For
nearly 250 years, Americans have celebrated this time of year the one
things that binds us as a country of diversity – our declaration as
a free nation on July 4, 1776. This year we'll march in parades,
light the fireworks, and wave the flags remembering and celebrating.
We have much to remember and celebrate. We have much for which to be
grateful. We have much to love about this place, its history, and its
future.
Yet
today as I write this, families in Charleston, South Carolina grieve
in sorrow, anger, and confusion. They do not feel the joy of the
right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They do not
share my optimism for our future nor an untainted appreciation of the
past. They will watch fireworks in the same sky I will. But I wonder
if their belief in the promises those pyrotechnics imply will be as
worry free.
That
I can celebrate my freedom when others cannot makes me more intensely
grateful for that freedom. But it should also make me more determined
to ensure that everyone under the umbrella of those promises has the
same opportunity.
Many,
many people have defended the greatness of our nation and the
wideness of its opportunities in the last several months. Rightfully so. Many also have
lined up the names of the places where people feel less than free:
Ferguson, Baltimore, Staten Island, McKinney, etc. and blamed their
inhabitants for not seeking their own opportunity. Pertinent to me and to
this blog site – many Christians have done this.
We
have heard the anguished cries of our fellow citizens and performed
political and theological gymnastics in order to ignore that they do
not feel equal and free. Everyone who has thought about it at all has
thrown blame somewhere. But you know what? I don't really care who is
at fault anymore. Because I know who is at fault if I know, if I see,
if I hear, and if I do nothing.
I
believe with all my heart that we do, in fact, have a great country
here, built on a grand, unprecedented experiment of freedom no one
had ever tried. But I also believe it's time to prove that greatness.
If
America is the great country my father fought for and my uncle died for, let her prove
it now by telling the world we will not allow these things to happen
in a great country.
- We will not pretend so many people in so many places are merely aberrations and not a pattern of injustice.
- We will not look the other way when people entrusted to do right do wrong instead.
- We will not allow categories of any kind to legitimize terrible treatment of any people group, whether it be by color or occupation.
- We will not allow any of our citizens, or human beings within our borders, to fear going about their daily life because of their skin color, gender, or language.
- We will take seriously our promise that all people are endowed with the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Our
founders backed up those words with their lives, liberties, and
possessions. We spend our time arguing over who deserves those rights
and why we're not responsible for their remission. I suspect our
founders would appreciate our self-sacrifice more than our speeches and
fireworks. While we're celebrating and remembering, let's pause to
consider how to be what they thought we could be.
While
we're, I hope, thanking God for placing us here, in a country where
we can freely be Christians, let's ask God why He put us here. I'm
pretty sure it wasn't just because He thought I was so darned worthy
of it all. (Quite, quite sure.) I think to whom much has been given,
much is required (Luke 12.48). Independence Day is a day to remember
how much we've been given – and to pledge ourselves to freely
giving it until all are free.
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