Fourth of July

 Happy Fourth of July. Here’s to the birthday of our country and the courage of the men who risked their all. They took a bold step in proclaiming independence from England. It was not undertaken lightly and it is our duty to continue to uphold the truths that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The writers of the Declaration may have limited their scope of ‘men’ to free and white and male because they were products of the 18^th Century. Our call is to enlarge that promise to include all humans no matter color, creed, or gender.

As it says in the last paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, the action of the Declaration was done “with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

We have a ways to go before the dream of the Founding Fathers is truth, but we can work each day for equity and justice. We can work to elect honest, forward-looking leaders who will work for the good of all. And we can do our part in creating “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Fourth of July

 Tomorrow is the Fourth of July. It’s a day in the United States when we remember our founding, and our fundamental values. “All [people] are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights…Life, Liberty, the pursuit of happiness.”

The writers of the Declaration may not have quite believed that ALL are equal. After all, in 1776 there were slaves and women were chattel as well. Many of the signers were slaveholders. That is part of the truth of our shared history in this country. We have not always lived into our ideals.

Despite that reality, what they wrote was prophetic and has inspired people across the spectrum of nationality, age, gender, and education to strive to create something unique.

The signers of the Declaration of Independence ended by stating, “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

These men took a huge risk to create a new nation. We are the current beneficiaries of that risk. We are challenged and tasked with continuing to live into the promises and dreams of our Founding Fathers, and to bring them, with God’s help, to fuller fruition.

Watching the news may give you the impression that we are a deeply divided people. And there is truth in that. As Abraham Lincoln noted in the Gettysburg address in 1863--another time with the nation was deeply divided--we dedicate ourselves to the ideal "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

May your Fourth of July be a time to consider what the words of the Declaration mean to you and how you can make them real in your life.

You can read the Declaration here: Declaration of Independence: A Transcription | National Archives and the Gettysburg Address here: Text of Lincoln's Gettysburg Adddress (umn.edu)

Story of our Nation

 What does all this talk of finding Truth and telling the whole Story mean when we come to the founding Story of our Country? It’s been a long time since I studied American History, but the basic outline is still etched in my memory.

The English crown gave land in the “New World” to assorted British aristocrats to found colonies starting with Jamestown in 1607. The Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620 seeking religious freedom. Eventually, the colonists got tired of ‘taxation without representation’ and issued a Declaration of Independence in 1776, ratified across the 13 colonies on July 4. The American Revolution ensued. From that war came a new country based on a new Constitution. OK-so I probably oversimplified the whole 150 years of history.

There’s a lot in that history that we don’t learn very much about in school (or didn’t when I was in school—I hope children now learn a little more). We don’t hear about the Indigenous People who were already here. We don’t hear how they were forced from their homes, enslaved, and/or killed. We hear about the attacks by ‘the Indians’, but we learn very little about the atrocities committed by the white settlers against the Native people. We don’t learn about the riches amassed by the northern slave trading ships between 1619 and 1860. We don’t hear of the religious institutions that abetted the trade and benefitted from it in the founding of institutions.

We may not understand the impact of the Papal Bull of 1493 or of the “Doctrine of Discovery” on European settlement in North and South America. We may learn how those proclamations enabled and empowered European colonization, but not learn the impact on the Indigenous peoples already there. Unless you live in a Southwestern state, you didn’t learn much about the Spanish conquest of what is now New Mexico and the Southwest starting before there was an English presence on the East Coast. Nor do we learn the rich history of the Southwestern tribes.

The list of what we may not know much about could go on and on. Our history as a nation is inadequate without hearing the stories of those who lived in the Americas before Columbus arrived. Our Culture is poorer is we don’t give an equal hearing to the experiences of those who had rich cultures for generations before Europeans arrived. Our Story is incomplete if we don’t encourage all POC to find and tell their own story.  

This is not erasing the History of the United States. It is enlarging and enriching it. It is completing and validating everyone’s Story. The story of the Jamestown settlers is important AND so is the story of the Powhatan and other east coast Native Americans. The story of the Southern cotton grower is part of this History AND so is the story of the Black family ripped from their native African homeland and forced to work in a strange place. The story of the influence of religion in the formation of our nation can’t be diminished AND we must not forget the children removed from families and forced to learn ‘white ways’. It’s true that building railroads across the country brought East and West together. It is equally true that it devastated Native culture and forced Asian Americans and other immigrants into dangerous situations as the lines were built.

Our story as a Nation is so much richer and broader and deeper than we have been taught. We need to be open to learning and being enriched by hearing the stories of those who don’t necessarily look like us. This graphic shows each of us holding a piece to the puzzle. Together we can make a complete Story.

Let’s not be afraid to learn the fuller history of our country. Let’s work to understand and embrace ideas and ideals that may not fit into our personal or societal ‘norms’. Maybe those norms need renovation in the post-COVID world. What are you interested in learning about? 

Freedoms

On this 4^th of July Weekend, let’s just take a moment to give thanks for our Freedoms, hard won by visionaries who were willing to state, “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor” for the dream of that freedom. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were courageous men who risked everything for what they thought right and necessary. Representatives of each of the 13 colonies signed the document and went out on a limb. Should the endeavor fail, their lives and fortunes were forfeit.

Let us remember the thousands of men and women in uniform over the years, and now, who have defended that freedom to live, worship, and prosper as we want.

Let us pray for our leaders that they may continue to hold the vision of freedom for all people as promised by Declaration of Liberty and the poem, by Emma Lazarus, on the Statue of Liberty:

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

We are blessed by our freedoms and our possessions. Let us not grow weary of being the hands of Love to others who are not so fortunate!

Next time, we’ll start a series of posts looking at ways we can Love one another in little ways, as we share our Blessings and live into “Loving one another as Christ loved us”.

Our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor...

“And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”

These words end the Declaration of Independence. The men signing that document in 1776 were taking a giant risk and a giant leap of faith. They believed whole-heartedly that God was calling them into rebellion against England and to form a new nation. They were united in that belief and together pledged themselves to moving forward, knowing that it might claim their lives and their fortunes.

With ‘a firm reliance on the protection of the Divine Providence’ the founders of the United States of America abandoned all that was secure in their lives and stepped out. On this week when we celebrate the 236^th anniversary of that action, let us give thanks for the courage and vision of these men.

Lord God Almighty, you have made all the peoples of the earth for your glory, to serve you in freedom and in peace: Give to the people of our country a zeal for justice and the strength of forbearance, that we may use our liberty in accordance with your gracious will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

As we’ve seen over the past few weeks, we Christians are called to abandon all our dreams to God and step out in faith when God calls us to ministry and life. Christians are not solitary workers though. Like the nation’s founders, we ‘mutually pledge’ to support one another in the Baptismal Covenant when we assent to the question: “will you do all in your power to support these persons in their life in Christ?” We also agree together when we recite the creed: “We believe in God…”

If you don’t have a community that you can have fellowship with, I suggest you seek out one. Find two or three (or more) to gather with for study, worship, and fellowship because our Lord promises “when 2 or 3 are gathered, I am in the midst of them.”

(We also offer prayers for all those affected by the tragic wildfires across the West and esp. for those who have lost their homes.)
  

Next time we’ll start looking at the Parable of the Growing Seed (Mark 4:26-29).

July 4, 2011

The Declaration of Independence.

Take time to read it, and consider the courage it took for the men who put their signature on this document. They called upon their faith and their patriotism and their belief in what was right to draft and sign this document that changed the face of the world in 1776 and continues to impact our lives today, here and around the world. They pledged their “Lives, Fortunes and sacred Honor” in the passionate belief that freedom was better than the King’s “absolute Tyranny over these States”. May we remember what it cost them and those who continue to defend our right to live free, and the rights of those around the world who are also seeking freedom from oppression of any sort.

As Christians, we too are called to pledge our "Lives, Fortunes, and Sacred Honor" in service of our Lord. See my newsletter this month for thoughts on this.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. 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. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. 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.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock

Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple

Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

Next week we'll return to meditations on the action of the Holy Spirit in the lives of men and women of the early church and gain inspiration from them.