The Liberating News of God

Beloved in Christ,

One way I’ve been dealing with the painful brokenness of our national life recently is by returning to the musical Hamilton on my commute and long walks.  It does what any great art does with history: re-examines familiar narratives through the lens of a particular contemporary context. The story of the Revolutionary War and building of our nation, recast through the personality of one of its lesser known figures, and set in the musical styles of rap, hip-hop, and R&B, tells a story about how our nation was birthed, not by dictate of the politically powerful, but by the underdog, the pushed aside, the immigrant, and those seemingly powerless in the face of empire. 

Like any history, Hamilton takes some significant liberties to tell a good story. The founders of our nation were not, in fact, fully on the side of the underdog, and the very heroes of the story were still complicit in massive injustice and suffering. But what I love about the musical is, in an age when it is so easy to be cynical about all of America’s failures and liabilities, it is pulsing with vision for what we might be at our best, and driven by hope that it could really be so. That’s a nourishing contrast to the current state of our nation, which is largely being driven by a cynical, myopic, inwardly focused vision to benefit a small elite. Listening to Hamilton is, for me, a way of remembering we could be something different.

As followers of Jesus, it’s essential for us to hold our earthly citizenship lightly, of course. The flag and the cross represent fundamentally different allegiances, identities, and visions. The conflation of those two is what drives a currently ascendent Christian Nationalism, which is a heretical distortion of the gospel, which needs to be denounced by Christians. It seeks an end Jesus never sought (political power and a racially narrow vision of community), by employing means he never used (violence and domineering coercion). 

Still, we follow Jesus in the particular political economy which is the United States of America. It’s our sacred calling to meet that political economy and its people with the good and liberating news of love that Jesus brought to the empire in his own day. As we celebrate July 4th at a time when the nation feels hard to celebrate, may we remember there’s a beautiful vision for who we could be behind layers of distortion that have built up over time. Pray that our witness as followers of Jesus might help restore some of that vision, to nudge the whole heavy world more fully into God’s healing arms of love.

Lord God Almighty, you have made all the peoples of the earth for your glory, to serve you in freedom and in peace: Give to the people of our country a zeal for justice and the strength of forbearance, that we may use our liberty in accordance with your gracious will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives  reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer, pg. 258)

Grace and Peace, 

The Right Rev. Craig Loya