Mount Sterling First United Methodist Church
The Idolatry of Flags in the Sanctuary

  • Hearing God: Listening in a Noisy World

    Last week I asked if you ever had a problem praying to God, knowing what to say, what to think, what or who to pray for. Prayer is our ultimate deep relationship with God, so it is the best way that we can individually and collectively mature and deepen our connection with God. This week we will discuss how to hear God in a very noisy world.
    Hearing God means we are actively listening and in-tune with God’s voice, God’s prompting, God’s encouragement, God’s motivation, and God’s Spirit. Listening is an intentional act of inviting an outside force into your mind that will offer new information, new data, that could possibly change who you are, confirm who you are, and encourage your present day walk.
    Think through your life and how so much has changed, yet one force that has change, and yet remained, is the noise of life. When you are younger, you have the noise of your ever developing body, your parents/guardians, grandparents, siblings, extended family, friends from the neighborhood, friends from school, rules of school, rules of home, rules of the community you live, and the list goes on and on.
    When you get older your noise changes into adult responsibilities. You have the noise of paying bills, the noise of fixing things that are broken, the noise of family, employment, government, neighborhood, other people’s opinions, and the list goes on and on.
    In your retirement the noise changes again but is still present. You now have noises much like when you were younger and your body is doing things that you’ve never experienced before and you may not like it. You also have the noise of hoping you will have enough money to live on, wanting to be available to have fun, desiring to be with family, more medical appointments than you desire, traveling to new places, and the noise of silence as you see more friends start to leave you one by one.

    God speaks in many ways

    In all of noise of life, in every stage of your life, God still speaks. When you’re younger God speaks in a way that is relevant to a youthful age, in your busy adult years God is speaking above, in between, and beneath the cracks of life, in your maturing years of retirement God is speaking in the silence, the mundane, the unwanted, the joy, and the freedom that this life stage provides. God is always speaking but does so in many different ways so that every age and every culture will be able to hear, and hopefully listen.
    So, in the noise of your life, in whatever stage you are in, how does God speak to you? As a United Methodist Christian how does God speak to you? Looking upon our United Methodist heritage, God is said to speak to us through Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience.
    God’s voice is heard through scripture as it is a collection of 66+ books/letters/poems/songs that were constructed to evidence God engaging in relationship with humanity throughout many millennia. Scripture is one of our ultimate guides for reflection of religious interaction with a holy God and humanity on the onward and upward holiness progression of love. Mark Twain said,
    Most people are bothered by those passages in Scripture which they cannot understand; but as for me, I always noticed that the passages in Scripture which trouble me most are those which I do understand.
    Mark Twain
    For non-Christians scripture can still speak to their existence but other religious or humanistic writings may play a larger role, this is to be expected but for us United Methodist Christians, scripture is still essential in our overall understanding of how God can speak through the generations.
    Tradition is another way God can speak to us. Tradition in the USA in 2024 is going to be different than Tradition in Rome in 1200 or Babylon in 300BC. God will speak through the present day culture in a way that is significant, symbolic, while emphasizing God’s holiness and illuminating human understanding through the ever-present and moving Spirit. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said,
    We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.
    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
    Traditions can come and go depending on the nature of what is needed and necessary for the people, at the time. Some Traditions can also last too long where no one understands why we do this specific act anymore. Traditions can also be good and deepen a prayerful relationship with God. God definitely speaks through the ritualistic acts that we, as a people, choose to do.
    Reason proclaims the active and ongoing knowledge that humans gain over time. You may have heard the phrase before, “we don’t check our brains at the door of the church”, this should be true of every church that you enter. If something simply does not make sense and new knowledge or data on a certain topic proves otherwise, especially if it speaks against a traditional interpretation of scripture, then reason should be highly considered as more relevant. Francis Bacon said,
    A little philosophy inclines men’s minds to atheism, but depth in philosophy brings men’s minds about to religion.
    —Francis Bacon
    Francis Bacon (Philosopher)
    God speaks through education as we learn more about this world, we do learn more about God and can learn to hear God’s voice in new and exciting ways. Reason is good so don’t easily cast it away when you may not fully understand something new.
    Experience is not new but was an addition from Wesley to the people called Methodists. Wesley added experience to the 3-fold Scripture, Tradition, and Reason from the Church of England. Experience is the active voice of the Holy Spirit in the daily life events, activities, and ever evolving culture of humanity. Humanity must listen to God through experiencing life for the maintenance of old relationships and the establishment of new relationships all consists of new and maturing experiences of life. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said,
    We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.
    Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
    God definitely speaks through experiences that are new, frightening, uncomfortable, and confirming.
    Tradition, Reason, and Experience all speak to Scripture, as Scripture also speaks to Tradition, Reason, and Experience. God throughout time has spoken when there was no Scripture, no Tradition, and very limited Reason and Experience.

    The Role of Discernment

    This bring us to discernment. We all have the ability to perceive or recognize differences to judge what is right and wrong, good and evil, the voice of God and the will of humanity. Unfortunately, we’ve all come across people who who have very little discernment. There is a quote from an unknown author that says:
    ​
    Little [people] with little minds and little imaginations go through life in little ruts, smugly resisting all changes which would jar their little worlds.
    Unknown
    In other words, there are some people who simply do not have any common sense to see life with another person’s vision or walk through this world in another person’s shoes. In our 1Kings scripture reading , we have the story of Elijah running for his life after the prophets of Baal were killed. Elijah proclaimed God’s word, held to his cultural traditions, reasoned with his real life circumstances, and experienced God anew in a relational conversation. The bookend of this experience was God questioning Elijah, “Why are you here?” God spoke with Elijah to confirm who he was, confirm his prophetic action, confirm that throughout all the noise around him that God is not in the noise of the world. God is ultimately received and heard in the thin, quiet moments of reflection, discernment, and interpretation while journeying in all the noise of this crazy world. Catherine of Siena said,
    The core of pride is impatience and its offshoot is the lack of any discernment.
    Saint Catherine of Siena
    Discerning God’s voice, while in the noisy moments of life, help us to do what the Psalmist invites the readers on multiple occasions-SELAH, to pause, to sit, to reflect, and then act. When one has a prayer life whose foundation is built upon divine discernment then you will have a pray-er who intentionally seeks God’s will as God’s ambassador not the world’s warrior. When we take time to discern we then will be able to hear the voice of God. John 10.27 says
    John 10:27 CEB
    My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me.
    In the stillness of life we are able to be attentive to the voice of our Savior, to hear, to listen, and then to follow.

    God desires genuine relationships

    The busyness of life can be so noisy that we, at times, choose to deny God the relationship of his desire. That relationship is to give and receive love with you. The God/human relationship is one of intimacy in prayer, intimacy in action, intimacy in private, and intimacy in public. God never stops pursuing you for there is not an end point to a relationship. In prayer we continue to communicate with God and time with God is needed especially when the world’s noise can be too distracting. Thomas Schreiner says,
    Love for God cannot be sustained without a relationship with him, and such a relationship is nurtured by prayer.
    Thomas Schreiner
    A deeply held prayer life does not have to be one that is outlandish where you are always the person asked to pray in public settings; don’ worry that is always reserved for the pastor, even if the pastor don’t want to do it. A deeply held prayer life can also be very subtle. A deeply held prayer life can be very private. A deeply held prayer life is true prayer. R.T. France says,
    True prayer is not a technique nor a performance, but a relationship.
    R. T. France
    A true relationship with God must have true prayer from the believer or the seeker of the divine. Prayer enters one into the presence of God. Prayer strengthens the relationship with God. Prayer emboldens the faith of the believer in a noisy world. When you are soaked in prayer then you are transformed into your prayers. Warren Wiersbe says,
    Prayer is not something that I do; prayer is something that I am.
    Warren W. Wiersbe
    As we continue to develop our prayerful skills, we develop our listening skills, which develop our divine loving skills. A prayerful heart that listens to and connects with God is an act of love. Saint Augustine said,
    What you love you worship; true prayer, real prayer, is nothing but loving: what you love, that you pray to.
    Saint Augustine of Hippo
    As we pray to that which we love, our words and our actions will unite together as one. Our relationship with God will grow, the deafening noise of the world will extinguish, the words from our tongue will be praise, and people will see a prayerful life of love in action. So whether we are asleep or awake a life of prayer will guide us and help us to hear God more. John Wesley said,
    The moment I awaked, ‘Jesus, Master,’ was in my heart and in my mouth; and I found all my strength lay in keeping my eye fixed upon Him, and my soul waiting on Him continually.
    John Wesley (Founder of the Methodist Movement)

    Silent Reflection and Mindfulness

    As we enter into a new week, I encourage you to take time in silent reflection and mindfully focus upon God in prayer. Last week I invited you to pray the open-hearted disciples prayer. This week I invite you to say a prayer that has been said for many generations, The Jesus Prayer.
    Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner
    Amen.
  • O God Our Help In Ages Past
  • God of Grace and God of Glory

      • Exodus 20:1–6CEB

      • Isaiah 2:2–4CEB

  • There’s a question that lingers in the holy space of every sanctuary around the world, not only in the United States. It is an often unspoken tension that touches our stained glass, our pulpits, and yes, even our flag stands: Who does this space belong to? It’s a question that we must ask honestly. 
    This sermon series, and this sermon in general, is not written to offend or dishonor our national symbols, but to faithfully examine whether what we say we believe about God is matched by the signs, symbols, and assumptions we carry into the house of the Lord, specifically the sanctuary. The sanctuary is a space meant to center us in the presence of God without compromise but over generations, and especially after ever war this nation forces upon its people, the church sanctuaries have been compromised by nationalistic symbols that has, unfortunately, become par with the gospel message of Jesus Christ. 
    So, I believe we must focus on what is theologically proper to proclaim, hang, present, and lift up within the most sacred space of a church, the sanctuary. I do not see this conversation applying beyond the sanctuaries walls unless the worship of our God follows us beyond the sanctuary walls. So we need to theologically speak and think about what is worship and what we carry with us into a worshipful setting.
    Last week, we began with the question: Which gospel are we living? We contrasted the gospel of Jesus, a gospel of peace, justice, humility, and mercy, with the gospel of the nation, baptized in patriotic fervor and cloaked in divine destiny. We named that these are not the same, and they cannot be reconciled.
    Today, we press deeper. The gospel we live shapes the space we inhabit. The sanctuary, God’s dwelling among us, is not a neutral zone. It tells a story. It communicates a theology. Too often, it has been co-opted into a temple of nationalism, where flags wave higher than crosses, and the name of a country is whispered louder than the name of Christ.
    The Jealousy (Passion) of God
    Let’s begin with Exodus 20:1–6. The opening words of the Decalogue or what we know as the Ten Commandments. The Decalogue is understood as divine declarations of covenant life between Israel specifically and humanity in general and God. God speaks clearly: “You must have no other gods before me. Do not make an idol for yourself... Do not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.”
    We hear “jealous” and recoil, as if God is insecure. But divine jealousy is not insecurity, it is passion. That’s why the translators of the Common English Bible used the word passionate in our scripture reading today. It is the fierce love of a covenant partner who longs for fidelity, not flirtation. When God says, “No other gods,” it’s not about divine ego; it’s about protecting the integrity of the relationship.
    This is not a puritanical rule about keeping God first on your spiritual to-do list. This is a command, an unending request for singular devotion. God is not interested in being one voice among many, one allegiance among others, one banner among many. God refuses to share covenant space with idols, visible or invisible.
    God says: I rescued you from Egypt. I heard your cries. I delivered you, not to enslave you again to new idols, whether carved, cast, or sewn, but to free you into love, peace, and righteousness.
    This is God’s way of showing that divine love is not passive. Divine passion means God will not quietly watch as sacred space is filled with symbols of national might or civic pride. Why? Because God knows what we forget: that what we revere shapes who we become. The sanctuary, of all places, must be the one place where that shaping belongs to God alone.
    Idolatry is more than statues. It is giving ultimate loyalty, trust, or reverence to anything besides God. Idolatry is about what we trust. When those loyalties creep into the sanctuary, disguised as patriotic pride, or simply national identity, we must name the danger. We must name how a good intention can become a god. 
    Here’s the deeper truth: When we trust and honor the flag more than the cross, when we believe a government protects us more than grace sustains us, when we teach our children to pledge allegiance to a republic but forget to form them in the language of Christ’s nonviolence, we have bowed. We may not physically kneel but our hearts have bent.
    In ancient times, people did not simply worship statues, they worshipped what those statues represented: wealth, war, fertility, rain, & empire. Today, we’ve swapped the stone idols for symbolic ones: ideologies, parties, militarism, markets, and yes, nationalism. We may not bow physically, but we give our hearts, our attention, and our defense to these false gods. We let them shape how we pray, vote, worship, and even interpret Scripture. This, my friends, is the easiest way evil repackages itself to slowly creep into every part of a person’s life, including the life of worship.
    The Flag as a Symbol: When Patriotism Becomes Worship
    First, let’s be clear. Gaining theological understanding and acting upon proper worship is not about dishonoring those who’ve served a nation. We acknowledge the courage, pain, and sacrifice of those who have served or been forced to fight under national flags through requirements of selective service or voluntary service. But acknowledging service and offering worship are not the same. The sanctuary, intentionally, is not a museum to honor our national memory, even if there is only one piece displayed, it can cause a break in concentration and the allegiance can so easily slip away from God to nation. The sanctuary is a holy place of God’s presence and must always remain intact.
    You may ask, well what is the being deal? Here is the big deal. Symbols carry weight. We all know that when we see a wedding ring, it means more than metal. When we look at a cross, we see more than wood. A symbol carries weight, memory, and formation. A flag is not neutral because it becomes theological when placed beside an altar, next to the cross, or even processed in and out of worship. It silently tells a story: that God and nation are intertwined and then gives permission to believe that is ok. It can offer a message that divine blessing rides on national success, that military victory mirrors God’s will and that message is very dangerous.
    Let me say this gently but clearly: patriotism is not christian discipleship. It may be a form of gratitude for your homeland and there’s nothing wrong with that. But when patriotism is practiced inside the sanctuary, when it is sung, pledged, and revered in the same breath as the gospel, it begins to morph into something else entirely. It becomes liturgy, and liturgy forms us. Every repeated act within a sacred space shapes our affections. It tells our children what matters. It teaches our communities what we are about. When the flag stands beside the cross, it doesn’t submit to it, it competes with it.
    When we blend the story of nation with the story of Christ we assume Jesus speaks the language of empire and forget he died at the hands of one. The flag becomes more than fabric; it becomes a filter. We end up reading Scripture through it. We sing hymns through it. We decide who belongs and who doesn’t through it. This reason alone is why I do not permit nationalistic songs sung or played during a worship service because it takes our concentration and spirit off of God. God alone is the One we should have been concentrating on and preparing to worship the moment we opened our eyes from sleep. 
    Let me ask: when a visitor enters our sanctuary, what do they see first? What story do our symbols tell them? Do they know they are entering a house of peace, or do they wonder if they’re intruding on a possible political rally held on holy ground? Now, let me say this, our church, thankfully, does not prominently display flag after flag through the sanctuary and I applaud you for that. Yet, when entering the sanctuary, the flag is directly beneath the cross and takes precedence behind the altar table that holds the elements of Christ’s body and blood. It can appear that the cross alone is not enough to wrap itself around the elements as the flags behind the altar are also wrapping up the Eucharistic sacrament along with the written word of God and the processional light that symbolizes the light of Christ for the world. 
    Let’s be honest: too often, we have brought the world’s flags into God’s house and forgotten that the only banner we are called to lift high is the light of God’s love in the cross of Christ Jesus. Our allegiance must not be divided, no matter how small or muted it may be. Our citizenship is first and foremost in the kingdom of heaven. The sanctuary must represent sacred space that only contains symbols that points us to that which is most holy, our all-loving God.
    God’s Vision: Weapons to Tools, War Rooms to Sanctuaries
    Isaiah 2:2–4 gives us a beautiful picture of God’s dream for the world. In the days to come, Isaiah writes, “The mountain of the Lord’s house will be the highest of the mountains... All nations will stream to it.” It is a vision of shared worship, of transformation, of beating swords into iron plows and spears into pruning tools.
    Isaiah imagines a world where we turn from war to work, from destruction to cultivation. Tools of death become instruments of life. No more boot camps, only community gardens. No more missile silos, only silos full of grain. No more training for war, only learning to walk in the ways of the Lord.
    Where does this vision begin? In the sanctuary. In God’s house. In the place where worship forms us and reminds us who we are. We can’t preach peace while bowing before the emblems of war, even if those emblems claim to be one of freedom. We can’t proclaim God’s love for all people while raising banners that have historically excluded, marginalized, or conquered.
    God’s sanctuary vision is not one of tribal triumph but of global peace. It is a vision gathering all peoples, not under one flag, but under one God. The mountain isn’t American. It’s not Roman. It’s not Israeli. It’s the mountain of the Lord and it is here that nationalism dies. The sanctuary is not a bunker. It’s a training ground for grace. We are not soldiers of empire heading into war; we are peacemakers of Christ Jesus. We are ambassadors for the ministry of reconciliation. 
    Now this doesn’t mean we have no country. It means we hold our nation accountable to a higher law, the law of love, mercy, acceptance, and tolerance, while advocating for equity and equality for all because the sanctuary of God is a place of re-creation. A place of peace, safety, healing, forgiveness, and retooling life for mutual flourishing. The presence of national symbols, especially those born out of revolution, conquest, and colonialism, must be questioned in the place where the Gospel is read and proclaimed, because the Word of Jesus always points to peace, never to domination.
    Challenge: Cleanse the Sanctuary
    So, what do we do? First, we repent of aligning our faith and worship of God with nationalistic symbols no matter how large or small. We make space again for the Spirit of God to move unhindered by nationalism’s grip by exorcising the spirit of the nationalism. 
    Second, and here is the challenge: cleanse the sanctuary of anything that can take our allegiance away from God, not because we hate our nation or well intentioned symbols but because we love God more. We cleanse the sanctuary not just of flags and desires for patriotic pageantry but of anything that distorts our worship. We learn to honor without idolizing. Yes, we can honor veterans. We can pray for our leaders. We give thanks for freedoms that have enabled all to worship as they see fit but we do not confuse those acts with worship itself. Do not confuse gratitude with glory. We do not allow the language of “God and country” to become a substitute for gospel and kingdom. Let’s not make the sanctuary a shrine to civil religion.
    We also need to cleanse it of spiritual flags, those internal banners we carry with pride, things we may not see but it still effects us. Pride in our theology, pride in our denominational identity, pride in being the “right” kind of Christian, pride in our politics, our status, our self-made religion.
    Friends we bring these with us every Sunday. We wave them invisibly. We hang them in our hearts and they do distract us from God. They divide us from each other.
    The sanctuary must be a space of radical humility. A space where the only throne is God’s. A space where we lay down every crown, every medal, every flag, every banner, every self-justifying theology, and say: You alone are holy. You alone are worthy. You alone are God.
    This is not about shame. It’s about alignment. It's about giving God what belongs to God, and refusing to give it to Caesar. Let’s make the sanctuary, and wherever we worship, a house of peace. Let’s make it a house where Isaiah’s vision grows roots. Let’s make it a house where the weapons of our words are turned into testimonies of grace. Let’s make it a house where every tribe, nation, and language feels at home, not because they fit into our flag, but because they are embraced by God’s love. Let’s do the hard, holy work of disentangling our faith from our flag, our worship from our nation, and our sanctuary from the empire’s grasp.
    Reflections on Reclaiming Sacred Space
    You may hear this and feel uneasy and that’s understandable. We’ve been formed by this syncretism for generations. Flags in sanctuaries have been standard practice in many places for over a century. But tradition, it is not the same as truth.
    And to be crystal clear: this is not a rejection of those who served in wartime or wore a uniform in a time of perceived peace. Many did so believing they were protecting what was good. This is not about assigning blame. This is about God’s sanctuary vision. About truth-telling and disentangling our faith from our flags, and other symbols, so that Christ might be revealed more clearly.
    To the veteran who hears my voice: thank you for your courage. But I also ask, can we make this space intentionally holy again and solely dedicated to the God who loves even our enemies? To the family who believes in America’s ideals, hear this: ideals must be held accountable to God’s justice and God’s justice has no national allegiance. To the one who feels this is all too radical, too much, remember that Jesus was crucified not for being safe, but for being faithful. He challenged the empire. He refused to kneel. He calls us to take up the cross, not a symbol of nationalism or even religion; the cross is enough to bear.
    In fact, the prophetic tradition of Scripture calls us to challenge the traditions that no longer serve the gospel. Jesus overturned tables. He quoted Isaiah. He re-centered the temple around mercy. That is the same Spirit we are called to embody now.
    Imagine a sanctuary where the only banner is the cross. The symbols we hang on the walls, insert in stands, items we process in and out of worship, songs that we sing, prayers that we pray, and words that we proclaim should always point the worshippers to the one God to be worshipped. The sanctuary should be the one place, within our lives, that creates space for God alone, without competition, to be lifted up and praised.  
    Let us understand the sanctuary does not belong to The United States of America. It does not belong to any nation, to any church member, or anyone who walks off the street. It alone belongs to the God who sets captives free, who lifts the lowly, who silences war, and who calls us into the foolish, beautiful way of peace. We have a choice: to preserve national and religious symbols out of habit, or to purify our worship out of holy conviction. May we choose the latter, not out of contempt, but out of deep, courageous love for the One who calls us into peace. May it be so in Jesus’ name.
    Let’s pray: God of all encompassing love for every person under every banner. Forgive us for elevating civic or religious events above or placing them on equal footing with worshipping you. We may not have realized this is what we have been doing for generations, and because of this, we ask for your forgiveness. We pray for a redirection of complete and total allegiance to be directed to you, and you alone, within this sanctuary. We pray for a spiritual revival within our hearts, our minds, and our emotions so that no idol will ever take your place again. With all of our heart, mind, soul, and spirit we dedicate our lives to you, we remember whom we are baptized into, and we declare no other god deserves our worship or allegiance. We pray and ask this all in the name of Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Mount Sterling First United Methodist Church
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(740) 869-3577
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