Where is our Citizenship?

Citizenship is important. It’s about who belongs, who is one of us. It is also about rights and responsibilities, privileges and duties. Contemporary Australia is struggling with who can become a citizen these days. For anyone not born here and not possessing the privileges involved, there are complicated requirements to gain citizenship. It would seem to me that citizenship is really about the exercise of power in a community. 

We hear from the book of Acts that Paul relied on his Roman citizenship to avoid mob violence. But as he writes from jail to the church at Philippi, it is looking as if his Roman citizenship will earn him the privilege to be executed in Rome at the hand of the state, rather than at the hands of the local mob. It turns out that Rome’s citizenship is at war with God’s kingdom. 

Rome’s empire stands on violence, conquest, exploitation, persecution. Rome’s empire is self-centred: the conquered do not matter. Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Mongol, British, Nazi, Soviet, American— every human empire benefits from violence and oppression. And every one of these empires has come, or will come, to an end. Citizens of these empires, even the mightiest, will ultimately be refugees. I wonder if any of our politicians have thought about that as they send children back to the Camps set up to dehumanise asylum seekers.

Paul is changing— has changed— his citizenship. He urges his new brothers and sisters to put their hope and their lives in service to a kingdom whose ruler is not a conqueror, but a Saviour. Paul himself is about to face yet another humiliation.

It must seem strange to us that in a culture that has called itself “Christian,” the decline of public Christian expression comes to many as a shock, even a threat. Soccer on Sunday mornings? Prayer no longer in public places? Ten Commandments no longer on the courthouse square? The litany of woes can become quite lengthy on the role of religion, especially the role of the Christian faith, in public. If a manger, why not a menorah? And if a menorah, why not a minaret? “The times they are a-changin’,” as Bob Dylan sings.

And yet, as a recent viewing of the Super Bowl may attest, there is a strange fusion of religion with our public life. There is a strange combination of public piety and national sentiment, invocation and honour, free enterprise and athletic competition. What this all says about the role of religion is telling; religion has a way of creeping back into our consciousness, regardless of how odd the context.

Years ago a person shared with me a family member’s description of what happened after that person became a Christian. He expressed to me that “John got religion the other night.” “He got religion? What happens when you get religion?” I asked. What happened was that his life changed! He was no longer the same person. You never know what will happen when you get religion!

We make light of this statement, but it can get our attention. We never know what may happen to us when God finds us and calls us!