6.29.25 – Sermon written and preached by Leigh Rachal @ FPC Abbeville

This is week two of my summer sermon series, where we are walking through some basic tenets of our faith.

Last week, we built the foundation on which all our other beliefs rest: that God is love.

This week, we are trying to understand a bit more about God’s vision of love for the world -

what it looks like when that love takes shape among us. We call it God’s Beloved Community.

And the Holy Spirit worked the timing out just right for this conversation, because this is the week when we celebrate the birth of our nation -

a time when we remember the story of our country, give thanks for its blessings, and reflect on what it means to belong.

It is good to celebrate where we come from.

It is good to love the place God has planted us.

It is good to pause and give thanks for the blessings we enjoy - blessings that many in the world still long for.

It is good to remember the sacrifices made so that others could live with dignity and the hope of peace.

Love of place, of land, of shared memory - these are good gifts.

Gratitude for freedom, for community, for opportunity, these things are all worth honoring.

But even good things can become distorted.

There’s a quiet shift that can happen - often without us noticing -

when our love of country becomes the measure of all things.

When God’s favor gets painted red, white, and blue.

When faith is fused with power, the cross is draped in a flag.

That’s the danger of nationalism:

the belief that our nation is somehow uniquely chosen by God,

that its success proves God’s blessing,

and that our version of faith should rule the public square.

It turns Jesus from the Savior of the world into a national mascot.

And when that happens, faith loses its power to challenge us.

It becomes a mirror reflecting back our own preferences

instead of a window through which we glimpse God’s kingdom.

But Scripture tells us a different story about God’s vision for our life on earth.

The prophet Isaiah offers a vision of many peoples, many nations,

streaming toward God - not to conquer or claim,

but to learn, to lay down weapons, to walk in peace.

He writes:

“They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”

Notice what Isaiah doesn’t say.

He doesn’t say one nation will rise above all others.

He doesn’t say God’s mountain is the exclusive possession of a single people.

He doesn’t say only those who look or worship or speak the same belong there.

Isaiah sees a future that runs counter to the logic of empire and exclusion—

a future where all humanity gathers in the name of peace,

where competition is replaced by cooperation,

where weapons are repurposed to feed and to tend.

Centuries later, Paul writes to the Galatians:

“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

In Christ, every division is undone.

Every hierarchy dismantled.

Every wall torn down.

And generations after Paul, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was leading the struggle for civil rights, he reached back to this same vision and gave it new language.

He called it the Beloved Community - a community where racism, poverty, and violence are replaced by reconciliation, justice, and peace.

Dr. King said:

“The end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the Beloved Community.”

He believed God was drawing a circle so wide there is no outside.

A circle were no one left our or left behind.

Where no one deemed unworthy or less worthy than another.

Friends, I also want to say this plainly:

Nationalism is not just a political ideology.

It is a kind of idolatry - a false god that demands our loyalty but cannot save us.

It promises security and belonging, but it leaves us more fearful and divided.

It asks us to trust in power rather than grace.

But there is a better way.

A deeper belonging.

A truer hope.

Jesus calls us out of the shadows of these false gods and into the light of God’s Beloved Community - a community where our worth is not measured by citizenship or power, but by the love of the One who made us.

Of course, just because God’s Vision, God’s Beloved Community includes all nations doesn’t mean that we don’t have nations right now.

Of course, we all do live in nations.

And we do need laws and borders to order our civic life.

There is nothing inherently unfaithful about processes for citizenship or policies for immigration.

But as Christians, we are always called to wrestle with how those laws reflect - or fail to reflect - the deeper call of the gospel.

And I also want to acknowledge that questions about borders and citizenship are complicated.

Nations do need policies to manage who can enter, who can stay, and how we live together.

And reasonable people can disagree about what those policies should be.

But as followers of Jesus, our task is to hold all those decisions - no matter which side we stand on - up to the light of God’s love.

We may disagree on immigration policy.

But scripture leaves no doubt about how we are called to see the people behind the headlines: the immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers and the ICE agents, the police officers, the elected officials -

We are to call all of these people our neighbors.

They are all bearers of God’s image.

And God loves them just as much as God loves us.

Even when a law says someone must leave,

we are never excused from treating that person with dignity.

Even when a person’s job is to enforce the laws we disagree with,

we are never excused from treating that person with dignity.

Even when a policy draws a boundary,

we are never relieved of our call to love.

We are called to remember that our first citizenship is not in any earthly nation but in the kingdom of heaven.

And in that kingdom, there are no outsiders.

No disposable lives.

And maybe one of the simplest ways to know whether we are following the gospel or bowing to the idols of nationalism is this:

When we hear the words “God bless America,” can we also say—without hesitation—

God bless Iran.

God bless Israel and Palestine.

God bless Russia and Ukraine.

God bless the nations we fear and the nations we love.

Because the nature of God, as Creator of all, is to bless all of creation.

To long for peace and flourishing in every land.

And our call as Christ’s disciples is to see no enemy so hated that God’s grace does not reach them.

If our faith can only imagine blessings for us, it isn’t faith in Jesus.

It’s faith in ourselves.

But if our faith dares to imagine God’s blessing for all peoples,

even - or especially- for the least, the lost, the stranger, and the foreigner -

that is the beginning of the Beloved Community.

And that is the beginning of true peace.

So, as we live in this tension –

grateful for the blessings of our U.S. citizenship and mindful of our civic responsibilities to our nation - 

we also hold tightly to our truest allegiance –

which is to the One who breaks down all walls and makes us all one.

And let’s be honest: this isn’t easy work.

It is so much simpler to draw lines.

To sort the world into “us” and “them.”

To believe that our way is the only way.

To let faith serve our comfort instead of challenging our assumptions.

But the gospel doesn’t call us to what is easy.

It calls us to what is true.

To what is holy.

To what is just.

It calls us to the mountain of God, where all nations gather.

Where swords become plowshares and weapons become tools of nurture.

Where true peace is not the prize of the powerful but the gift of God.

So yes - let us celebrate the good.

Let’s sing the patriotic songs we love.

Let’s decorate with flags and pray God’s blessing upon our nation.

Let’s also remember the sacrifices that have made the freedoms we enjoy possible.

But let’s not let the celebration end there.

Let it lead us deeper –

to gratitude that does not stop at our own borders,

to compassion that dares to love even our enemies,

to justice that refuses to privilege some over others.

Let our love of country be a doorway to loving the world God so loves –

a world where no one is forgotten,

no one is cast aside,

no one is called unworthy.

Because the gospel truth is this:

God’s love knows no borders.

God’s mercy cannot be contained by any flag.

God’s embrace gathers all the world into belonging.

May we have the courage to step out of the shadow of our false gods

and into the light of Christ, who alone is worthy of our ultimate trust.

May we have the courage to build God’s Beloved Community together -

on earth as it is in heaven.

And may our witness always be one of peace, of reconciliation,

and of Love that will not let any of us go.

Amen.