Join the A-Team this 4th of July!

Some years ago I read a non-fiction book by Tom Clancy called, “Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces.” I was interested in all things military, and this book rendered an insightful picture of America’s finest warriors and their mission. What was particularly interesting was Clancy’s depiction of a Special Forces A-Team. As a youth I grew up watching, rather faithfully, the TV show “The A-Team,” and I was somewhat excited to see that it was remade for the big screen this summer. But, not surprisingly, Clancy made it clear in his book that the Special Forces A-Teams are nothing like the TV show. Rather than having exciting shoots outs with bad guys and blowing up all sorts of stuff, A-Teams have a much broader mission, and it was Clancy’s description of the broader mission that was most fascinating.

A-Teams are comprised of 12 men that have unique, individual contributions to make to the team. For example, one member of the team is a medical expert, yet another member is a communications expert. Each individual member of the team brings to the team a specific skill that allows the entire unit to live as a self-sustaining community. Interestingly, every member is also cross-trained in each other’s discipline to ensure some measure of continuity if one member is killed in action.

A-Teams, in addition to being self-sustaining communities, are deployed “down range” or in another country for purposes much broader than mere violent destruction of the enemy, although combat is certainly part of the mission. More often than not they live in and among the native population to train, educate, cooperate, facilitate and communicate with the native population and its leaders. They provide practical assistance with any of the needs the native population may have. The point of this imbedded existence is not merely to be nice guys, but they are literally ambassadors of the United States to this population, winning the hearts and minds to the America paradigm and mission in the world.

With the current war in Afghanistan there is much talk of winning the hearts and minds of the local population, and it is the various A-Team units deployed in Afghanistan that are about the business of this mission. They speak the language of the Afghanistan people. They often dress like them and eat their food. Their mission is to so blend with the population as to become a credible, American ambassador to the native population so the mission of the United States can be advanced in that country.

Needless to say this picture of an A-Team is an excellent model for the church of Jesus the Messiah. We, much like the A-Team, have our unique, individual giftings and passions to contribute to the community to assist in making us a self-sustaining body that is deployed “down range” for God’s mission. I think this is Paul’s point when he says in Romans 12: 4-5, “For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”

Moreover, our citizenship is in another political kingdom other than our host country; we are “down range.” We speak, dress and eat like the native population, and we are to blend with the local population so as to be credible ambassadors of Christ and His Kingdom. How silly and incredulous it would be for an American A-Team member to become confused while in Afghanistan as to where his true allegiance rested; how absurd it would be for him to marry a local girl, build a house, settled down and become a full fledged member of that society. Yet this is exactly what we do as the church in America, especially on the 4th of July.

We need to hear Peter’s admonition afresh this weekend, “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.” (I Peter 2:11-12). We are “aliens,” as the NIV puts it, in this country; we are green card residents. We are not citizens of this nation or any other. Just as Israel was in exile in Babylon, so New Israel/the church, in some senses, is in Babylon today.

Peter rightly describes our counter cultural identity in the preceding verses, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” (I Peter 2:9-10). Peter is pulling straight from the Old Testament here; wherein God commanded the Israelites they were to be a unique, distinct nation in and among the nations. They had a mission from God to call all the nations to worship of YHWH. We the church, Peter says, are the New Israel with a very old mission. We like the A-Team members are chosen to be a special people for a special mission, God’s mission to proclaim the good news that Jesus is King and He will return to “put the world to rights.”

We cannot settle down in such a manner that we begin to think that this present nation, its interests, culture and its political and economic system are home. They are not. They should be as foreign to us as the Afghan culture is to the A-Team. However, we should be well versed, fluent, embodied in this culture because it is the area of operation God has assigned to us. Remember that even while Israel was in exile in Babylon Jeremiah told them to plant gardens and build houses because you are going to be there awhile (Jer. 29). We are here, “down range,” for His purposes.

In practical terms, I am grateful for the area of my assignment. I appreciate the freedom with which we can go about God’s mission in this part of the world. But I am not comfortable being called a patriot. I am not comfortable singing patriotic songs in church. I am not at ease with the manner in which conservative political missions, American foreign policy missions and God’s missions are discussed in the same breath as if they are the same thing. Don’t get me wrong. I support our military troops mission to protect this world from the evils of Islamic fundamentalism, but like Francis of Assisi I’d rather personally cross the battlefield to go talk about Jesus with my Islamic enemy, knowing full well it would likely result in my death, than pick up an M-4 carbine and fire it across the same battlefield. By the way, the Islamic forces gave Francis safe passage to and from their lines in the battlefield because of how radically different he was from the allegedly “Christian” crusaders they had encountered.

Be in the world, but not of it. It is a hard and sometimes controversial line to draw. But I think this 4th of July weekend it might be good for we in the church to learn something from the A-Teams fighting in Afghanistan on the 4th of July for the “freedoms” we are so excited to sing about on this day of “Independence.”