The Good Word: Dual Citizenship
In his letter to the Philippians, Paul makes it very clear that he possesses the full benefits and privileges of what he calls “heavenly citizenship. What does he mean by that phrase? Is this just some pious, pie in the sky religious talk? Or should we be leaning in a little closer, trying to figure out whether heavenly citizenship is something that might be valuable to us these days?
Paul himself was already a Roman citizen. He had rights and privileges that went along with being a citizen. For example, if Paul were arrested, he could insist on due process in a Roman Court of Law. That privilege alone actually saved his life on more than one occasion.
Many people in the Roman Empire, however, were not citizens. They had no benefits and privileges. Jesus was not a citizen of Rome. Slaves were not citizens. People in occupied countries were not citizens. In the eyes of the law, to not be a citizen was to be a nobody.
Over time, notions of citizenship evolved in different ways in different parts the world. Citizenship was often synonymous with nationality, with where you happen to be born. Today, your citizenship is in the country that grants you your passport. Depending on the country, you may or may not have lots of rights and privileges. People occasionally change their citizenship. Leaving and renouncing one country and moving to another and becoming a citizen there. On occasions, a person might have dual citizenship. For example, if one’s parents are citizens of two different countries, then one would be born with dual citizenship.
Throughout the history of the United States, we have argued over who gets to be a citizen. At one point, we excluded Native Americans, women, slaves, recent immigrants—and even white men who owned no property. In 2025 we’re still having those arguments—who gets to be an American citizen, and what rights and privileges will be denied non-citizens?
In Philippians 3, Paul introduces a different kind of dual citizenship, not involving two different nations, but involving two different worlds: heaven and earth.
The Greek word in Philippians 3:20 is “po LIT u ma.” It means belonging to a collective. We might have “po LIT u ma” in several groups at the same time, more than one so-called citizenship at any given time: groups to which claim us and offer us rights and privileges. I’m a citizen of the United States, a citizen of my place of employment, a citizen of my family, a citizen of my neighborhood, a citizen of organizations I belong to. Each citizenship implies insiders and outsiders, benefits and privileges, duties and responsibilities. We all have dual citizenships in this sense of the word.
Usually dual citizenships are competitive. My work citizenship competes with my family citizenship. My national citizenship competes with my church citizenship. Do I obey Jesus or do I obey the president? Do I please my boss or do I please my wife? Life is a continual negotiation inside our heads—trying to balance and honor our various citizenships.
When Paul talked of a heavenly citizenship, he thought of God’s realm. He thought of God’s goodness and justice and mercy. He thought of God’s principles—love, joy, peace. He thought of obedience to the ways and spirit of Jesus. He thought about the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, stirring our hearts and minds into a spiritual patriotism and sacrifice. And he thought about how much he preferred his heavenly citizenship to his other citizenships. He was grateful of course for his Roman citizenship, and his citizenship in the institutional church, and his citizenship in the Jewish diaspora, and his citizenship in his craft guild of tentmaking. But the center of his life, the citizenship that gave him stability and direction in all his other citizenships—was his heavenly citizenship.
Now—there is a danger that “heavenly citizenship” can be misinterpreted. Some think of it only as a futuristic hope. But Paul makes clear in today’s text that “heavenly citizenship” is a present matter. God’s Kingdom is already arriving in our world and our lives. God’s realm is a reality now—even though there is much more to come. And our citizenship in God’s realm is effective immediately. It was the assurance of this citizenship that allowed Paul to navigate all his other citizenships—which often brought him frustration, grief, and pain.
This week I’m doing a presentation on the life of Fanny Lou Hamer. She was a black woman born in the cotton picking delta of western Mississippi. In 1917—I’m old enough to have been her nephew. Fanny’s grandmother was a slave—not a citizen of the U.S. Her grandmother had 23 children, 20 of those children were fathered by rapists—various white slave owners who passed the young woman around for their own pleasures. Even after slavery was abolished, black women were not granted the rights of citizenship. And despite the 14th amendment, granting black men citizenship, the state of Mississippi was the first state in the south to rewrite its constitution to make black citizenship meaningless. When women were granted the right to vote in 1920, many black women were still not given that privilege because of Jim Crow laws. This was the world as Fannie Lou Hamer experienced it. She was a citizen of the U.S. in name only. In a hundred years, life was not any better for her than it was for her enslaved grandmother.
In 1960, Fanny Lou Hamer was 43 years old, a clerk on a cotton plantation—and still not allowed to vote. In the eyes of the government of Mississippi and in the practices of the government of the United States, Fanny Lou Hamer was a nobody. She had tried to register to vote several times, but had always been rebuffed—and occasionally with violence and arrest. She was a legally convicted nobody.
But Ms. Hamer had been a church-goer all her life. And she had heard, all her life, in church, that she was a citizen of God’s Kingdom. And in God’s kingdom, she had power, she had agency, she had rights and privileges, she had the ear of the king, she had freedom, and she had tools at her disposal, and she had songs to sing and bells to ring and speeches to make. In God’s kingdom, when she proclaimed justice, nobody would stop her. In fact, the saints in heaven would shout out, “Amen.” Fanny Lou Hamer was a citizen of God’s heavenly kingdom. And she knew it.
Now Fanny Lou Hamer got this notion into her head that being a citizen of God’s heavenly kingdom meant something here on earth, not just in heaven. She was, after all, living in a so-called Christian nation that you would think would be respectful and affirming of her heavenly citizenship. The United States being a Christian nation and all.
Now, once Fanny Lou Hamer got in her head that she was a citizen of God’s heavenly kingdom, the rulers of Mississippi, the jailers and the sheriffs and the senators and the plantation owners and the governor—and even the president of the United States, who wanted those crackers in Mississippi to help get him reelected—all the rulers and bosses and bullies of this world—all of them put together couldn’t get the notion out of Fanny Lou Hamer’s head that she was a CITIZEN of God’s kingdom—and citizenship in God’s Kingdom meant something—even in Mississippi.
Fanny Lou Hamer has been dead now for nearly 50 years, but she still rocks our world—every time someone new hears her story.
To be a citizen of God’s heavenly kingdom, is to know that you and I are protected in this world and valued in this world—because of the passport Jesus Christ purchased for us—to know that we have moral authority because someone above even the president has given us a voice and a duty—to know that God has authorized us to share that citizenship with every other human being on the face of the earth—to know that you are a citizen of the heavenly kingdom means that soon—and very soon—we know that God’s governance will be seen to be above every nation and president and oligarch on earth. We know that every knee will someday bend at the name of Jesus. And we know that when one is a citizen of God’s realm, we are become bold to defy the unholy powers of this world.
It is our heavenly citizenship that grounds us, centers us, humbles us, and empowers us to engage the powers and principalities of our own day. Without first being grounded in our heavenly citizenship, we will fail in our all struggles, be they personal or political. People like Paul and Fanny Lou Hamer have gone before us and shown us how critical it is to be grounded firmly in our heavenly citizenship as we navigate the personal and political issues of our own day.
When the powers of this world, of any nation or state—scoff at the ways of Jesus, dismiss his lordship, insult the citizens of God’s heavenly kingdom—we will not be intimidated, we will not overact, we will not become unhinged, we will not imitate arrogance. When the powers of this world dehumanize the citizens of God’s heavenly kingdom—we pull together, we set aside our differences, we train our voices to sing and advocate, we learn the spectacular non-violent ways of Jesus. We will not lose heart. We know who we are. We will love our neighbors—all of them, those easy to love and those hard to love. We will respond with courage to do the right thing, to make our country good, make our church good, make our relationships good.
Repertoire 