Pope Benedict XVI made his first visit to the United States this week and earlier today visited the White House with President Bush. I was somewhat appalled to a line that he said according to reports, "God Bless America". I guess I am not so much surprised as puzzled. Does the Pope say this in every country he visits? If so, great...I truly hope and pray that God will bless all the nations of this Earth, just not in the way that we sometimes desire. If however the Pope said this only in the U.S. I find it discomforting.
This morning, the song God Bless America was running through my mind and I began to think not only about "Manifest Destiny" but our feeling that even my favorite President (RR) had that we in America are to be the "City on a Hill that cannot be hid", makes me wonder whether we, sometimes as Christians confuse nation and kingdom. For we are called to be part of a Kingdom not of this world, with a King who is Christ.
Should we expect God to bless our country in the way that we have approached economics, justice, war, poverty, freedom? Don't get me wrong these are issues that I find myself continually struggling to determine my personal answers for. Questions that come into my mind are what about war, is it truly the answer that Christ would have us undertake? Should I expect the nation to turn the other cheek just because Jesus taught me to do that? What exactly does it look like to "inasmuch as it is possible live at peace with all men"?
I think we may be in a time that we need prophets like Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Hosea to come forward and call us back to God. Maybe we have bought in too much to "God Bless America" and not enough into God Bless Everyone. Maybe, just maybe, our allegiance to the Western culture has outweighed our allegiance to the Kingdom of Heaven.
I really don't have the answers, just questions, but I would be interested to learn how you are walking this path?
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4 comments:
I'm pretty sure that God only blesses America and nobody else. Not to say that other nations can't make a go at it. But let's be honest ... we're not just a "City on the Hill," ... we own the the entire Hill, and a solid majority of the abutting land at the bottom of the Hill. And if the countries in the little, rickety, wooden shacks at the bottom of the hill decide they want a peice of the blessing, they can come try and take it. But they'll just get kicked in the teeth, back to their shacks in Europe and Asia and Africa. The South Americans get to stick around close to the top of the Hill ... but solely as a look-out.
The Pope is right on. In Jesus' letter to the Phillipians, I'm pretty sure he said something like ... "Just wait, America is coming, you pit of vipers!"
It was something like that.
I hope you all note the underlying sarcasm in Troy's comment...
My thoughts generated by the papal visit were quite different. In a physician's office several weeks ago, I read an article from US News and World Report about the visit. The two main topics addressed were the lack of parish priests and the sex scandals of the catholic priesthood.
I find it interesting that as the "keeper of the Word", the pope could make significant headway never before realized within the priesthood by addressing what 1 Timothy and Titus have to say regarding church leaders and the need for them to be family men who have succeeded in rearing their families. This qualification among a list of qualifications for church leadership is the main ingredient sighted in scripture that allows a man to be considered for leadership in the church. I know of no Catholic priest who is a family man. Quite a sad picture, and one of a host of reasons I left the Catholic faith; thank God!
Wrong.
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