Independence Weekend
July 3, 2022
Fr. Philip Eberhart
Yesterday afternoon I listened to a reading of theDeclaration of Independence, and I commend it to you. It takes about 10 minutes of your day and
tomorrow would be a marvelous time for us to reflect again on the words that
are therein! Let me prime the pump a
bit:
This is just the first section of the document, down to the
listing of the “usurpations:”
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The
unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
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.
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.–That to secure these rights,
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the
consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish
it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles
and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to
effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that
Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient
causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more
disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by
abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and
usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce
them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw
off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such
has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the
necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The
history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries
and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute
Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid
world.
And here
begins the list of the overreach of the tyranny of King George in England
through which the colonists had come in their founding years. Actions which later informed our own Bill of
Rights and Constitution, just as the Liberty and Justice did which the original
pilgrims sought as they fled the religious persecutions of the Old World and
came to the New.
How long has it been since you spent any time at all refreshing or even making a memory of these events; of the times in which our Founding Father’s lived, just 246 years ago; of the fates of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence; who put their names to the document swearing:
“And for the support of this Declaration, with a
firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to
each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
I want to
commend to you a Paul Harvey monologue on YouTube on The Founding Fathers. Again about 10 minutes out of your life, but
well worth the listen, as Paul Harvey draws our attention to the price of
freedom for these 56 men and their families who pledged their Lives, Fortunes
and Sacred Honor. It is a sobering
reminder that freedom is never free!
I want also
this morning to commend to you an extraordinary resource that I picked up when
we had a breakfast here at REZ this past spring, with the Truth and Liberty
Coalition, and historian David Barton.
David is the historian who oversaw this Founder’s
Bible and its contribution to the literature of our providential history in
these United States. I also commend the
website he curates: https://wallbuilders.com
Over and
over in public arenas we say a Pledge ourselves: we call it the Pledge of Allegiance: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the
United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands: One Nation,
Under God, Indivisible, With liberty and Justice for all.”
ONE
NATION:
In our
prayer book there is a prayer for the Nation, which we will pray in a few
moments this morning. I try to use it in
our morning prayers at least once each week.
There is a line in it that says: “Defend our liberties, and fashion
into one united people the multitudes brought hither out of many kindreds and
tongues.”
Our
national motto, in fact, E PLURIBUS UNUM – Out of Many, One! Speaks to
the unity which undergirds our nation – a unity which we only find fully in the
common life, the KOINONIA, of the Body of Christ, rightly understood and
rightly lived out in society. That is
why the next phrase is so important to this nation:
UNDER
GOD!
Added to the Pledge by Dwight Eisenhower in 1954, the year of my birth, it was the result of a sermon one Sunday! Here are just a few lines of that sermon by Rev. Docherty: [Feb 7, 1954; New York Ave Pres Chur]
"Early American history was caught up with a sense of destiny that was broader and deeper than simply personal ambitions and the desire to be a success. The Puritans triumphed because they made success the by-product rather and the end of their lives. Lincoln in his day, say this clearly. Under God the nation would know a new birth of freedom. And by implication it could only be Under God that "government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
It is
only as we live our lives UNDER GOD that we come into the freedom, the liberty,
the justice for all, that we speak of.
There is no other place where it is available!
I have
said over and over that we have a choice to live our lives in two ways: With a pen-knife or with a highlighter! Our approach to our history – whether we read
it in The Bible or in The Declaration of Independence and Constitution or Bill
of Rights are subject to these mindsets of ours: If we read with a pen-knife, poised to remove
the sections that are uncomfortable or that we deem out-dated, we place ourselves
“over” the Bible or the historical document that we are reading. We are after all, as one Episcopal Church
bishop was heard to say, “the Authors of the Bible; we can change the Bible!” Today we have many who take this approach to
history, to scripture, and to truth.
But what
if we read it with a Highlighter?
What if
we Hear, Read, Mark, Learn and Inwardly Digest the words of these documents, as
if they matter… greatly… for our life and for our salvation! What if we live in such a way that the Bible
and dare I say, our foundational documents of Freedom, are “OVER” us, not US
OVER THEM! What if we allow them to
speak into our lives, and motives, and our very being where we live? What if what they said really mattered?
INDIVISIBLE
What does
that word even mean? How about UN _ DIVIDE-ABLE?
How do we
even begin to live into that word, that concept, in today’s culture of division? I noted in my mind, as I read the Declaration
that the word united in the first sentence is not yet capitalized. “United” was an adjectival descriptor, not a Proper
Name! Today it is a proper name: The
United States of America. But friends we
are in the gravest danger we have been in since the Civil War, I believe. The forces of division are afoot – in word and
in deed, and we must be vigilant to both act and speak as ONE NATION - UNDER
GOD.
Unity
does not, indeed it cannot come from inside of us, it comes from a place where
every knee has bowed and every tongue confessed – where we have ‘surrendered’ –
yielded our selfish autonomy and prideful ways to the Lordship of the ONE WHOSE
NAME IS ABOVE EVERY NAME THAT IS NAMED IN HEAVEN OR ON THE EARTH! The KING of KINGS and the LORD OF LORDS,
JESUS.
Apart
from HIM, we can do … No thing!
WITH LIBERTY
& JUSTICE FOR ALL!
He
hath shown thee, O man, what is good, and what doth the Lord require of thee,
but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God” Micah 6:8
One of
our other Prayerbook prayers says it this way:
“…especially we pray for thy holy Church universal, that it may be so guided and governed by thy good Spirit, that all who profess and call themselves Christians may be led into the way of truth, and hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life”
[#40, For all sorts and conditions of men,
BCP 2019, p. 658]
Dear
friends,
On this
eve of our celebration of Independence Day, I want to commend you to the
resources I’ve mentioned. You can access
them on my REZPADRE Blogspot, and they are live links in the sermon there. Just click to watch or to go to the resources.
Let us
spend just a few minutes tonight or tomorrow considering the cost of our
freedom and our independence and let us, as we watch the fireworks or eat the
bounty of our land, let us give thanks to God, first of all, for our freedoms
and liberties; Let us give God thanks
for the sacrifices made by our Founding Fathers, by our military and those who
today protect our freedoms around the world!
Take this bulletin home and sing the songs again, paying attention to
the words.
Paying Attention! I think we can all benefit from Paying
Attention!
God’s hand is evident in the calling, in the formation, in the history, the letters and documents of our nation. My prayer in these final days is that the Lord not pass us by because we have so often passed Him by!
Lord have mercy upon us!
Christ have mercy upon us!
Lord have mercy upon us.
Let us
stand to confirm and affirm our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed and in
our prayers this morning. Please stand
with me.
Father Philip D Eberhart
July 3, 2022
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