Good morning, and Happy 4th of July …
234 years ago, the Second Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence:
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.
The war continued seven more years.
France and Spain came to our assistance.
Cornwallis surrendered at the end of 1781.
Preliminary articles of peace signed November 30, 1782
Full treaty: September 3, 1783.
It’s quite a story …
And we can be justly proud … and deeply grateful.
So get out the grill,
Light the firecrackers,
Head off to the beach …
Enjoy the show …
And a happy 4th of July.
America is a great nation …
Great in vision and great in kindness and great in generosity …
The inscription on the Statue of Liberty says it well:
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-tossed to me,
The American experiment - remains unique …
A rare mixture of peoples and religions from around the world … e pluribus unum – one out of many.
Our political systems are second to none.
Though terribly messy.
Because democracy is a messy business.
I was a senate chaplain several times in Oklahoma.
Be there an entire week to open the Senate with prayer.
After prayer, I’d stay in the Senate a few hours to hear the debate and enjoy the protocol.
When evening came, when my senator-friend and I would go out to be entertained by lobbyists … steak and lobster all around the table …
Friday morning, the chaplain-for-the-week was given an opportunity to address the body, and I remember saying to the senators:
This is one of the messiest things I’ve ever seen.
And one of the most beautiful.
Democracy.
So very messy.
So very beautiful.
Don’t every try to clean it up.
Don’t ever try to get rid of the mess.
As long as it’s messy, we’re on safe ground.
Over the years, our nation has wrestled with some of the world’s most famous words:
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.
“All men” it says …
There was a time when “men” was literal … no women allowed, except in the kitchen … but after decades of debate and struggle, women’s suffrage helped us get beyond gender.
There was a time when the word “all” was not so big as it is now.
There was a time when the word “all” did not include Native Americans … who were likely to be called “savages” …
The word “all” didn’t apply to people of color either … and we had to fight a Civil War to work out the details on what the word “all” meant.
In Los Angeles, 1943, the Zoot Suit riots:
A series of riots erupted between white sailors and Marines stationed throughout the city and Latino youth, who were recognizable by the zoot suits they favored.
Similar attacks against Latinos occurred in Beaumont, Chicago, San Diego, Detroit, Evansville, Philadelphia, and New York.
Earlier in the 20th Century, Irish Catholics were attacked and beaten, and later on, Italians and Puerto Ricans fought it out on the streets of New York City … captured in the Broadway Play, “Westside Story.”
Only recently, have we worked our way through unfair housing laws … red-lined neighborhoods: unscrupulous agreements between bankers and white landlords and realtors.
Our own history here in California tells the tale:
Who can forget the wholesale detainment of Japanese Americans during WW2 and their dispersal to camps around the west?
In the years following World War II, African Americans were confronted with increasing patterns of housing segregation …
In 1955, William Byron Rumford, the first black to serve in the California State Legislature, introduced a fair-housing bill outlawing housing discrimination on the basis of race.
In 1963, the Legislature passed the Rumford Fair Housing Act which outlawed restrictive covenants and the refusal to rent or sell on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, marital status, or physical disability.
In reaction to the law, a well-funded coalition of realtors and landlords was determined to undo the law.
They immediately began to campaign for a referendum that would amend the state Constitution to allow property owners the right to deny minorities equal access to housing.
Known as Proposition 14, it was passed by 65 percent of the voters …
In 1966, the California State Supreme Court ruled that Proposition 14 violated the State Constitution's provisions for equal protection and due process.
In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed the decision of the California Supreme Court and ruled that Proposition 14 had violated the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution.
And I might add, Covenant Presbyterian Church decided to back fair housing … and when the news hit the streets, folks left the church over it.
But I wonder, can a Christian believe in anything but fair housing?
Can an American believe in anything but equal opportunity?
For freedom, Christ set us free, writes the Paul the Apostle.
For freedom, our founding mothers and fathers set the course of this nation.
We will continue to work our way through all of these questions … America has taken the wrong step sometimes, but more often than not, America has corrected itself and gotten back on the path of freedom and equality.
I celebrate with you today the goodness of America:
Education, freedom and research.
The Erie Canal and the Hoover Dam.
Irrigation and California’s Central Valley.
Powerhouse universities all across the land.
The Big Apple, the Windy City and Hollywood and Vine.
We are nation of natural beauty:
From the rugged coasts of Maine to the Great Lakes, the Mighty Mississippi, the Ohio and the Missouri.
The Smoky Mountains and the Rockies …
Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, the Mojave Desert and the Redwoods.
We are a nation of civil rights and freedom …
President Eisenhower sent a thousand soldiers to Little Rock to protect nine African Americans enrolled in Central High School …
Senator Everett Dirksen stepped across the aisle, earning the wrath of his GOP colleagues, to help President Johnson pass our nation’s landmark Civil Rights Legislation.
The Rev. William Sloan Coffin and the Freedom Riders … and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Bridge to Selma.
Just this past week, the death of Senator Byrd, who as a young man joined the KKK, and then later apologized for it, and went on to a fine career to help us define the word “all” in the biggest and best possible ways.
America has made tremendous strides in race, the rights of children - and equality for women … including abortion rights and free access to birth control …
One of the more pressing issues right now is marriage equality for lesbians and gays … I believe we will resolve this issue, as we have the previous questions of race and gender.
Another pressing issue before us is health care, and I believe we will work our way through all of this and see the day when all Americans have access to reliable and affordable health care, especially our children.
Issues of public transportation, immigration and environmental quality are huge, and I believe we will find our way on these matters, too.
I believe in America … I believe we have within us the means and the resolve to keep open doors open, and open a few more doors along the way.
But one more piece needs our attention this morning.
In the early 60s, I was a hawk … go get the Commies in SE Asia; bomb the daylights out of ‘em …
But I did some homework on our role in SE Asia after WW2, after the French were defeated, and I came to believe that our war there was a mistake, based upon a mistaken policy, the Domino Theory – crafted by John Foster Dulles, the son of a Presbyterian minister, by the way.
It was the early 50s, a time characterized by McCarthyism … Black Lists, suspicion, fear, children crouching under their school desks and bomb shelters in the back yard.
Dulles’ Domino Theory guided the Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson administrations into a costly war from which we are still recovering.
But hats off to President Nixon who helped us out of Vietnam.
And hats off to Nixon who tore down the walls of suspicion and fear with China and built bridges instead …
As much as I regret Nixon’s role in Watergate, he was a internationalist who understood, rightly I believe, that America is at its best when it builds bridges to the world.
During the tumultuous 60s, I remember a phrase hurled at war protestors, “America, love it or leave it” … remember that?
I always said, “I love America; that’s why I protest the war!”
Ever since the Revolutionary War, and with World Wars 1 & 2, Christians have been supportive of America’s foreign policy – in many a mainline congregation, we find memorial plaques honoring those who served and died in America’s wars …
Which reminds me …
A little boy was standing in front of one of those plaques when the pastor walked by … the little boy asked the pastor what it was all about.
“Young man,” said the pastor, “this plaque has the names of everyone who died in the service.”
The little boy replied, “Which service, the 8:30 or the 11:00 o’clock?”
War looks good on the History Channel, and after the third martinia, it looks even better … nations love to lionize the warrior and blow the trumpet …
But in reality, war is hideous, and Christians, especially, need to think carefully about faith and war.
Because we follow the Prince of Peace.
And we say to one another every Sunday, “God’s Peace.”
Speaking for myself, I am a grateful America, pleased to call this land home – a land of spacious skies and amber waves of grain, majestic purple mountains and the fruited plain … from sea to shining sea.
I choke up when I see the Stars and Stripes in a parade … and hear the National Anthem played at the Olympics … and taps played at a funeral.
I get goose bumps and a lump in my throat when I watch a flyover of f-16s.
I’ll never forget seeing my first American cemetery overseas … my Belgian friends drove me there … we got out of the cars and walked up a wide stone stairway toward a colonnade, and there, at the top of the walkway, spreading out before me, thousands of graves – white marble crosses and Stars of David - gleaming in the sun … not a blade of grass out of place.
I couldn’t speak – my throat choked with emotion …
A few years later, our whole family strolled among the ten thousand graves of Normandy, all of us moved beyond words … I found a young soldier’s grave, who died on the day I was born … I stood there, and I wept.
O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years,
Thine alabaster cities gleam,
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.
Amen and Amen!
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