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LINKS TO THE SERMONS |
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| “The Freedom Manifesto” It’s really easy to remember what date the Fourth of July falls on because we have given the holiday the date as its nickname, The Fourth of July. It’s like calling Christmas the twenty-fifth of December or Thanksgiving, the third Thursday of November. Imagine if we called Easter, the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. The real name for the holiday we celebrate on July forth is Independence Day, the day upon which, in 1776, the Declaration of Independence was ratified, though it was not actually signed until the next day. It was too hot in Philadelphia to do both at one meeting. And, by the way, the vote to go for independence was taken on July second; it took two more days to agree on the language of the Declaration. The document was in fact a freedom manifesto. It declared that people should be free from domination from another government, even though they were technically citizens of that other country and they’re very existence stemmed from the massive investments of that foreign entity, and most of their citizens came from the “foreign” country. All of that took a secondary position to the principle of self-rule, self-determination, and self-actualization. The document went on to declare that having separated themselves from the control of an outside entity, they bore the responsibility to create a society where-in people could establish whatever style of government they wanted, that it would do its work by the consent of the people and that if it began to infringe on the unalienable (or inalienable) rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the people had the right to replace it with something else of their choosing. The vision set fourth by the document was grand, even by the revolutionary standards of the time – that all men are created equal. What they really meant was white men of English descent who were property owners. The man who penned those lofty words was a slaveholder and would continue to be until his death exactly fifty years later on the fourth of July. It would be nearly 100 years after they were ratified before those words would be understood to include people of other races, even slaves. It would be more than a hundred years before that reference to “all men” would be understood to include women as well, and before freedom of religion would include the understood right to embrace a religion other than those that fall under the Christian umbrella, or to embrace no religion at all. It would take centuries before the realization would establish itself that there is no real liberty for any of us until there is liberty for all of us, and that our dreamed of independence is only possible through a mutual inter-dependence based in equality. It began with words written on a page by a Virginia rancher and ratified by 50 other men on a hot July day in a place that is now named for it – Independence Hall. Powerful words! The revolution was built on words, first those of Thomas Paine and now those of Thomas Jefferson. The Bible has asserted it for centuries, that words have the power to transform. Once they were written down and canonized they began to do their work of making us into their image. It’s taken more than two centuries and they are still at work transforming another generation of Americans, perhaps a reluctant generation, into the lofty principles for which we stand. And when we stray from the path, which we do under the rubric of national security or some other pressing survival issue (a terrorist threat at level orange), it is the Freedom Manifesto that calls us back, reminding that if we are not a land of liberty and justice for all, then we are not the America the signers of this document were willing to die for all those July fourths ago. The document is like so many great writings and statements made over the centuries, you affirm it, ratify it, then spend the rest of your life trying to live up to it. We Christians are also people of a grand affirmation; I receive and profess Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. We say it when we are baptized and when we join the church. But, what exactly does that mean? We have the rest of our lives to figure it out and feel the weight of it. What is liberty really? Can there be liberty without the restraint of law and mutually agreed upon standards of behavior? Can there be independence without mutual responsibility? We declared our independence from England but many times in the intervening years we have rushed to their aid, and they to ours, because our shared understanding of the right, demanded it. The document made clear that no one could put a definition on happiness; that is entirely subjective, and should be so. So they carefully did not guarantee that illusive quality, but only the right to pursue it is listed as unalienable. Finally the challenge of those who live under the Freedom Manifesto is to understand the nature and substance of freedom, and to shoulder its immense weight, personally and as a nation. The Bible says that truth will set you free. Unfortunately, when the complexities and necessities of this inter-dependent world take priority, truth becomes one of the expendable commodities. Jesus said, “I am truth.” Truth personified. Being an American Christian patriot is a mystery inside a riddle wrapped in an enigma. Christians are charged to surrender themselves entirely to Christ, the personification of truth, and in that total surrender the find true liberty, absolute freedom. Paul described himself as a prisoner of Christ but wouldn’t exchange his bondage for anything in the world because of the absolute joy and perfect peace that accompanied it. The old hymn offers this prayer, “Make me a captive, Lord, and then I shall be free.” Kris Kristofferson wrote a country song with this sad refrain, “Looking back and longing for the freedom of my chains.” It’s about a lost love. He thought that the commitment that romance required was too confining, too threatening to his personal freedom. But, too late he discovered that true freedom existed within the bonds of a committed love relationship. “If I could hold you now, the one who said you’d never stray, the one who said she’d never go away. If I could only hold you now. I’m looking back and longing for the freedom of my chains, lying in your loving arm again.” This is the Fourth of July, the day we look again at the freedom manifesto and try to grasp its implications for the times in which we live. As a mature nation we have grown to know that independence is a heavy responsibility because the justice we require for ourselves has to be extended everywhere if it is going to exist anywhere. So, in order to preserve our independence we must link arms with the rest of humanity and march toward a mutual goal carrying the weak and dragging the reluctant if necessary. Not the romantic vision of independence we had naively hoped for in our naive youth, but finally, the only kind there is. No, freedom isn’t free, as the saying goes. But it isn’t just the folks in the military who pick up the cost; it’s all of us bound in a commitment to truth, even if truth hurts, because truth will also set us free. It is all of us joined in the covenant of inter-dependence out of which real liberty springs. In our efforts to export democracy recently, that ingredient has been sadly left out. Emerging nations think majority rule means that the winner of the election is free to walk over the losers. But, in a democratic republic such as ours, the first responsibility of the party in power is to protect and guarantee the rights of the disenfranchised. The world will watch in awe on January 20th when the leader of the most power nation in the world simply walks away and surrenders the office to another, even if the winner is from the opposing party. It won’t happen in Zimbabwe or Kenya or many other countries. It will happen hear because of our understanding of the nature of liberty as inter-dependent and inclusive. The looser of the election and the exiting president will be honored, respected and valued as a partner in the quest for liberty and justice for all, a quest that must continue if there is to be liberty and justice for any of us. We Christians know that more than anyone because the Christ has taught us that love is self-sacrifice, faith is trusting something that can’t be proven or demonstrated through any rational process, and freedom is surrender to the One who is the embodiment of Truth. The Declaration of Independence is to the nation what the Bible is to Christians, the document with all its quaint, dated language and border-line sappy idealism, that calls us back to who we are, who we were from the beginning and who God is calling us to continue to strive to be.
Do you just want to read one of the many great sermons from our wonderful staff? We will keep a few months up here at the site. As always if you would like a DVD of a service please contact the church office. Thank you for visiting us. |
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