Jesus and We His People
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.
As I stared at my computer screen contemplating what to say this morning - - in the living-room with me were contractor folks working to finish repairs of Hurricane Michael damage. The new window they were installing is important: from that seventh floor window I look out across StAndrewsBay, over Shell Island, into the Gulf of Mexico. Down to the left at night I can just make out Tyndall Bridge lights at the east end of the Bay. To my right is the west end of the Bay, looking over Magnolia Beach, Bay Point, the condos lining Thomas Drive and fronting the Gulf. These years of my age, I’m as close to Heaven as I ever need to be!
Everyone is not so fortunate. Some people, including here in Panama City this long after the hurricane, still have no place to live. Our school district has many homeless children.
As I sit thinking about a Fourth of July sermon, members of the contractor’s team talk among themselves in Spanish. I have no idea whether they are citizens or not, Americans or not. Christian, Muslim or something else, or (like most people these days) none of the above. But it does not matter for at least two reasons.
First, because We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all people are created equal; that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That’s what we’re celebrating this weekend. In our Prayers this morning, we will bless God for America, and pray God to guide us as we work to make every American equal, treated equal, and feeling equal.
The other reason it does not matter if the folks working in my living-room are Americans like me, and does not matter whether they are Christians like me, is that they are people of the Creator who loves them the same as the Creator loves you and me. And through Jesus, they are my neighbors whom Jesus commands me to love as I love myself.
We feel as blessed being Americans, as the ancient Children of Israel felt blessed being God’s Chosen People. But with blessings come curses, as Deuteronomy and other books of the Old Testament make clear, and as Jesus came to show and tell if we open eyes to see and ears to hear: to whom much is given, much is demanded. The work to which God calls us is NOT to indulge in our blessings, but to spread them. The Earth is not ours, the Earth is the Lord’s and All that Is thereIn. Our work as the greatest nation ever to have peopled God’s creation, is to love neighbor:
- No American must go hungry while we feast.
- Every American must have a place to call home, and a place to sleep tonight.
- Every American child must have medical care as good as my children had.
- No American must be stopped on the street by the authorities because their dark skin color makes them Probable Cause.
Jesus was NOT a white man. In his parable, Jesus says the good shepherd leaves his 99 sheep and goes out to find and save the one sheep who is lost. Every American who does not feel safe being an American is that One Lost Sheep, and if we are truly Christians as we promise in the Baptismal Covenant that’s printed in your worship bulletin this morning, our work as Jesus People is to make America that we love so, a country that every American loves as much as we do.
Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
May Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has given us a new birth by water and the Holy Spirit, and bestowed upon us the + forgiveness of sins, keep us in eternal life by his grace, in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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The Prayers of the People are found in your bulletin.
In Holy Nativity Episcopal Church on Sunday the Fifth of July 2020, the Rev Tom Weller.
Texts: propers for Independence Day