Devotional:

Zechariah 9.9

Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

I just entered into my fifth year of ministry and one of the things that has sustained me the most throughout my vocation is the weekly reading of sermons that have nothing to do with the sermon I’m working on. I quickly learned that when you make the jump from receiving sermons to preaching sermons, you lose the important part of worship that is hearing the Word afresh and anew.

Some of my favorite preachers come from a variety of backgrounds and denominational affiliations, but perhaps my favorite preacher is Stanley Hauerwas. What makes Hauerwas’ sermons so powerful is the fact that he’s not a preacher. Though deeply involved in the work of ethics and theology, Hauerwas is still a lay-person and when he proclaims the Word from the pulpit it hits me more than from a lot of long time clergy.

Another reason I love Hauerwas’ preaching, perhaps the most important reason, is that he can get away with saying a lot more from the pulpit than most pastors precisely because he’s not a pastor. There’s a delicate balance the preacher has to find between saying what God wants to be said, and doing it in such a way that it doesn’t alienate everyone such that they won’t be back the next Sunday. But Hauerwas, as a layperson, can say just about whatever he wants.

His sermon on the Fourth of July is one that he stuck with me ever since the first time I read it, and particularly the last few paragraphs. Hauerwas again and again makes the claim that we are so entrenched in the worship of America that we can no longer recognize it for the idolatry that it is. He says that this is evident in the way that the political arena has overshadowed the reality of the church and in how we no longer question if the country has done anything wrong. Instead, we assume that if something is done in the name of America, it is for the greater good.

Try saying that from the pulpit in a church during the fourth of July weekend and you might not have a church to come back to the following Sunday.

But at the end of the sermon Hauerwas makes one final claim that is worthy of repetition. If the fireworks that burst in the sky and the red, white, and blue on our clothing are more captivating than the bread and wine at the table, then we are not the church. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t join together with neighbors to celebrate our country’s independence, or that we can’t sing patriotic songs or eat hot dogs or light off fireworks. But if all of those things are more important to us, if they speak a greater narrative in and to our lives, then we have to ask ourselves whom we really worship.

The prophet Zechariah proclaims that our King comes to us humble and riding on a donkey. As Christians, our King is not in the fireworks and the festivities and the food of the fourth of July. Our King is with the marginalized, the fearful, and the lonely.

Our King is not of this world. Our King rules the world.

Our King is not in a flag or in a pledge of allegiance. Our King is crucified and calls for our allegiance.

And so rejoice, Christians, sing aloud, for our King is triumphant and victorious. But he is not the same thing as our country.