15 LECTIONARY                                            GLORIA DEI, ANCHORAGE

JULY 8, 2007                                                               PASTOR SCOTT FULLER

ISAIAH 66:10-14;  PSALM 66:1-9;  GALATIANS 6:1-16;  LUKE 10:1-11, 16-20

Independence Day

 

Prepare our hearts, Lord, to receive your Word.  Silence in us any voice but your own that in hearing we may believe and in believing we may obey your will revealed to us in Jesus Christ.  Amen.

                                               

Dear friends in Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

 

As you can tell by the title of my sermon, Independence Day was the central theme in my thoughts as I wrote my sermon this week.  I really didn’t have a choice in the matter.  First of all, our Bible lessons all seem to speak a definite message of freedom. 

 

Isaiah promises that God will free Israel from worry and keep the people safe from their enemies.  In the lesson from Galatians, Paul promises true freedom to those who are crucified to this world and made new creations in Christ.  Plus there’s a great sense of liberation in Jesus’ words to the seventy as they go out to proclaim the good news: whether they are befriended and believed or rejected and rebuffed, it doesn’t matter: in their actions and words, says the Lord, they bring the kingdom of God near to their hearers. 

 

Independence Day was also on my mind as we gathered to worship last Wednesday, the 4th of July.  A recent trip I made out east this spring gave me a whole new depth of appreciation for this holiday.       

 

I flew to the Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia for a Supervisor and Intern training session at the end of May.  There Julia and I, along with about sixty other people, had two days of intentional training on what the faculty there hopes will make for a successful Internship year. 

 

Overall, I’d say it was a good experience.  But, by the afternoon of the second day, many of us were kind of “trained out.”  A glance at the schedule for the last afternoon filled me with something far less than enthusiasm.  Then Julia asked if I might be interested in a sort of alternative, un-official, off-campus training excursion.  She said, My brother David and I are going downtown to see the sights…Do you want to come along?

 

I thought it over for, oh, I don’t know, a nano-second or two and said, Absolutely!  So off we went to see the Liberty Bell, the first Supreme Court building and Independence Hall, to name a few.  It was truly amazing to stand in those buildings and look back on the days when our ancestors carved out this Grand Experiment of Freedom – in the face of overwhelming odds against one of the mightiest armed forces in the world.

 

That very fact, I learned, would take its toll on a key provision in Thomas Jefferson’s first draft of the Declaration of Independence.  Because the ties between the colonies were so tenuous, the goal of unity was only achieved by compromise: the framers cut out an entire paragraph that condemned the practice of slavery.  Thus, it was a claim to freedom – with certain limitations: racial and gender foremost on the list. 

 

But that story recovered, for me, some of the purity of the line that states: We believe that all men are created equal… Yes, it was only a first step toward freedom and equality for all people, yet it was a giant step in the right direction.

 

This title and theme, of course, have been used over and over again in all kinds of media.  There’s the movie Independence Day, starring Will Smith in a serio-comedic take-off of H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds.  Space aliens invade the earth and none of our weapons are effective against their defenses – not even our most powerful nuclear missiles.  All seems lost against this overwhelming force – and yet, as we humans seem to prove time and time again, we’re often at our best when things are at their worst.

  

So it is that humanity pulls together.  All differences: political, racial, historical, even theological, are set aside as people stand side by side everywhere to oppose this threat to everyone.  In the President’s impromptu speech before humanity’s last best chance to defeat the enemy, he claims a new Independence Day – for the entire world.

 

Then there is a song called Independence Day by country/western artist Martina McBride.  It tells the story of a young girl who learns that her mother, a victim of spousal-abuse, finally snaps.  Too many years of suffering violence at the hands of an angry husband lead her to take the law into her own hands.  Her actions set her free from the abuse – even as she is taken away in handcuffs.

 

As you can see, this theme, Independence Day, permeates our identity: as a nation, as individuals, in every aspect of life…so I’m wondering, can we point to an Independence Day for the Church?  Or an Independence Day in our lives of faith?

-at the manger?                -at the Cross?                  -in the Reformation?

-at our Baptism?              -at the Lord’s Supper?    -when we pray?

-in service?                     -in politics?                     -in agreements?

 

As a matter of our faith, I would assert, every day is meant to be Independence Day for us.  We have been set free from all the powers of sin and evil that divide and enslave us, so that we might bind ourselves together in Christ Jesus to live to love and serve God and our neighbor. 

 

Then, making our way as laborers through the fields of this world, we can trust that in our words and actions, the Holy Spirit is making certain that the Kingdom of God is brought near to all who hear.  Amen.