Nations and Kingdoms
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
My small town of Wilmore has a large civic park on the other side of my neighborhood. It has a well-maintained loop of asphalt that runs a ring around the edge of the park. From the end of my driveway to the park, around the loop, and back to the end of my driveway is exactly five kilometers. I walk or jog this route often. I like the routine.
There is one house on this route that never escapes my notice because of the amusing mix of cultural artifacts. On the one hand, he flies a Trump 2024 flag on his side yard and hangs a cross that is painted like the American flag on his mailbox. On the other hand, he drives a bright yellow Subaru Baja. If you’ve ever spent time in the Pacific Northwest, you’ll certainly believe, as I do, that this is possibly the only Trump voter who drives such a crunchy, Green Party, “Free Tibet” kind of vehicle. Anyone can surprise you, I suppose.
I bring up this story less for the Subaru (but I got your attention) and more about that cross emblazoned with the stars and stripes. It reminds me of a book I have been making my way through slowly, The Unseen Realm by Michael Heiser, which unpacks the cosmology of the Old Testament and the ways that worldview is carried over into the New Testament. I confess that it is troubling me in some really good ways.
In the book, Heiser focuses a lot on Psalm 82, which is also found in our lectionary reading for this week. He goes into detail about how most interpreters falsely claim that the elohim that stand under God’s judgment in this passage are human rulers that have not lived up to God’s standards for executing justice in the world. He convincingly argues that the Psalmist has in mind a council of divine beings, though not Gods and certainly not humans.
These divine beings were charged with ruling over the nations of the earth as kinda-sorta deputies of God (a very scholarly description, I know). This happened at the incident at Babel when God disinherited the nations as his own people. They ended up under other, lesser gods.
And goodness gracious, this certainly meshes with the current events, doesn’t it? It sure seems like the nations of the world are bent on their own babel-like projects under the rule of lesser gods. And, given that this reflection is housed at the Ekklesia Project, I’m sure few will disagree with me if I accuse the United States of the very same, “Judeo-Christian values” notwithstanding. This nation conceives of itself in universal principles, of having global cosmic significance, of being indispensable for God’s plans in the world, but it really is just another nation like all the others from the perspective of biblical cosmology.
In another lectionary reading from this week, Paul declares to the Colossians that they have been qualified by God “to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.” Here we see the undoing of Babel, that God is re-inheriting people. In order to do so, he transfers the Colossians’ citizenship from the dominion of darkness, which in Paul’s mind refers to the lesser gods ruling over the nations, and into the kingdom of light, the kingdom of the Son.
A cross with the stars and stripes tries to have it both ways. It tries to live according to the lesser, rebellious gods of the nations and according to the kingdom of light. Unfortunately, this cannot work in practice. Jesus was unambiguous about serving two masters. It cannot be done. And, because we follow a non-violent, non-coercive Jesus, the violent and demonic realm always commands the allegiance of the one trying to follow both. May we all be properly wary of the nations and ensure that our citizenships are unambiguously in the kingdom of light.