July 4, 2021
/Proper Nine
Deuteronomy 10: 17-21; Psalm 145; Hebrews 11: 8-16; Matthew 5:43-48
The Rev. James M.L. Grace
Two hundred and forty-five years ago today, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the Second Continental Congress delegates from thirteen states signed the Declaration of Independence, a document which at the time expressed the ideals upon which this country was founded and the reason for its separation from England.
Can you imagine being the King or Queen of England 245 years ago? Your sorting through all your letters and come across an envelope from America and you say what’s this? And your advisor looks at it and says, “oh that’s nothing, that’s junk mail from America, throw it into recycling!” But you don’t and you open it and read the Declaration of Independence! That would be an interesting day at work if you were the king or queen of England, wouldn’t it?
In all seriousness, the Declaration of Independence is a masterfully worded document that expresses ideals that America has yet to reach: “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’s a powerful vision, isn’t it? In the two hundred forty-five years since, America has pushed toward this ideal, sometimes struggling, sometimes succeeding – abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage. Our nations success in the past gives me hope that we do have the strength as a nation to live into the vision written onto paper all those years ago.
I believe that sometime in our future, the dream of life and liberty and happiness put down on that paper will become real. That’s my hope for my country. Maybe we will see it happen in our lifetime – who knows?
There’s a great book in the Bible called Hebrews. We heard a little of it today, from the 11th chapter – the famous chapter on faith. In this chapter are some of the most eloquent verses to be found in the entire Bible. They talk about Abraham and Sarah, and their son Isaac. They are some of the most eloquent verses to be found in the entire Bible.
The faith they demonstrated was not dependent on a favorable outcome for them. Abraham and Sarah are considered heroes of the faith not because they had a super-human amount of faith that would be impossible for any of us to have. They are heroes of the faith because they believed, just like you or me, in God’s guarantee of the future, even if they wouldn’t live to see it happen. As Hebrews says, they saw the promises, but only from a distance.
That’s like those people in Philadelphia two hundred forty-five years ago. They had an idea, they had hope in a future that they believed God was a part of, a future they could see only from a distance. That’s like us today, who look around and see the world as it is and not as it should be, and our faith compels us to get to work building the world God wants.
I saw a cartoon the other day and it was a person talking to God and the person said, “God I just don’t understand why you allow all the crime, all the hate, all the homelessness, all the child abuse, all the drug addiction in your world.” And God’s response? God simply says, “Funny…I was going to ask you the same question.”
We are here in this country today because of the vision people hundreds of years before us had. Were they perfect? No. Is our nation perfect? Of course not. But it is our job as citizens to strive to form a more perfect union.
The fact that we are in this church today, is due to the vision and sacrifice of people long before all of us. People sacrificed and saved and gave money to build this church. In the decades since, people have sacrificed and saved and gave money to maintain these buildings, and to maintain the church’s debt-free status. In the last seven years since I have been here, you all have stepped up in big ways to support financially our growing ministry together.
And we’re going to continue being faithful to God’s call to serve. Like Abraham and Sarah, like the authors of the Declaration of Independence, we here now are called into action.
What will this church do today or this year to affect the lives of people who will come here fifty or a hundred years from now? Several months ago a parishioner approached me and asked, “what is the long term plan for the care and maintenance of our church?” That is a question this person probably wished they didn’t ask me, because my answer was putting that person on a long-term planning committee whose job it is to find the answer to that question.
Today we celebrate not just our nation’s independence, but we celebrate a vision – a vision of what this nation can be, what this church can be, and who God is calling each of us to be. AMEN.