Year A Independence Day (Observed) 2023 Dreams Yet Unborn

 Year A Independence Day (Observed), 2 July 2023

St. James the Less Episcopal, Ashland, VA

“Dreams Yet Unborn”

Collect: Lord God Almighty, in whose Name the founders of this country won liberty for themselves and for us, and lit the torch of freedom for nations then unborn: Grant that we and all the people of this land may have grace to maintain our liberties in righteousness and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Deuteronomy 10:17-21

The Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the Lord your God; him alone you shall worship; to him you shall hold fast, and by his name you shall swear. He is your praise; he is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things that your own eyes have seen.

Hebrews 11:8-16

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old-- and Sarah herself was barren-- because he considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.”

All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.

Matthew 5:43-48

Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Friends, we see things with our eyes. We touch things with our hands. We smell things with our nose. We hear things with our ears. We taste things with our tongues. We have these five senses and we think that they contain reality. And we can stop there, thinking that that is all there is. But we all know that our realities and the rules we live by are bigger than our five senses. This nation we live in is as much an idea as it is a place we can sense, maybe more so.

It has been called the American Experiment. A nation founded on discovery and yet colonization, idealism and yet profit, freedom and yet servitude. We are a contradiction when slaveholders declare that all people are created equal and are gifted with the charisms of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And for almost 250 years officially (and 150 before that unofficially) we have been unpacking what it really means and trying to make it real.

We began as a place of dreamed-of wealth, where the streets were paved with gold, then it became a refuge for political freedom, where religious refugees who thought the Church of England was not strict enough tried to live on their principles, in a land that they thought was theirs to claim.

But we grew and expanded, the Virginia Company which came here to establish Jamestown, and hopefully make a tidy profit, folded, and other colonies began in equal attempts to get a toehold on this continent. While perhaps not yet formalized, an idea was emerging that something great could come from hard work, vast resources, and gumption.

But we could not, and did not, do it on our own. There are three required legs to the stool that is economics, capital, resources, and labor. The interplay of those three is what creates something, and we were soon learning that with the vast resources of this land, and with added labor at minimal expenditure, the capital could grow and grow and grow. What was a cost savings was at the price of others’ freedoms. It would take centuries for us to learn the hypocrisy of our individual ideals on the backs of others. And we are still overcoming that price that was paid.

I started today with our five senses, and that too often we think that those five sensory inputs are what we are limited to as far as reality goes. But we all know there is more to life than what we can gain through the senses. We feel our emotions, we sense things that are unspoken, unseen, not really there for sense input. But these things are just as real.

We live and die by these “not real things.” Take a border, for instance. It is an arbitrary line set down by two (or more) parties negotiating what will be the limitation of one state and the limitation of the other state. That line is not real, whether it is a property line or a national border. God did not make a line there, but we agree to the idea that one side of this imaginary line is one state and the other side of that line is another state. It is a social fiction that people can die on, die over, and die from. That makes it pretty real, even though it is arbitrary and entirely unseen.

There are other intangible things that can be fighting words or ideals depending on who is perceiving them.

My dear friend, Malcolm Rogers, and I have stayed up many a late night talking about the role of the Big-C Church, the catholic (universal) Church and its role in society. In the United Kingdom, the Church of England is part of the state and its apparatus. Here in the United States, in response to that, we have made the separation of Church and State a revered ideal. When people purport to do things in Jesus' name, especially appointed or elected leaders, I get deeply worried. Should the Church have a say in things? I believe so, yes. But there is no uniform view on this. There are versions of Jesus I do not want my children exposed to, and there are people who want no religious view of Jesus mentioned to their child. I understand that as well. Religious Freedom enables us to exercise our religion, and those who choose to be apart from or religion-less to exercise their rights as well. As I protect them, I protect me. There are those who act on my Jesus’ name that I find anathema. I find it better to separate the Church and State, while Mal+ has a role in caring for the “Least of These” in boards and commissions where I do not. I am learning from him, and hopefully he is from me. The conversations, and sometimes debates, are fascinating. But that idea, a Church apart from the State has its costs and benefits either way. I would fight and die on this ideal, and others like Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear. President Franklin Roosevelt enumerated these in his famous “Four Freedoms” speech when he openly spoke to the role of a democratic state in the face of dictators and authoritarianism.

And in this age, we are again seeing the rise of authoritarianism and the curtailing of liberal democracy. When I say that, by the way I am not speaking of liberal as in liberal and conservative, but rather liberal in the academic sense of “free,” particularly “free to choose” in our voting. (“Liberal democracy is a liberal political ideology and a form of government in which representative democracy operates under the principles of classical liberalism. It is characterized by elections between multiple distinct political parties, a separation of powers into different branches of government, the rule of law in everyday life as part of an open society, a market economy with private property and the equal protection of human rights, civil rights, civil liberties and political freedoms for all people.” Source: https://www.populismstudies.org/Vocabulary/liberal-democracy/) There are cycles and seasons, and I hope and pray that we continue to grow into the fullness of Christ individually and collectively, where the least and powerless are cared for and considered as the God of Scripture calls us to do.

In our Deuteronomy reading we are instructed to love God, and care for the widow, orphan, and stranger. We are commanded to love God fully, and in that we find our freedom. The one who made us knows how we are meant to run. I love how it ends, and how it describes God. 

He is your praise; he is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things that your own eyes have seen.

We live in the most powerful and richest nation that has ever existed on the planet earth to our knowledge. And we have been blessed to be a blessing, I cannot say that enough. Our freedoms of personal opinion, those of speech and religion, are coupled with the responsibilities of freedom from want and freedom from fear. Too often these days we neglect one side for the other. We are called to choose to love God and care for our neighbor. It is both/and, not either/or. Freedom and Responsibility. That is what has made us great from our founding. When we let go of either is when we have failed so miserably.

The Desert Fathers and Mothers were ascetics, isolated hermits who intentionally lived alone to allow themselves to fully devote their whole lives to God. They gave the church great insights into the nature of God and the nature of the human heart. For their work, they would often do some simple repetitive task like basket weaving to give their bodies a task while they would pray, often reciting all 150 Psalms from memory over the course of the day. And if you are familiar with the holy songbook that is the Psalms, you will be familiar with some of the darker psalms which call for God to smite our enemies. But how did they square this with Jesus’ teaching to love our enemies? Instead of looking externally, they turned these statements inward. 

When it came to loving their enemies, and also praying that they be wiped out, they gave up to God in their prayers those parts of themselves which were not of Christ, or where Christ called them to be.

So often in our conversations about this nation, it goes to name-calling and blaming, or even shaming. And so often it gets us nowhere. When the nation erupted over the tragic murder of George Floyd, there were stark divisions. Even mentioning it probably turned some of you off of anything else I might say this morning.

But speaking the truth in love as we are called to do, we have a long tragic history of racism in this country, and it is tied to power and privilege. Systems are still in place that maintain and limit some to the advantage of others, and when I bring it up there is a pinch, and like all animals, we avoid pinches whenever, however, we can. But the only way to stop the pinching is to go to the source. And it will take long and hard conversations, loving of enemies and smiting of those parts of ourselves that are not like Christ.

Friends, I thank God for this country. We have so much potential, but we have work to do to have dreams come true. The American Dream for every one of us, Martin Luther King’s Dream where people are only judged by the content of their character, and God’s Dream of a Kingdom Come on Earth as it is in Heaven. 

Our Hebrews reading closes with those who did not look back, and forged ahead into the unknown, but also into the promises of God. May it apply to us as well.

“They desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.”

If it is true for them, it is true for us. We have to let go of the contradictions that flood our senses, and sense beyond the sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and touches that prevent us from seeing what God would have us do, and even more, who God would have us be. May God fulfill these dreams yet unborn, and may God continue to bless America. Amen