Say No To This
Hamilton & the Gospel | Part 4 of 6
In honor of our nation’s 250th anniversary, I want to share a few devotions based on the hit Broadway musical Hamilton. Throughout this musical, we can look at the life of Alexander Hamilton and see themes of faith, forgiveness, grace, and redemption; and we can make connections to the gospel message.
Romans 7:14-25 (NRSV):
For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.
At one point during the musical, Alexander Hamilton finds himself completely overworked. He is serving as the Secretary of the Treasury on President George Washington’s cabinet. He is feuding with James Madison and Thomas Jefferson about the need for establishing a national bank. And he is working diligently to get his financial plan passed through Congress. I guess you could say that he is working “Non-Stop.”
This leads us to one of the songs in the musical entitled, “Take A Break.” In this song, we get a glimpse into Hamilton’s family life. Hamilton’s wife, Eliza, is urging him to take a break for the summer. Their son Philip has turned nine years old, and he is hungry for his father’s attention. Plus, Eliza’s sister, Angelica, has come to visit for the summer. In the song, Eliza pleads with Hamilton as she sings:
“Take a break.
Run away with us for the summer.
Let’s go upstate.
There’s a lake I know in a nearby park.
You and I can go take a break and get away.
Let’s go upstate where we can stay.”
In response to Eliza’s pleas, Hamilton simply says, “I can’t stop ‘til I get this plan through Congress.”
Hamilton is so focused on his work, that he is not allowing himself to take any time off. Perhaps we can relate to this as well. The pandemic has changed a lot of thing for us. Several folks have been working from home, and this has completely blurred the line between work life and home life. I know personally, my living room has become my office.
I’m not envious of the parents who have had to work this summer, while also watching their children full time. Many people have had to alter their vacation plans or just cancel them altogether. It makes me think of that infamous line in Stephen King’s novel The Shining: “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”
According to an article that was published back in April, “At least 134 countries have laws setting the maximum length of the work week; the U.S. does not. Americans work 137 more hours per year than Japanese workers, 260 more hours per year than British workers, and 499 more hours per year than French workers... There is not a federal law requiring paid sick days in the United States. The U.S. remains the only industrialized country in the world that has no legally mandated annual leave”
We, as human beings, need sabbath. We need to take breaks. We cannot continue to work “Non-Stop” all the time. And sometimes, we do a bad job of slowing down and taking breaks.
A lack of sabbath, leads to Alexander Hamilton’s greatest moral failure. One of the songs in this musical is a song entitled “Say No To This.” The song outlines an affair that Hamilton had with a woman named Mariah Reynolds. He starts off fighting the temptation to engage in this affair singing:
“That’s when I began to pray:
Lord, show me how to say no to this
I don’t know how to say no to this…”
Hamilton eventually falls into this temptation of adultery, and he ends the song singing:
“Nobody needs to know.”
In his book Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow writes,
“The Reynolds affair was a sad and inexcusable lapse on Hamilton’s part, made only the more reprehensible by his high office, his self-proclaimed morality, his frequently missed chances to end the liaison, and the love and loyalty of his pregnant wife.”
Hamilton struggles with temptation. He knows what is right, but he just cannot will himself to do it. Hamilton makes these regrettable choices, and he ends up paying for them in the end.
We can see a connection to Hamilton’s story and Romans chapter seven. The Apostle Paul talks about his sinful nature, saying, “For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.”
Paul refers to our sinful nature in this passage with the word “flesh.” He seems to equate the term “flesh” with the term “sin.” Because of this, sometimes people think that our flesh, as humans, is bad. But our flesh or “humanness” does not equal our sin. At the beginning of creation, God formed us in God’s image out of the dust, and God breathed life into us. We are made from the dust, and we bear the image of God. Our bodies are created by God, and God called us very good. And God even came in the flesh through the person of Jesus Christ. Our flesh is not bad. But Paul is talking about flesh in a different way in this passage.
Richard Rohr, who is a Franciscan Monk and theologian, talks about the Greek word Paul uses for “flesh” which is sarx. And a better translation of this word is actually the word “ego.” In other words, Paul is talking about our selfish desires that motivate us to act against how God has called us to act. So, Paul is not really talking about our “flesh,” instead he is talking about our ego. Paul is talking about our own sinful and selfish desires.
The Apostle Paul confesses his own struggle and bent toward sinning. Some scholars suggest that Paul is not only talking about himself, but he is also talking about human sinfulness as a whole. In our own communion liturgy, we express our own confession saying:
“Merciful God, we confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart. We have failed to be an obedient church. We have not done your will, we have broken your law, we have rebelled against your love, we have not loved our neighbors, and we have not heard the cry of the needy. Forgive us, we pray. Free us for joyful obedience, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
We all struggle with our sinful nature. We don’t always do a good job of showing love to others. We let our own selfishness get in the way of living the way that God would have us live. We hold grudges. We act out in anger. We lose our temper. We get greedy. We hurt other’s feelings. We don’t always live up to the standard of what it means to be a Christian. We don’t always live lives that reflect God’s love. But the Gospel message invites us into transformation through the power of the Holy Spirit. In his book The Gospel According to Hamilton, Jeff Hamling writes:
“Hamilton’s affair reminds us how sin can both erode the power of our will and take up residency in our hearts in the form of an idol. And while these dynamics are important to understand in our battle with temptation, Hamilton’s story also points us to the hope and life-changing power of the gospel. If we want to experience true freedom from our idols, we must replace our sinful desires with different, more compelling ones.”
The Protestant Reformer, Martin Luther describes Christians as “simultaneously saint and sinner.” Luther calls Christians this, because he redefines “saint” as a forgiven sinner. We are called saints not because we change into something different but because our relationship with God changes as a result of God's grace. Luther said, “The saints are sinners, too, but they are forgiven and absolved.” In other words, we are capable of evil and destruction, but we are also capable of righteousness and good. And it is only through the grace of God that we are saved.
There is a bit of sinner and saint in each of us. I think we can clearly see this in the life of Alexander Hamilton. He makes some big mistakes in his life, but we also see how he is able to move forward after those mistakes and find redemption. The Apostle Paul reminds us that we can find redemption – no matter what we have done – through the love and grace of Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God.
