Cathy Cox
Homily for Independence Day – July 3, 2022.
I hope you noticed the readings for today – They might not be what you’d expect for a national day of independence:
“For the Lord your God…executes justice for the orphans and widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing…you shall also love the stranger…
“For he (Abraham) looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose builder and architect is God.”
“But I say, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…”
Those look forward to God’s kingdom, and invite us to participate in it now.
Episcopalians haven’t even always celebrated Independence Day. After the Revolutionary War, it was clear that many new Americans really hadn’t wanted to be. They were Loyalists. Their allegiance was to England. And so we didn’t include any mention of it in our prayer book until 1928, and even then it wasn’t considered a major feast.
Only in 1979 were these propers and prayers added.
And for many Americans and many Christians, this is a difficult time to celebrate Independence Day; there are many reasons why this is true.
Chief among them is the rise of a Christian nationalism which moves us from celebrating our freedom as Christians within a secular state, to watching a certain narrow kind of Christianity become identified with our government. That is frightening. It is also heresy.
Recent decisions by our Supreme Court make it plain that we can no longer take our expectation of an impartial secular government for granted. And certainly those who are not straight, white, male Christians can’t.
It seems hard for some of us in our nation to remember, or to care, that our Constitution was crafted by educated, landed, white males, most of whom were also enslavers, and that the rights of no one else were even in view.
There is no assumption that the uneducated, the poor, women, the enslaved or Native Americans would be treated as equals. And they weren’t. It took amendments to move things forward.
I do not have anything to say against them. Those men did us a great favor in setting out a framework for living together after a first attempt failed. It remains a foundational document for us and a model for others. But it is not a Christian document. And it is not perfect.
The authors and signers never thought it was. We have changed as a nation over 250 years – We have grown, made new laws respecting the freedom of others, and in the process become more ourselves, more just, more inclusive, more American, over the years.
“Originalism” was no goal for those men. Thomas Jefferson was perfectly aware that times would change and that future generations would be called upon to understand and interpret our country and our Constitution according to their changed circumstances. He said so, explicitly – that it would be foolish not to change and adapt, just as it would be foolish for a young man to continue to wear the clothes he wore as a child.
In any case, it is impossible to know what those men, who wrote the second amendment when muskets could shoot no more than four times a minute, would make of this court’s decisions about gun laws in New York. It is fair to wonder if they would not be shocked to hear that their words, written at a time when we had local militias in place of a standing army, were being interpreted to allow individual citizens to own unlimited numbers of unregulated guns.
It seems absurd to refuse to acknowledge the right of the government to protect our water and air quality simply because the authors of our Constitution had no idea that by 2022, the emissions and waste from massive factories would dangerously pollute both, and contribute to the climate change they knew nothing about and couldn‘t have imagined.
And whatever your personal feeling about it, abortion was perfectly well known in the 18th century, and the authors never mentioned it in our founding documents; it was a non-issue, but not because it wasn‘t happening.
Consider this: A ten-year old girl, raped by a family member, was denied an abortion in Ohio this week; she had to be taken to Indiana to obtain one. That child is younger than Elijah. Is this really what we want? Do we really think any author of the Constitution would support this?
Schools across the country are increasingly reluctant to teach the truth about our history of Black enslavement or the calculated decimation of native peoples, because of objections by parents and legislators, but the court is eager to allow public school coaches to pray with public school students who may not share the coach’s faith at all, in public, on the 50 yard line.
And in Florida, that, “don’t say gay” law went into effect this week. This will affect the speech and the lives of gay and lesbian persons in our country, including the many LGBTQ Christians and clergy within our own denomination.
Also in Florida, a required civics workshop for teachers last week included, in writing, that the separation of Church and state were not part of the original intent of our founders – which is a lie, not simply an alternative opinion.
What a time we are in. There have been memes online suggesting that we shouldn’t even celebrate Independence Day this year. I understand that feeling.
But I understand something else, too. I understand the power of hope. We people of faith have been in hard places before. We Americans have also been.
We literally fought a war that recognized the power of the federal government to compel slave states to give up that practice, for example.
And we have moved forward. And we will. This is not the end of our story – or of America’s.
We have no reason to glorify ourselves as the “land of the free and the home of the brave.” That has not been true. And Christians have often participated in the wrongs that stain our past – and our present.
But we also have no sufficient reason to despair. And as citizens, we can’t give up the dream of a country that truly includes and values all its citizens.
Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum said this: “We have to imagine those young people 75 years from now – 50 years from now who will look back to our time.” “What will they see when they look back at us? Will we be sources of inspiration for them? Will they look back and see that in the worst times we did what we could – including the small brave things that were about creating the light and the goodness we believe in?”
“Or will we give up? I am not into that option. I will not advocate that. We are not a people who give up. We don’t give up the long term vision – that’s who we are as a people. That’s what Jewish faith is founded in.”
I would add that it is also what the Gospel requires: that we look ahead to the kingdom of God that is both here – and on the way. Justice for all. Mercy to all. Hope for all. Love above all.
We don’t give up the “long term vision” either.
Maybe you remember Frederick Douglass’ 1852 speech.
He had been a slave until he was 20, and then became perhaps the greatest orator in our history.
And he was invited to speak to a 4th of July celebration. In that speech he asked,
“What to the American slave is the 4th of July? – a day that reveals to him the gross injustice and cruelty of his life; your boasts of greatness; your sound of rejoicing; your shouts of liberty and equality are to him only a thin veil to cover up America’s crimes.”
He said this ten years before the Civil War.
And yet, Frederick Douglass dedicated every day of his long life to speaking determined words and taking determined action – to insist that the country that had enslaved and destroyed so many lives, could live up to what he believed was the greatness of the Constitution. He did not give up.
Or consider what Rabbi Abraham Heschel wrote in 1944. He was in the United States teaching, but could not get his family out of Europe. To our shame, the United States accepted very few desperate Jewish refugees. His parents and sisters died in the holocaust. But in the very midst of the war, as Jews were still dying – He said, ”Our responsibility as Jews, as evil as the fascists are, every day we must be that degree good.”
That is reminiscent of Jesus‘ words in today‘s reading, too. And it reminds us of the words of Deuteronomy as well. God is good. We must be.
We have a particular privilege and responsibility to be who we say we are: followers of Jesus the Lord, wherever we live, in any nation where we find ourselves.
And where we find ourselves as Episcopal Christians today, is right here. This is our home.
But it is not our final home nor is our government our final authority. Only the Gospel is.
That is complicated, and it is especially difficult whenever we think that our faith should rule a nation – although Jesus never suggested that, or that our allegiance is first to any earthly government, including our own.
It isn’t. It can’t be. It is our privilege to walk at right angles to the state – any state.
We must do all we can to see justice done, and freedom won, and compassion expressed in our laws.
But the United States will never be the embodiment of the coming Kingdom of God.
We cannot pretend that it is. We live in a flawed, decent country as flawed, decent people.
But as Christians we vote, we act, we stand up for those whose rights are trampled, and we can watch for the signs, and welcome the coming of God’s Kingdom where Love – not power – reigns.
May God bless America.
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