Choosing Sides

A few years ago, my sister played the female lead in a community theater production of a play called “Pack of Lies.” It was about a couple whose neighbors across the street were suspected of espionage; the British Secret Service asked their permission to establish a surveillance on them from the first couple’s upstairs bedroom. The woman my sister played, Margaret, chooses loyalty to her country over loyalty to her friend, because that person – the friend - had never actually existed. During the play we watch Margaret disintegrate, from her awareness of both betrayals: that of her friend, who turned out to be someone completely different - and her own.

Should Margaret have chosen loyalty to the false friend? I don’t think so. Because a healthy relationship cannot be built on deception - or indeed any other wrongdoing.

There’s a quote that I spent hours trying to track down and couldn’t. It’s British, I know that much, but whether it’s from Oscar Wilde or Kim Philby I haven’t the slightest idea. Remember Kim Philby? He was the principal villain in a big Cold War spy scandal in 1950's England. Well, it’s probably not Oscar Wilde, it’s not witty enough. But it goes something like this: “If I am ever forced to choose between loyalty to my friend or loyalty to my country, I hope I will have the courage to betray my country.”

I’ve thought about that a lot, over the years. I can’t tell you why it has stuck in my mind, but it has. And I think that he was wrong. Not only wrong, but profoundly immoral in a particularly dangerous way because it is excused under the label of friendship.

Maybe I’m being too hard on the guy. Maybe he had a particular occasion in mind, when his friend clearly deserved his allegiance, and his country would not have been greatly harmed. Because as the great essayist Samuel Johnson once said, “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” And I certainly don’t adhere to the old bumper sticker slogan, “MY COUNTRY, RIGHT OR WRONG.” And this isn’t a sermon about patriotism, anyway... it’s a sermon about allegiances, and choices.

But it’s a way of thinking about conflicting loyalties that holds that feelings matter more than principles. And it is, I think, emblematic of many of the problems our society faces nowadays. Think of the contrast between that sentiment and the Restoration poet Richard Lovelace, who wrote to his beloved on leaving her to go away to war, “I could not love thee, dear, so much, lov’d I not honor more.” Lovelace and his culture believed that only a person who was capable of putting duty above personal feelings was able to love faithfully. It was only later, during the Romantic Era, that people started elevating feeling above thinking.

Well, this probably all sounds very distant and abstract and what does it matter anyway? When are any of us going to have to face that kind of decision? Probably never, on that scale. But every day, on another scale. Because we all have to deal with competing loyalties. How do you choose between one set of claims and another? Is there a set of hard-and-fast rules that we can follow?

The fifth commandment, “Honor your father and your mother,” is a pretty good place to start. That’s a primary allegiance if there ever was one. One of the ugliest things about the communist system was their training children to inform against their parents.

Another pretty good place to take a stand is with Jesus, talking about marriage in Matthew 19:6: “What God has joined together, let no one separate.” Paul reinforces that in 1 Corinthians 7, where he tells believing men and women not to divorce their unbelieving spouses.

Allegiance to your parents, allegiance to your spouse. Pretty simple, isn’t it? Two primary commitments that God clearly expects you - us - to be faithful to. But in just a few short chapters, two heroes of the Old Testament betray them both.

Jonathan puts his friendship with David above loyalty to his father Saul, and Abigail goes against her husband Nabal to give David and his men food and drink. And they are both applauded for their decisions. What’s going on? What can we learn from their behavior?

In the passage read earlier, we see Jonathan trying to act as go-between and peacemaker between David and his father Saul. If you recall, Saul had once favored David, until David’s military victories won him favor with the populace and jealousy poisoned his mind. “Saul spoke with his son Jonathan and with all his servants about killing David. But Saul’s son Jonathan... told David, “My father Saul is trying to kill you; therefore be on guard tomorrow morning.” [1 Sam 19:1-2] The first thing Jonathan does is warn David. He is disobeying his father, yes, but he is also saving a life - something the Torah always approves of. But note that Jonathan is also SAVING his father. Saul’s attempt to take David’s life is a sin against God. So although Jonathan is technically disobeying Saul, he is not dishonoring him. He is - although ultimately unsuccessfully - trying to help his father retain his honor.