Spiritual Hiccups - What Enemies?

I've always been a bit uncomfortable with a line in this morning's psalm (as well as the song based on it).  "I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, so I shall be saved from my enemies."  To begin with, I don't really have what I consider enemies.  Certainly I have people who don't care for me and who don't like me.  But this is as likely to be my fault as theirs, so I cringe at the notion of God needing to do something about them.  Also, this psalm sometimes conjures up images of enlisting God in our national causes.  But I am extremely uncomfortable assuming that the enemies of America are necessarily the enemies of God.

But at a Bible study last night we were talking about the Kingdom that Jesus says is drawing near, and how the ways of this new age are at odds with the ways of the world.  The gospels make it abundantly clear that the those who embrace the ways of the Kingdom will find themselves in conflict with the world, just as Jesus did.  And Jesus says that if we follow him, we will be hated and despised just as he was.  And I have no enemies.

How did we go from Jesus' warning that "If they persecuted me, they will persecute you," to the life of relative ease Christians enjoy in America.  No doubt some will suggest that this is because we are a "Christian nation," but does that mean that America somehow embodies the Kingdom or provides a faithful witness to God's new day as Jesus says his followers must? 

Even a cursory reading of the gospels will demonstrate how little America looks like the Kingdom.  America may be the most wonderful country on earth, but it is not a place where the powerful are brought down and the lowly lifted up, where the hungry are filled with good things and the rich are sent away empty.  It is not a place where swords are beaten into plowshares or that believes Jesus when he says, "One's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions," or "None of you can become my disciples if you do not give up all your possessions."

The fact is that the Church has done a pretty good job of domesticating Jesus and his message.  That's not an American thing.  It began more than 1600 years ago when the emperor Constantine embraced the faith.  But of course once the empire became "Christian," Christianity couldn't go around talking about a new kingdom of God what would overthrow the ways of Rome.  And so the promises of God's coming Kingdom gradually got relegated to a better life after death. And this domestication continues.  It is manifest in the notion that Jesus came primarily to offer personal salvation to individuals and in Glenn Beck's assertion that Christians shouldn't worry about "social justice."

And me, I enjoy a relatively comfortable job as a pastor where my only "enemies" are the occasional folks who get mad because I haven't visited them enough or who didn't like something I said in a sermon.

To be honest, I don't really know where this train of thought is headed, but as we move through Advent and Christmas, when we hear once again about swords beaten into plowshares, the Prince of Peace, and peace on earth, it seems to me that I need to take a hard look at how faithful I am to Jesus' call to be his disciple.  Jesus didn't go looking for enemies - he even heals one of those who arrested him - but when he is faithful to God's will, he becomes a threat that earthly powers cannot ignore.  So why does the world so easily dismiss me and the Church?

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