Jesus First (Matthew 10:37-42)

On May 22, a suicide bombing took place at Manchester Arena in Manchester, England. A total of twenty-three adults and children were killed and 116 were injured, some critically.

A few days after the attack, I was scrolling through social media when I saw a three-paragraph commentary that caught my attention. I read it and then moved on with my life…

Or so I thought.

Over the following days, I realized, I couldn’t stop thinking about what I had read.

I went back and found the commentary, and read it again. Here is what it said:

“If the Manchester Arena bombing had happened in the United States, every family with a dead or injured member would begin receiving bills in the coming days. Parents who lost their children would get a detailed and unadorned list of services provided by the medics that tried to save their relations’ lives. And they would be expected to start making payments immediately.

“While they mourned heartbreaking losses, American families would be billed for the ambulance rides, morphine, CPR, anaesthesia. They would be expected to pony up for surgeries that were unsuccessful, medication that didn’t work, and the time the anaesthesiologist spent trying to keep their children comfortable during major procedures. They would continue to receive those bills for month upon month after the death of their children.

“Many families would set up GoFundMe accounts to pay for the medical expenses of their deceased child. The bills would run into the hundreds of thousands, so even the best-funded account would only pay a fraction. The parents might have to sell their homes while trying to wrap their minds around the needless loss of their children. Ultimately, many would declare bankruptcy.”

These words haunted me. They haunt me still. They make me sad and angry.

And the reason is that they have made me aware that the USA is not as good as it can be. I love my country. But it could be better.

I have long known that in the USA, we take the idea of personal liberty and freedom to the extreme. We are a very individualistic society. We’re a “me-first” society, as opposed to a “we-first” (or “us-first”) society.

In more-developed countries than ours, people don’t have to worry about going bankrupt if they get sick or injured. In more-developed countries than ours, people believe it’s important to care for one another.

In the US - if the way our society is structured is any indication - we believe it’s more important to care for companies and businesses and their profits than it is to care for ordinary people.

I love the USA. I love being an American. But I am not blind to America’s faults. And in these times, our country’s faults are being exposed.

We’re seeing civil rights being taken away. Voting rights are being denied to African Americans. In many states, especially in the south, a person sent to prison loses voting rights for life. After they have paid the penalty and served their time, they still are not allowed to vote.

Racist lawmakers then pass laws that target African Americans. They seek harsh prison sentences for crimes primarily committed by African Americans, like using certain types of drugs; but they work for extremely lenient penalties - or no penalties at all - for crimes committed primarily by white citizens, like embezzlement, insider trading, and other financial crimes. In the banking scandals we have seen that these types of crimes can destroy thousands of innocent lives, but because those who commit them are primarily white, few are prosecuted.

I love the USA. But I am not blind to its faults.

We refuse to take the lead on Climate Change. The USA is more to blame for the destruction of the environment, but we are leaving it to others to take the lead on protecting the earth and climate.

I love the USA, but I am not blind to its faults.

There is an effort to take away health care from millions of people. Our government is trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and in case it is unsuccessful at that, it is also taking the Affordable Care Act apart piece by piece. It is being sabotaged, and then the very people doing the sabotaging claim that it isn’t working. Well, it’s not working because they’re sabotaging it. The Affordable Care Act is far from perfect, and it could certainly be made better, but they are intentionally making it worse, and then they’re saying “look how bad it is.”

The situation described in the commentary that grabbed my attention is a situation that could take place even with the ACA. Like I said, it isn’t perfect. It’s an improvement over the situation we had before. The number of people without health insurance is at record lows right now. But too many still cannot afford health care. We need to improve health care, make it more accessible, more universal… not destroy it and deny health care to millions of Americans.

I love the USA. But as a preacher of the gospel - as a Christian - it is not for me to place country over God. Love of God is my priority. Jesus says followers are to love him more than they love their own family. You heard that in the scripture reading, right? It’s startling, I know. Jesus first. The way of Jesus is to take precedence over any other way,... including the American way of life, no matter how that is defined.

I love my country. But my love for Jesus comes first, as it must for anyone who claims to be a Christian. America is a lot closer to the kingdom of God than the Roman Empire was, but it would be sinful to say that America and the kingdom of God are the same, that America is the kingdom of God.

But there is still a lot of good in America.

Look closely at this picture. This is the group that I spent most of my time with while I was in Hawaii. We worked together, we played together, we cooked and ate meals together. And we were loaned a car for the week to get from one place to another.

On Sunday, June 18, we went to the Convention Center in Honolulu to visit the World Youth Congress. We got to step on board the Hokulea, the canoe I wrote about in the Fellowship News. We got to attend a seminar in which Auli'i Cravalho - the voice of Moana - as well as the directors of that film, were present and spoke.

When we left, I was in the driver’s seat, and I pulled out of the parking garage and handed the attendant my parking stub. She took it, looked in the car at all five of us, and said to me, “Happy Father’s Day.”

And why not? This is America. We could be a family. For one week in Hawaii, we were a family.
A beautiful American family.

America is not the kingdom of God, but I do celebrate that many of the ideals that we claim as founding principles for America are also ideals that Jesus instructed us to follow. Things like liberty. Freedom. Justice for all.

The Declaration of Independence claims that all men are created equal. That was - literally - a revolutionary concept back then. And even today, it still challenges us. All people are created equal. We are a long way from perfect equality in this country, but the banner of equality hangs over us and calls us to pursue equality every day of this great country’s existence.

To deny people equality goes against the values of this country... and it goes against the values of Jesus. Equality is a founding principle of both our country and Christianity.

Whenever Jesus encountered a person of lesser status, he welcomed them and treated them as an equal. Most people didn’t, but Jesus welcomed and embraced and affirmed the dignity and worth and value of lepers, women, children, Samaritans, the unclean, tax collectors, and others who were considered inferior. Even those who were labelled “sinners.” Jesus’ mission - he stated - was to bring good news to the poor and freedom to the oppressed.

Equality for all.

Caring for others is another founding principle of both our country and our faith.

The U.S. Constitution declares its purpose in the preamble, and that purpose includes promoting the general welfare. That means taking care of the people of the United States. All of them; that’s what “general” means. In a few weeks our church will hold its General Assembly in Indianapolis. That means it’s an assembly for the whole church. Everyone. The general welfare means the welfare of everyone.

You already know how this was important to Jesus as well. His concern wasn’t just the Jews. His concern wasn’t just one nation. It was everyone. The whole world. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…”

The United States of America is not a Christian nation. The founders of our nation saw how religion in the hands of lawmakers too often becomes a weapon of oppression rather than a path to freedom. So they kept all religion, including Christianity, out of politics.

But we can still celebrate that principles such as equality and caring for the common good - the general welfare - are principles that both Christianity and our nation have in common. If ever there is a conflict between following God and following country, we must choose following God. Fortunately, on these things, God and country agree: we are to recognize and treat all people equally, and we are to guard and protect and care for all people.

And when either the church or our nation strays from these guiding principles, we must speak out with a loud, unified voice. We must stand firm and boldly declare that we still believe that all people are created equal and must be treated so. We must stand firm and boldly declare that providing for the general welfare of the people is a value we hold dear. We must stand firm and boldly declare that anything less is unacceptable, for we are Americans, and - more importantly - we are followers of Jesus.