal homes. So Peter tells them that God is building a new home for them and through them. What a powerful image for exiles.
Peter reminds the chided Church that Jesus himself was rejected by people but that he was chosen and precious to God. He directs the Church to let go of what people are saying about them and instead focus their attention on Jesus. If they do this, Jesus and his way of being will become the cornerstone of the new home that God is building through them.
Peter calls the Church to be living stones, like Jesus. You see, the old stones are dead, and God is building something new from living stones. This new house that God is building is spiritual, so it’s a new kind of church or faith community.
There’s a warning in this blessing: living inside the spiritual house means living outside of the dominant culture. You see, Peter calls the Church a holy priesthood. He doesn’t call part of the church a priesthood. He calls the entire church one.
Peter is saying something radical here. In ancient Judaism, the faith from which these early Christians came, the priesthood was limited to men who came from the line of Aaron. Peter calls all believers priests: men and women, adults, youth, and children, the rich and poor, Jews and Gentiles. Everyone. The early Church flattened all social hierarchies, and that kind of community was radical to everyone. It gives us a hint as to why Christians were being ostracized. Their way of living and being threatened the social order around them. This reminds us that an alive church is utterly counter-cultural, not only to the secular world but to the dominant religious culture, as well. You see, mainstream religious culture often adopts the world’s hierarchies.
Peter then quotes several passages from the Hebrew Bible connecting the early Church with the Exodus story of God liberating God’s people and with stories of prophecies during the first exile.
I know I’m reading into the scripture here, but verse 8 stuck with me this week. Peter has called Jesus a living stone. Then in verse 8, he quotes Isaiah 8, “a stone that makes them stumble and a rock that makes them fall.” This reminds me of how it’s so easy to transform Jesus into what we want him to be instead of allowing Jesus to transform us into his likeness. Christian nationalism turns Jesus into a gun-slinging cowboy who defends a flag and a culture in which white people rule. That’s not Jesus. Could that be the stone that makes people stumble and fall? The images of Jesus we create that aren’t really Jesus at all? Could we heed this as a warning and reminder to invite Jesus to transform us, not the other way around?
The Church is a chosen people, a royal priesthood whose inclusion, equity, and way of living are so revolutionary that it catches people off-guard. This means that alive churches likely threaten many with power and attract those on the margins. It elevates those society kicks to the bottom. Most of these communities probably won’t be big, but they will be holy. Peter reminds them of their calling, to proclaim Jesus through word and action so that Jesus can illuminate the shadows of our society and bring us all into the light.
Friends, I believe we are in for a long, harrowing journey. The moral arc of the universe may bend towards justice, but human rights are being stripped and threatened right now. Christian nationalism is growing and has a great deal of power, but it is a dead stone that reduces a savior to merely a patriot. It equates the Constitution with the Bible. Many are walking away from the Church because a patriot and a government document can’t transform us on a deep, spiritual level. Only a savior can do that.
I believe another Great Awakening will come, but not for a long while. We can be part of that revolution, living stones of the new house that God is building. Doing so will transform us more into the likeness of Jesus. It will help us envision and create beloved community that includes, lifts up and knows when to step back, one that works for justice, and loves even when loving is hard. Being part of God’s house in a hostile world will not make us popular. It may even get us into trouble like those early Baptists, but it will make the Church vibrantly and wholly alive. And that’s what will attract people. Faith that’s not coerced, but faith that people choose because it makes a real difference in people’s lives and the world.
