July 4, 2004
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Two hundred twenty-eight
years ago today, the Declaration of Independence was signed. A nation was born
as a document expressing an ideal developed in Rome and Greece, and in the Magna
Charta took its place among the most meaningful, hope filled inspiring documents
in the history of humanity. We know that not everyone was included in the first
celebration. As independence was declared from Great Britain, it was not granted
to slaves or women, or others who did not have full citizenship rights.
But the desire was there and through perseverance and advocacy, the
promise is being realized. Poetry speaks
meaningfully to us about the yearning for freedom. The poem engraved on the
Statue of Liberty is an invitation to people coming west from Europe to move
into freedom: …“From
her beacon-hand Walt Whitman heard in
the ordinary acts of extraordinary people songs of hope and pride and
fulfillment. “I hear
America singing, the varied carols I hear, The delicious
singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, Harlem Renaissance poet,
Langston Hughes wrote a plea to America, that the hope of its founding documents
and its founding fathers and mothers would be realized in all Americans. There
is even within our borders, hope that overcomes the frustration that one day the
promise of America will become the reality and truth for all America. That is
what Langston Hughes talks about when he pleads: “Let America
be America again. Since Independence Day
falls on Sunday this year, we have had a weekend to celebrate America’s
freedom. We also have the time to reflect on the yearnings of people throughout
the world from Baghdad to the Sudan, from democracies where freedom reigns to
places where it is a desire still being born. It also seems right this
Independence Day and Lord’s day to conclude a three part series on Christian
freedom. It seems right to take the opportunity to talk about what it means to
be free in Christ. On this day that
celebrates our nation’s independence Christians are reminded that we are
citizens both of this country and of heaven. (Philippians 3.20).
As citizens of the United States of America, we rightly and joyfully
celebrate Independence Day.
As citizens of heaven,
and as followers and disciples of Christ, our faith extends beyond boundaries
and citizenship here on earth. It calls us not to independence but to total
dependence on God and interdependence on each other. In the church, we are not
alone, God is with us, we are with each other as we stand with and alongside
each other to worship together, to learn together, and to mourn and rejoice
together. In the church, we talk
less about our inalienable rights and more about our calling to be faithful to
God, and about how in God we are each worth something; our lives have meaning
and value just because we are here. That is why from its earliest days, the
church made room for people without regard to their status outside the church.
What mattered was that people have been freed by the power of Christ to find a
healing, welcoming, strengthening home in the church. It is why people of
faith have been set free by Jesus Christ to build schools, feed the hungry,
establish hospitals, visit the sick and imprisoned, offer water to the thirsty,
clothes to the naked, and shelter for the homeless. That is the work Christ has
sent us to do in the world. It is why we are sent
out beyond these walls into the community and the world. The lesson from Luke is
about Jesus sending people out to do work in his name. It begins after Jesus has
begun to move toward Jerusalem and the cross. It comes after someone says to
him, “I’ll go wherever you go” and Jesus tells him foxes and birds have
places to rest, but Jesus has none. It comes after someone days, “I’ll join
you after my father’s funeral” and after another says, “I want to follow
you, but let me say goodbye to my friends and family first”. Jesus says to
them, “you have to come now. I don’t think the intent is to dismiss their
real needs, but there is an urgency about what Jesus is doing.
If you cannot live day by day without hotel reservations or if you need
absolute security or if there are is anything else you must do, by all means do
it. But I cannot wait. My destiny is ahead of me, and I cannot delay”. Is there any urgency
here or do we have things to do other than to build up this church? We want to
grow, we want enough resources to do all that we believe God is calling us to
do, we sometimes act as if disaster is around the next corner. Then we slow
down, we back off, we figure out ways not to risk or move. If the time is
urgent, the time to move and grow is now. Christ has freed us to act with
boldness and courage in his name. Those seventy people
Jesus sent out were to go ahead of him as he made his way from town to town.
In this political season, we would call them his advance team, they are
being sent to let the people in the towns and villages know that Jesus is coming
and to make provisions for him. But they are not just making an announcement.
They have some work to do, their job is to go on his behalf, and preach and
teach, and heal in his name. They are to be the embodiment of the good news that
is Jesus Christ. We are freed to be his
advance team now. We have been freed to let people know that Jesus the Christ
wants to come into their lives, their hearts, their homes, wherever there is
spiritual need, he wants to come in meet that need. Christ has freed us through
baptism, through faith, through a sense of urgency that says the time is now. Jesus sends them out
with a set of instructions and a plan for being received and for being rejected.
“They were to depend
entirely on the hospitality of their hosts, very likely a practice common among
early Christian groups. There was to be no shopping about for the best room and
board, nor were the missionaries to pronounce doom on those who refused
hospitality. Rituals of departure were to be brief, leaving such persons to be
judged by what they had missed – that is, the kingdom of God had been near (vv.
10-11). There will be judgment, but that is a word Jesus will speak. In
fact, the message to those who accept and to those who reject is the same:
‘the kingdom of God has come near’” (Interpretation series.
Luke. Fred Craddock. Louisville. John Knox Press, p. 1990, p.145). We have some
instructions too. Jesus says to us, “I have freed you to go out. Discern the
best way for you to go and don’t carry too much baggage about how evangelism
has to be done. Don’t worry about inviting people to a church that is too
small, it is the right size for building and renewing. Instead tell the ones you
invite that the spirit of God is in this place and bit-by-bit we are growing.
Leave behind what we used to be - - as important as it is to us, where we were
is not going to get us to where we want to be today, or tomorrow. Invite people
to join us in what we are becoming - - a community of faith that trusts that God
is here with us. Then when they come, we will see together that because God is
here, new and renewed life is here. We are free to offer the good news to
people. They may receive it, they may reject it, but we will offer it. We are freed to go out
in his name, to invite people in. The
harvest is plentiful, the laborers are few - - but we know the master planter.
In other words as we go in Christ’s freedom, we would do well to talk to God
about how to increase the number of people who make their spiritual home with
us, who will come to know Jesus as Lord and who will then speak a word of
growth, hope, joy, peace, and life with his name. We go in prayer because
the work is hard. People don’t always want to know that we are acting by the
grace and in the name of Christ. Look at the world, they will say. There is too
much war, too much hate, too much poverty, too little justice, not enough
equality, too much that divides this nation and the world. Our trust in the
church and in the world has been betrayed by people we thought were sheep, but
who are really wolves, devouring prey like animals in the forest. Where is your
God? Let’s tell them that
God is every place we offer the good news that is in us, a warm welcome, a
mosaic of God’s people, the Lord’s supper each time we gather for Sunday
worship, an eagerness to learn more of what difference the presence of Christ
means in our lives. We will offer
the good news because we are free indeed. On this day, remember
that our ultimate freedom is God’s gift and promise from dehumanizing
oppression as we discover when we read the words God gave to Moses to say to the
people, “Say therefore to the Israelites, ‘I am the
LORD, and I will free you from the burdens of the Egyptians and deliver you from
slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts
of judgment’ (Exodus 6.6). Freedom is a spiritual
matter and it is the result of our faith in God. Jesus says to us, “if
you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the
truth, and the truth will make you free…so if the Son makes you free, you will
be free indeed” (John 8. 31, 36). II Corinthians 3.17
reminds us that “where the spirit of the Lord is, there
is freedom”. We are free
to go out, to spread the good news that makes us better and that makes the world
better, by the Spirit of the living God, we will share our freedom with the
world. Finally, as we go out,
remembering that we are dual citizens this Independence Day, we can pray for
this nation. We can offer our own prayer; and we can offer the one written
eighty-six years ago by a Russian immigrant. Sixty-six years ago he revised the
song. The first part, the spoken part of the song may not be familiar to us: “While the
storm clouds gather far across the sea, Irving Berlin wrote the
song, Kate Smith made it popular in 1938. On
this Independence Day, as citizens of this country free by birthright and by
law, and as citizens of heaven called to daily prayer – won’t you join me in
singing “God Bless America”. God
bless America, land that I love. Dr.
LaTaunya M. Bynum |
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Broad
Street Christian Church
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