Sermon for Independence Day, transferred
July 7, 2024
Deuteronomy 10:17-21; Hebrews 11:8-16; Matthew 5:43-48
As we celebrate our nation this morning and
seek God’s blessings upon it, I’d like to tour a few documents I see as fundamental
to our identity. Now, on Independence Day
weekend, you might imagine all these would be documents from American history, and
two of them are. But, you know, as followers
of Jesus Christ, we hold sort of a dual citizenship, pledging our allegiance to
both a temporal and a spiritual country.
So, I would argue we understand who we are through both civil and sacred
sources.
First off, this weekend, we have to look to the Declaration
of Independence. I wonder how many of us
have read it – or at least have read it since high-school civics class. I think we remember the declaration more for what
it symbolizes than for what it says, but it’s worth remembering the argument that
Thomas Jefferson (with his bevy of editors) makes there. Jefferson says human beings – at least in the
inadequate scope he ascribed to humanity – human beings have been divinely created
and thus are equal. And because of that,
they have rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” that take precedence
over the power of any human ruler. Then,
after articulating his principles, Jefferson outlines an indictment against King
George III. He begins by stating the charge: “The history of the present King of Great Britain
is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the
establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.” After listing the king’s offenses, Jefferson concludes:
“A Prince whose character is thus marked
by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”1 Jefferson’s foundational document is a call for
us to cast off autocracy, to temper the temptation to power by working for the common
good of people made by God to dwell in equality and freedom.
From Jefferson, my patriot heart next goes
to Abraham Lincoln. To me, his most penetrating
document is not his most famous. As much
as I love the poetry and power of the Gettysburg Address, it’s Lincoln’s Second
Inaugural that lays out our accountability for our nation. Like the Biblical prophets he emulates, Lincoln
both takes his nation to task and calls it to a holier future.
Looking back on the four bloodiest years in our history, Lincoln seeks to answer the question haunting the Republic and every soul who’d lost a husband or a son. It’s the same question that haunts us in every tragedy: Why? Why has God allowed such horror? Lincoln the prophet sets the responsibility with the nation’s original sin. Bear with me for an extended excerpt:
If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope – fervently do we pray – that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.”2
Then, having indicted the nation for the evil of slavery, Lincoln the prophet calls us to a righteous new birth that yet can spring from the ashes of God’s judgment:
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.2
Remember, this speech came just weeks before the end of the war. As
the Union was nearing its victory, Lincoln could have called for the persecution
of his enemies. Instead, he called us to
temper our temptation to seek vengeance and instead bind up the nation’s wounds.
For us dual citizens of earthly and heavenly
countries, the documents of our identity go back much further than Lincoln and Jefferson. Our readings this morning, appointed for The Episcopal
Church’s feast of Independence Day, give us the words of the original prophet, God’s
first spokesperson – Moses. And here, Moses
calls God’s people to provide for “the stranger” (Deuteronomy 10:19) – the “alien
[who] resides with you in your land” (Leviticus 19:33). Now, God’s people had been struggling to make
their way through 40 years in the wilderness, feeling threatened at every turn. But Moses names their need to embrace those who
might seem threatening, those who aren’t like them. And so, thousands of years later, Moses still
calls us to temper our temptation to see some people as the other and instead embrace
those we might try to keep at arm’s length.
Of course, the documents of our identity must
include the words of Jesus. And for Independence
Day, the Church chooses a moment from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, his ultimate teaching
about God’s reign and rule in day-to-day life.
You know the Sermon on the Mount.
It’s where we find the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be
called children of God” (Matt 5:9). It’s
where Jesus critiques the religious leaders for their failures of righteousness
(5:20). It includes the Golden Rule, to treat
others as you want them to treat you (7:12).
Well, from this hard and holy exhortation, we hear today what may be Jesus’
hardest teaching ever: “Love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you” (5:44).
Like Lincoln at the end of the Civil War, Jesus calls us to temper our temptation
to hate those who stand against us, instead walking in Love to overcome evil with
good.
And finally this morning, I want to raise up
our reading from the Letter to the Hebrews, maybe the source of our sense of dual
citizenship. The writer of Hebrews names
some heroes of the faith – Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, and Jacob – who understood
themselves as sojourners through hard and broken times, waiting in faith for God
to complete their journey of redemption.
They’d believed in God’s promises, trying to live faithfully while also trusting
that the present was pointing toward God’s purposes to come. As Hebrews puts it, these ancestors “died in faith
without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them”
(11:13). This hope allowed them to see themselves
not bound by the fears and failings of the present day but instead to seek the life
of “a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (11:16). Hebrews calls us to temper our temptation to despair,
pointing us past the present darkness to follow the torch of Jesus, “the pioneer
and perfecter of our faith” (12:2).
Today, in this
fraught and anxious national moment, it’s easy to give in to our
temptations. And for me, at least, the
first of those temptations is to be politely quiet in the face of sin and evil. As I said a few weeks ago, the power of “not
God,” at individual and corporate levels, still threatens us, and it knows no
political boundaries. Sin and evil visit
us dressed in the rhetoric of simplistic answers, and we’re tempted to buy
in. We’re tempted to reward leaders who
villainize others and manipulate the truth.
We’re tempted to reward leaders who refuse to name the long-term costs
of popular proposals. We’re tempted to
reward leaders who deep down seek their own interest at the expense of the
nation’s interest. We’re tempted to
choose the easy path ourselves and back the policy that asks the least of
us. We’re tempted to believe that
darkness is inevitable, that only the strong and self-interested survive. We’re tempted to turn away from the power of
Love. And when we give in to those
temptations, we get leaders who do the same.
As we approach this election season, our
nation may seem to be teetering on the edge.
But our hope lies in following Jesus’ way of Love by calling our leaders
to follow “the better angels of our nature,” as Lincoln said.3 If American democracy means anything, it means
our national life hangs on “the consent of the governed,” as Jefferson put it.1 And if being a follower of Jesus in this democracy
means anything, it means giving our consent to that which aligns with our Savior’s
way of Love. As political leaders seek to
manipulate us into powerlessness and despair, we must remember that our nation is
“we, the people,” empowered to give or withhold our consent.
I can’t change our politics. But I can speak. I can write to legislators and to the president,
which I’ve done, by the way. And I can vote. In fact, I must vote. To help us with that, as we approach the primaries
and general election to come, I want to leave you with the last thing you
expected to take home today – a voter’s guide.
We Episcopalians don’t do that, right?
Well, you can find this voter’s guide in the prayer book. As Episcopalians, one of the documents of our
identity is the set of promises we make when we commit ourselves to Jesus’ way of
Love. It’s the Baptismal Covenant, a Christian’s
job description. In addition to guiding
our personal discipleship, it provides a roadmap for offering the consent of the
governed. So, for each office and each question,
I encourage you to ask yourself:
·
What
choice best represents the apostles’ teaching and fellowship?
·
What
choice best resists evil?
·
What
choice best proclaims the Good News of God in Christ?
·
What
choice best serves Christ in all people and loves our neighbors?
·
What
choice best strives for justice and peace and respects the dignity of every human
being?
Our democracy depends on us. In a national moment when the powers of darkness seek to convince us we can’t change a thing, we must remind them that our nation follows a different narrative. Our votes, guided by our faith, can make our nation “a better country,” something more like the one to which we aspire. So don’t let governing happen without your consent. Temper your temptation to despair, and cast your vote for “a better country, that is, a heavenly one.”
1.
“Declaration
of Independence: A Transcription.” National Archives. Available at: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript.
Accessed July 6, 2024.
2.
“Image
1 of Abraham Lincoln papers: Series 3. General Correspondence. 1837-1897:
Abraham Lincoln, [March 4, 1865] (Second Inaugural Address; endorsed by
Lincoln, April 10, 1865).” Library of Congress. Available at: https://www.loc.gov/resource/mal.4361300/?sp=1&st=text.
Accessed July 6, 2024.
3.
Image
1 of Abraham Lincoln papers: Series 1. General Correspondence. 1833-1916:
Abraham Lincoln, [March 1861] (First Inaugural Address, Final Version).”
Library of Congress. Available at: https://www.loc.gov/resource/mal.0773800/?st=text.
Accessed July 6, 2024.
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