Am I Sure About That?
It is the week of the 4th of July here in the good, old US of A. That means we get downright strange in mixing our country with our faith, our culture with our religion. Such as this seemingly positive saying on a church sign I saw recently:

Liberty is God's Gift to Us.

At first glance I nodded and thought, appropriately, Thank You, God! But then it hit me, does that mean that God has withheld such an awesome gift from so many other people for so many years? Does that mean that if I had had the "bad luck" of being born somewhere else in the world where a dictator reigns, or liberty is bounded by stricter laws, or in all those millennia prior to 1776, that I would never have known the gift of God?

And why, why of all the nations in the world would God bestow it upon us, the US, and not on others? I know the "correct" answer is because we were founded as a Christian nation and on the principles of Christianity. But, first of all that is only partially true. Second, it is an immense hubris on our part. Third, I think it is a misunderstanding of God's work in the world.

Liberty, freedom, democracy are truly remarkable gifts. We have been given them in abundance, although at times we seem far too eager to give them up for some small amount of what we think is security. And yes, many of the great values that we uphold do come from our "Western-Greco-Judeo-Christian" ethic. But our task is not to look at this as making us somehow better or holier or more in touch with God. A quick look at our history shows that we have exhibited less than a stellar performance in that area. After all, we are human.

But we keep trying. That may be the key to me. And that may be why I still can sing that old Irving Berlin anthem, God Bless America. It is a prayer, not a statement of fact. It is a prayer, not that God shower us with more blessings- that's part of the prosperity gospel. Rather it is a prayer that will allow us to remain a land of the free. It is a prayer that we not revel in our good fortune, but be downright thankful that in the great mysteries of the universe, we have been lucky- downright overwhelmingly lucky to live here.

I pray that we may use that awareness and prayer, then to live our freedoms, stand up for them right here at home. That we step back from the natural tendency toward arrogance to a more humble understanding of what it means to be blessed by God. That means to be a servant, willing to work for the possibility and hope of our good fortune going beyond our shores and for those who seek to come here for it.



This picture from Ellis Island says it in so many ways. These immigrant children are as much a representation of who we are as the flag itself.

So Happy Birthday, United States. I'm grateful to be here.