The last Sunday of the liturgical (church) year.  My sermon title today is 'there's another country' and emerges from the lectionary gospel for today, which is Jesus before Pilate, as told by John.  I hope I've done it OK... it's very hard to get the balance right between my firm theological conviction that the Kingdom of God defies any humanly constructed definition of nation, state or race (etc.) and the fact that I am living in a place where daily the politicians tell me that the country in which I live would be better off if it separated itself from the rest of the UK.  Whatever people may think about Scottish independence, for any Christian, it is largely an adventure in missing the point... humanly defined national identity and what is "better for me/us over against a 'them' that includes our brothers and sisters in Christ" sets our loyalty in the wrong place.  To self-define as 'English' or 'Scottish' before "Child of God-ish" skews my perspectives.

I firmly believed that God called me to serve in Scotland.  The truth is God could equally have called me to serve on Oompa Loompa Land, because all places are within that Kingdom of Peace.  No matter how much I love my church, no matter how dear Scotland becomes to me, I can never seek the good of Scotland above the good of other parts of Christ's Kingdom.

I happen to have been born in Britain, and Britain chose to join the European Union, and now faces the challenges of being one of the richer nations in a struggling, trans-national grouping.  No matter how much I love the UK, no matter how much the complexities of Brussels bemuse and bewilder me, I can never seek the good of the UK above the good of other parts of Christ's Kingdom.

That I will never understand global economics hardly needs to be said  I do not have the answers, but I do know that the 'other country', sans frontiers, has to be the telos, the goal, towards which I live.