CALLED TO SERVE

by THE REVEREND SAMUEL GREGORY JONES, RECTOR

Two flags hang in the nave of St. Michael’s, an Episcopal Church flag and an American flag. Over the course of my career, I have heard it said from time to time that there should be no national symbols in a church. As a theologian and historian, I have spent a great deal of thought considering whether national symbols have a place in and around church buildings. And here’s what I think.

In American history, the separation of church and state was a key part of our founding. The nation would neither support, require nor establish any particular religion. As our country was formed by former citizens of a nation where church and state are two sides of the coin of the realm, it is true that many of our revolutionary founders did not want the repeat of this in the United States of America. But while this clearly argues against putting a church flag in an American government building, it has no bearing on whether a national symbol could appear on church properties in America.

Such symbols have been inside churches going back to before there was an America, of course. Indeed, all the nations of Western Civilization were founded from earlier medieval states, which were descended from the Roman Empire, whose bounds stretched from

Britain to the Middle East, and North Africa to Northern Europe. And that Empire — beginning in the fourth century — was Christian. The incorporation of church into state, and state into church, began a long time ago, and many of the symbols are intertwined.

But while the Christianization of the Roman Empire was good for the empire, the imperialization of the Church was not always so good. For while the Church made some moral improvement to the ways of the empire, the empire likewise corrupted the Church. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, as they say. Christians like myself, who love history and see God’s hand across every century, will say that the Church was probably at its moral best before Constantine, and that the separation of the Church from the clutches of any empire was also good. Which is to say, in America, the fact that no one church (or religion) controls the government is a good thing, and it is also good that the government does not control the Church.

While our mother Church of England is still the established church in England, the decline of religious practice in England is tragic in my view. Yet I doubt it would improve by decree of the government. Indeed, in some countries — like Russia for instance — the Church and the state are fused together in a way that has corrupted the moral witness of the Church beyond recognition, and which not only does not criticize but upholds the regime in power. The Russian Orthodox Church serves as the puppet of Vladimir Putin, just as it did the czars long ago, repeatedly lauding and celebrating the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

So why do we have an American flag in our nave, and should we? We have one in our church, not for traditionalist, nationalist or jingoistic reasons, but for one single reason alone: Mission. The flag has to do with our mission imperative, which begins with Jesus and has continued through 2,000 years of ins and outs, where churches have existed within countless cities, states, nations, tribes, cultures and empires. The one, holy, catholic and apostolic church is a universal Church, which belongs to no one people, language, or tribe; no one ethnicity, mindset, or lifestyle; no one generation, civilization or era.

Jesus Christ is the Son of God who calls together people of every nation for the purpose of bringing good news to the world. And, as he commanded, we are to go into all the world baptizing people of every nation in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Thus, we in this church here, exist in this nation here, which we are called to serve. Not as nationalists, but as evangelists.

We are called to serve the world, and this is the part of the world where we are. So this land is our mission field. This land is our home for the exercise, practice and mission of God’s work. Jesus has called us to serve this nation as agents of God’s essential mission of love. And as such, as Bishop Curry reminded us, we are called to work toward the good of this nation — where we live — so that the largest number of its people might not only know the eternal truths of God, but live in a society marked by freedom, democratic principles and mutual care.

In a world and nation, which are always at odds, because division and strife are the Devil’s tools for destroying the creatures of God, we are called to be God’s agents of reconciliation, not just privately, but for the society around us. Thus, the flag is the symbol of whom we are called to serve.