Road trip! I got home a few hours ago after taking a 3000
mile jaunt from NJ to Missouri, then looping up through Kansas and Nebraska, into
Iowa, and then back home crossing through parts of 9 states in 7 days! Iowa is the state where I was born and where
many relatives still reside. Driving
through those wide-open places, through little towns that dot the landscape,
visiting a church and worshiping among ‘strangers,’ seeing the fields of
grain, the ‘wind farms’ that produce electricity, and the changes of culture
from place to place - my realization of the vast resources and potentials of
America was renewed. “America, America,
God shed His grace on thee!”
I also saw and heard the fractures that plague this nation,
too. Racial, economic, political, and religious divides are not just cracks;
they are deep chasms. In some of my conversations it was clear that even those
with whom I share heritage and DNA ‘see’ this nation from a much different
perspective than I do. Were I to wander even farther into the South, the
Mountain states, or the West Coast, I am sure I would discover many that see
the same things I see but with a much different set of eyes. I heard and saw simmering anger at the
sweeping changes that are turning these United States into a country even I
have a hard time recognizing as the country into which I was born 6 decades
ago. I sat with those of one generation older than I and understood their
confusion at the state of our affairs.
As I drove I listened to a book (what a marvelous invention,
the digital book!) that told the story of Alexander Hamilton, the first
treasurer of the United States. We need to know that ours is not the first
generation of Americans to be confused by rapid change, nor are we the first to
grapple with problems that threaten to tear us apart. Intrigue, pride, greed, and betrayal were
very much a part of the lives of the ‘fathers of our nation,’ though we tend to
romanticize them and think of them only as wise, noble, and self-sacrificial
people. Nonsense. Their fights were much like those that fill up our news in
2017!
Does that mean we have no need of concern? Not at all. A generation after Hamilton, America’s divide
over slavery exploded into a war that was fought in a sea of blood. I pray that
our divides do not bring about such terrible consequences. Oh, how we need to
remember this 4th of July that we are indeed a blessed nation, rich,
powerful, and still a place of opportunity unlike any other nation in the
world.
Christian we are citizens of two ‘kingdoms.’ We are first subjects of the Great Kingdom of
Heaven, called by God to live under His reign, and to serve His purposes. Transformed by Christ, invited to love God and
others in His Name, we are empowered to live honorably as citizens of these
United States. I am humbled to call
myself a Christian and glad to be an American. I pray that my first calling
makes me a better person in my beloved America!
I am convinced still that the Church remains the hope of America, but
only if we are radically committed to Christ’s call to love. Christians cannot join the hate, the intolerance,
the racism, the greed, and the xenophobia that infect our nation like a wasting
disease! We are people of hope, our
vision inspired by the promise of an eternal home where there will be just
rewards and judgment.
If America is to be great, we who are in Christ must lead
the way from ‘me first’ attitudes that seek only our own good to a place of
brotherhood that Katharine Lee Bates
envisions in the song that seems almost naïve in our time.
Happy Birthday,
America. On this Independence Day, I
pray for a true spiritual renewal that goes beyond a civil religion of kindly
ethics, a place where Christ is Lord and we are people who share in the ‘abundant
life’ that He gives. Only then, will
that dream of making America great again become a reality!
O beautiful for spacious
skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain
majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with
brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim
feet,
Whose stern, impassioned
stress
A thoroughfare for freedom
beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in
self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
O beautiful for heroes
proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their
country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine,
Till all success be
nobleness,
And every gain divine!
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!
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