Honk If You…

I’ve got to tell you that this sermon comes with a disclaimer. The disclaimer is that I did not plan this.

What I mean by that is that I sat down in October of last year to plan out the entire preaching calendar for the year. Like it’s done — all the way through advent of this year. It’s been done for over a quarter of a year. This series was planned without regard to non-church holidays. So I’m just saying that I did not know that this sermon series would end on Super Bowl Sunday until a few weeks ago when I made the connection.

And a few weeks before I made the connection, and Steve can corroborate this — I switched the entire order of this sermon series around. Originally this sermon was supposed to be the second sermon in the series. But then I swapped the whole thing around because I thought it made more sense to work from the inside to the outside of the concentric circles of belonging. Which means, that the original title and idea of today’s sermon falling on Superbowl Sunday was completely a fluke. And I say all of that because the original title of this sermon was …

Go Birds

Now I’ve changed it to be less terribly polarizing. But when I originally planned to preach this sermon on the second Sunday of January there was no chance of offending any of my friends from Kansas City. But anyway, it was titled by Go Birds for a reason.

You see in Philadelphia, there is a very endearing cultural phenomena that occurs between the months of September and January. That phenomena is the fact that on Sundays there is one way to greet any person you see — One way to say Hello, Good bye, Thank you, You’re Welcome, and a slew of other common pleasantries.

You run into someone, Go Birds

You’re leaving somewhere, Go Birds

Someone does something nice for you, Go Birds

The response to gratitude, Go Birds

You get the point. Weird breed of human beings. But they are my people. Some of your people too. And so what exactly is it that can cause and entire population of people to speak to one another — complete strangers often — in a different local dialect for 5 months a year?

Well it’s a thing that we call shared allegiance.

We’re finishing our sermon series “A Part of Your World” today. In this series we’ve been looking at what is called the concentric circles of belonging. What these circles represent are the varying levels of intimacy that we have in the different relationships that we all hold in life. They are all important to our ability to function as productive members of society and more importantly to live out the calling that God has placed on us to be humans who live within communities of love.

The final circle, today’s circle is the circle of shared allegiance. We all have these — these are essentially the identities that we align ourselves with. They can be subcultures — like deadheads, parrot heads, people who really love dave matthews band, whatever. They can be our political identities — republican, democrat, libertarian, anarchist. They can be based around our hobbies such as art, surfing, cycling, music, golf. You get the point. Shared allegiance is the realm of relationships where we don’t have to know one another in order to feel connected. Especially here in a place where so many people relocate from outside of florida. You see your favorite team’s logo on a bumpersticker or shirt and it’s like that person is a long lost treasure from your past life. Even though you wouldn’t have thought twice about them back at home.

Shared allegiance is where you honk at the people holding signs you agree with. And it’s important, because shared allegiances are how we feel connected to the greater world. It’s how we feel part of something bigger than ourselves. It’s how we find pride in belonging to the fanbase in the championship, or the party who wins an election, or the holy connectedness we feel when 50,000 people are belting out the lyrics to our favorite band’s hit song.

It’s why we can’t help but be moved by the unfurling of the flag and the melody of our national anthem.

So then, how do shared allegiances fit into our lives as followers of Jesus? Or perhaps the better question is — how do our shared allegiances interfere with our ability to be the best followers of Jesus — the best citizens of this world that we can be?

Well, to put it plainly — when our shared allegiances cause us to see other people as anything less than people who are loved by God — as our neighbors whom we are called to love — then our shared allegiances have overstepped their authority.

Jesus was keenly aware of this reality in the first century world that he lived in. He was always navigating the world of shared allegiances — interacting with people who were loyal to the Roman empire, people who were loyal to the Pharisaic tradition of Judaism, The tradition of Judaism that the Sadducees belonged to, the people who were loyal to King Herod, Samaritans, and everyone else.

And some of these groups really despised the way that Jesus didn’t allow the boundaries of shared allegiance to separate himself from the people of the world. And that was the case when he was asked this question:

Mark 12:13–17 NRSV

Then they sent to him some Pharisees and some Herodians to trap him in what he said. And they came and said to him, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality, but teach the way of God in accordance with truth. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?” But knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, “Why are you putting me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me see it.” And they brought one. Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” They answered, “The emperor’s.” Jesus said to them, “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they were utterly amazed at him.

You see what Jesus is trying to make clear to these folks is that we exist within human systems that demand our allegiance. Jesus and the people of his world lived in the Roman Empire. And living in the Roman Empire meant submitting your allegiance — and definitely some of your money — to the Roman government.

We do this in our modern world too. We pledge allegiance to our flag long before we understand the weight of what we are saying. We pay taxes before we realize we have to pay taxes.

And Jesus isn’t even saying like “hey that’s bad knock it off.” He’s saying that’s something that is part of our human existence. The money has caesar’s face on it, if he asks for it back — give it back to him. Do your due diligence as inhabitants or citizens of Rome. But that’s not the highest authority that you have declared your allegiance to.

He says give God what belongs to God. Jesus here is referring to the whole rest of our being. Later in the letters of Paul he will say this about our allegiances:

Philippians 3:20–21 NRSV

But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.

Paul wants us to understand where our ultimate allegiance is. It is to the kingdom of heaven — to the lord Jesus Christ.

And the beautiful thing about declaring our allegiance to Jesus and living that out in our lives as citizens of the kingdom of God is that our allegiance to Jesus doesn’t restrict us from living in this world in a way that loves everyone. Which is a pretty amazing thing because in our world of subcultures and political identities and whatever it is that we are experiencing in this cultural moment of our world this is not the norm.

We have a very black and white way of seeing one another. You’re with us or you’re against us. And I know that’s not how we are supposed to live, but it’s just the climate right now. And the citizenship that we hold in heaven is pretty clear that God wants everyone in. God wants unity in the body of the church and ultimately unity in the body of all of humanity.

But it’s really hard for us to get to that kind of unity because we are people who must define and distinguish ourselves from one another for one reason or another. And I’ll be the first to admit that when I see a Dallas Cowboys star or a New York Mets logo I’m not really super interested in thinking that this person is a person that I want to associate myself with. Because what the heck man.

But then I remember that we both love football or baseball. Then I remember that when those games are over, the players are all friends who have grown up in the sport together. Then I remember that God really loves everyone, regardless of whether or not they like the wrong sports team.

You see, what we’ve got going on in our world is an allegiance arrangement problem. We’ve got our stuff all out of whack. We place our politics or ideologies or philosophy in front of our Christianity. And that causes us to place our policies and our beliefs in front of the humanity of people that God loves deeply. And if we are ever going to come out of this mess of a culture war that has been brewing over the last decades, then we are going to have to come face to face with our shared allegiances and really decide who comes first in our lives: the talking head on the television or the Lord of the Universe…

And I’m just here to say that Jesus is like 1000% undefeated. And Jesus would be pretty sad to come and walk among us. Jesus would be pretty sad to look at the way we dehumanize his beloved children on social media.

So this week we will continue to pray our Lord’s prayer each day. Really hang this week on those words “thy kingdom come, thy will be done” and then pray for eyes to see the people you don’t want to see as God’s children — as God’s children.

And then maybe reserve your honking for signs that say “honk if you belong to kingdom of God.

I hope this series has given you much to think about. I know I really enjoyed it. Next week we move into a new series on the nature of the church. And since you’ll be sad football is over… it’s a football themed series called Clear eyes, Full hearts, Can’t lose. Hope you’ll join us. Until then, Let’s pray.