Dear friends,
The Pope Bequest gives us an opportunity to do as a congregation what we all did as individuals in last year’s stewardship program and will again this year – look at the role of wealth in our lives and how our stewardship of it can bring us closer to God, Christ, each other and the world.
That process requires prayer and care. Here’s what’s happening so far.
*A “Short Term Committee” made up of Jim McGregor, Walt Johnson, Don Allen and Dave Lawson is currently consulting with other financial experts and the diocesan chancellor to come up with a plan for “parking” the bequest for the short-term (six – to – nine months) with the best combination of complete security, rate of return and socially responsible investing practices. They are hopeful to have recommendations for Chapter before the August meeting.
*I am in the process of forming a “Prayer, Listening and Study Team” that will eventually make recommendations to Chapter on the long-term stewardship of the bequest.
Last week, Chapter responded to my request to identify the "qualities, skills and constituencies" that need to be represented on this team. The list below represents their response. They are currently in a process of identifying people who fit this description and submitting their names to me with a rationale for each based on the list. If you have a suggestion that fits list list, please give it to a Chapter member. You can find the list of Chapter members here.
I will then take those names away with me during my vacation (July 26 - August 11) for thought and prayer and will assemble the team when I return.
I hope that by the annual meeting the Chapter will be able to present a vision for this bequest to the congregation. However, while it is important this process not drag on unnecessarily, neither can it be rushed. I and the whole Chapter are committed to everyone in the Cathedral congregation having a voice in this process as well as members of the diocesan family and others who are potentially affected by this gift.
As always, if you have any questions, please contact me at mkinman@gmail.com. But please realize that I will not be answering email while on vacation.
Finally, remember to keep doing what I asked in my original letter:
Pray. Pray in thanksgiving. Pray to learn where Christ would have our heart be. Pray that we will use this gift for the glory of God. Pray for wisdom and courage for me, the Chapter and all who will have special responsibility in discerning where Christ would have our heart be and how to be excellent stewards of this gift.
Trust. Use the grace of this gift to strengthen our belief in God’s abundance in a world that tries to convince us of scarcity, as encouragement to step out in faith.
Rejoice. This is wonderful news, and we have the joy of using it for God to do even more wonderful things. Sing a song of praise to God. Rejoice. Rejoice. Rejoice.
warmly, your friend,
Mike+
------------
Qualities (these are things that we hope everyone on the team will exhibit):
*is active in and committed to the church (including pledging ... with the exception of youth members, who have not been asked to pledge ... something we need to think about for the future!)
*Good listener
*Creative thinker
*Values the church's history, understands our present and is open to a new vision for the future
*A person of integrity, will not manipulate or be manipulated
*Centered and prayerful. Willing and able to engage this as a spiritual process
*A non-polarizing person who engenders respect from a broad spectrum of people
*Able to understand and balance the three-fold role of the Cathedral as Sunday community, mother church of the diocese and cathedral for downtown St. Louis.
*Dependable (this is a major time commitment and we need people we can count on)
*Able to put personal agendas aside, start with a blank sheet of paper.
Skills (these are things that need to be represented somewhere on the team, but not by every member)
*experience in finance
*excellent communication skills
*someone who doesn't have a financial background who can raise questions that perhaps otherwise wouldn't be raised.
*someone with a firm understanding of/investment in the "maintenance" needs of the Cathedral
*someone with a firm commitment to the Cathedral as a missionary body.
Constituencies (these are groups that need to be represented on the team as a whole)
*someone representing families and children (possibly someone under 18)
*someone from each of the three services and the choir
*representation that reflects our diversity
Because we are the Cathedral for the whole diocese, we do not need to limit membership to just Cathedral attenders. Also consider that some people might be good "consultants" to this group - people brought in because of specific expertise.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
"Paint Me!" - Seventh Sunday After Pentecost
Preached by the Rev. David K. Fly at Christ Church Cathedral on Sunday, July 11, 2010
“But wanting to justify himself, the lawyer asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’” Luke 10:29
Ida was a prostitute who lived in Paris. When the artist Romare Beardon met her in the late 1920s, his first impression was that she was one of the ugliest people he’d ever seen. But he liked Ida and was sorry she chose the life of a prostitute. He became her friend and was able to get her another job for which she was always grateful. As a way of expressing her appreciation, Ida arrived every Saturday to clean Beardon’s studio.
At the end of the studio, Beardon had placed a large piece of brown paper. Saturday after Saturday, when Ida arrived, the brown paper would be hanging in its place and would be as empty as the Saturday before. She finally asked what he planned to do with it. “I’m eventually going to paint something there,” he said, “but as yet have no idea what I’ll paint.”
“Paint me,” said Ida. Bearden was so taken back that he couldn’t respond to this unattractive woman who said, “Paint me.” In the following Saturdays, Ida brought up the issue again. Finally, Beardon, who didn’t want to hurt her feelings by telling her the truth said that he just felt he couldn’t paint her and that was that. “If you can’t paint me, you’re in the wrong profession,” Ida told him. Beardon who eventually became a main figure in the Harlem Renaissance movement was shocked by her words. Here was an emerging young artist being confronted by a lowly prostitute. But Ida went on to say, “I know I’m ugly and I know that’s why you feel you cannot paint me. But when you can look at me and find what is beautiful, you’ll be a great artist.” Romare Beardon sadly confessed many years later that he never did paint Ida the prostitute, but that her words never left his memory.
The story of the artist and the prostitute came back to me when I read today’s gospel. A lawyer who wanted to test Jesus asks him what he must do to inherit eternal life and Jesus asks him what he had read in the law. And, of course, the lawyer rightly answered that he should love God with all his heart and soul and strength and mind and love his neighbor as himself. But then the lawyer pushes his luck. He asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” And that’s when Jesus turns the tables on the lawyer much as Ida turned the tables on that young artist in Paris. Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus describes the ugliness and then tells the lawyer to paint it!
And for the lawyer, there’s a lot of ugliness in the story. The first unattractive part is that the main character is a Samaritan, an unclean person who should never be the hero of any story. The lawyer knows that much. The second character is a man broken and bleeding in a ditch along the road to Jericho. And then Jesus describes a couple of upright citizens not unlike the lawyer, who are too busy or too offended to bother responding to the man’s need. Of course, it’s the Samaritan who takes care of the man, bandages his wounds, takes him to a place where he can recuperate and pays his bills. “Which of the three,” asks Jesus “was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” The lawyer, the one who had just described the answer to the eternal life question, has to respond, “The one who showed him mercy.” Notice, the lawyer doesn’t say, “The Samaritan.” Perhaps he just couldn’t get those words out of his mouth! So Jesus simply says, “Go and do likewise.”
“I know I’m ugly,” says Ida the prostitute to the young artist Romare Beardon, “but when you can look at me and find what is beautiful, you’ll be a great artist.”
There is a story of a young boy who was once playing hide-and-seek with another boy. He hid himself well and waited for his playmate to find him. After waiting a long time, he came out of his hiding place, but the other boy was nowhere to be seen. The boy who had been in hiding then realized that the other boy had not looked for him from the very beginning. That made him sad and so he ran to his grandfather to tell him what had happened. Tears welled up in his grandfather’s eyes as he listened to what the little boy was saying and then he told the child, “God says the same thing: ‘I hide, but no one wants to seek me.’”
Our God hides in the bodies of those whom we have discounted, in those who are hurt and broken. As Archbishop Tutu has said, we don’t have a choice of neighbors in this world – God is to be found in all people – ALL PEOPLE – black, white, yellow, rich, poor, clever, not so clever, beautiful, not so beautiful, gay, lesbian, so-called straight – Muslim, Christian, Jew, Buddhist – God hides in you and in me. If we recognize God in our neighbors, how can we go on spending obscene amounts on budgets of death and destruction, knowing full well that a minute fraction of this money would insure that children everywhere have clean water to drink and food to eat and adequate and affordable health care. God is to be found walking in the grand palaces of the Church but God suffers in the ditches of Soweto, and Santiago and St. Louis. When we learn to look on the world and see its beauty we discover the hidden face of God. And God longs for us to seek and find him. For as we do we will come to know our neighbor and as we learn to love our neighbor we will find the answer to the lawyer’s question of Jesus: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Amen.
“But wanting to justify himself, the lawyer asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’” Luke 10:29
Ida was a prostitute who lived in Paris. When the artist Romare Beardon met her in the late 1920s, his first impression was that she was one of the ugliest people he’d ever seen. But he liked Ida and was sorry she chose the life of a prostitute. He became her friend and was able to get her another job for which she was always grateful. As a way of expressing her appreciation, Ida arrived every Saturday to clean Beardon’s studio.
At the end of the studio, Beardon had placed a large piece of brown paper. Saturday after Saturday, when Ida arrived, the brown paper would be hanging in its place and would be as empty as the Saturday before. She finally asked what he planned to do with it. “I’m eventually going to paint something there,” he said, “but as yet have no idea what I’ll paint.”
“Paint me,” said Ida. Bearden was so taken back that he couldn’t respond to this unattractive woman who said, “Paint me.” In the following Saturdays, Ida brought up the issue again. Finally, Beardon, who didn’t want to hurt her feelings by telling her the truth said that he just felt he couldn’t paint her and that was that. “If you can’t paint me, you’re in the wrong profession,” Ida told him. Beardon who eventually became a main figure in the Harlem Renaissance movement was shocked by her words. Here was an emerging young artist being confronted by a lowly prostitute. But Ida went on to say, “I know I’m ugly and I know that’s why you feel you cannot paint me. But when you can look at me and find what is beautiful, you’ll be a great artist.” Romare Beardon sadly confessed many years later that he never did paint Ida the prostitute, but that her words never left his memory.
The story of the artist and the prostitute came back to me when I read today’s gospel. A lawyer who wanted to test Jesus asks him what he must do to inherit eternal life and Jesus asks him what he had read in the law. And, of course, the lawyer rightly answered that he should love God with all his heart and soul and strength and mind and love his neighbor as himself. But then the lawyer pushes his luck. He asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” And that’s when Jesus turns the tables on the lawyer much as Ida turned the tables on that young artist in Paris. Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus describes the ugliness and then tells the lawyer to paint it!
And for the lawyer, there’s a lot of ugliness in the story. The first unattractive part is that the main character is a Samaritan, an unclean person who should never be the hero of any story. The lawyer knows that much. The second character is a man broken and bleeding in a ditch along the road to Jericho. And then Jesus describes a couple of upright citizens not unlike the lawyer, who are too busy or too offended to bother responding to the man’s need. Of course, it’s the Samaritan who takes care of the man, bandages his wounds, takes him to a place where he can recuperate and pays his bills. “Which of the three,” asks Jesus “was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” The lawyer, the one who had just described the answer to the eternal life question, has to respond, “The one who showed him mercy.” Notice, the lawyer doesn’t say, “The Samaritan.” Perhaps he just couldn’t get those words out of his mouth! So Jesus simply says, “Go and do likewise.”
“I know I’m ugly,” says Ida the prostitute to the young artist Romare Beardon, “but when you can look at me and find what is beautiful, you’ll be a great artist.”
There is a story of a young boy who was once playing hide-and-seek with another boy. He hid himself well and waited for his playmate to find him. After waiting a long time, he came out of his hiding place, but the other boy was nowhere to be seen. The boy who had been in hiding then realized that the other boy had not looked for him from the very beginning. That made him sad and so he ran to his grandfather to tell him what had happened. Tears welled up in his grandfather’s eyes as he listened to what the little boy was saying and then he told the child, “God says the same thing: ‘I hide, but no one wants to seek me.’”
Our God hides in the bodies of those whom we have discounted, in those who are hurt and broken. As Archbishop Tutu has said, we don’t have a choice of neighbors in this world – God is to be found in all people – ALL PEOPLE – black, white, yellow, rich, poor, clever, not so clever, beautiful, not so beautiful, gay, lesbian, so-called straight – Muslim, Christian, Jew, Buddhist – God hides in you and in me. If we recognize God in our neighbors, how can we go on spending obscene amounts on budgets of death and destruction, knowing full well that a minute fraction of this money would insure that children everywhere have clean water to drink and food to eat and adequate and affordable health care. God is to be found walking in the grand palaces of the Church but God suffers in the ditches of Soweto, and Santiago and St. Louis. When we learn to look on the world and see its beauty we discover the hidden face of God. And God longs for us to seek and find him. For as we do we will come to know our neighbor and as we learn to love our neighbor we will find the answer to the lawyer’s question of Jesus: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Amen.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
America, The Beautiful -- Independence Day, 2010
Preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at Christ Church Cathedral on Sunday, July 4, 2010
Happy Independence Day, everybody.
We have a strange and strained relationship between days like this and the church. I think it’s because we tend to cluster around two poles when we think of God and country.
The first – let’s say over here on the right -- is American Exceptionalism. This is the idea that the United States has a special favored place not just in the world but actually in the eyes of God. And that God has actually selected this nation for a special purpose.
The biggest problem with American Exceptionalism is that there is nothing in scripture that supports this and plenty that works against it. The idea of a special status for one nation – particularly the most powerful, wealthiest nation on earth goes against our belief in a God who demonstrates in scripture that if she has a preferential option, it’s for the poor and not for the powerful. Against our belief in a God who loved the whole world so much that God became human in Jesus Christ.
And yet American Exceptionalism and it’s cousin, Manifest Destiny, have been prime shapers of American domestic and foreign policy for most of our nation’s existence.
The second -- let’s say over here on the left --is the use of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to say that religious ideas and faith and the political realm shouldn’t mix and the church has no role in politics.
Now that’s a legittmate stream of belief. Not one I hold to, mind you, and certainly not one Jesus did. But you can’t get there using the establishment clause. Does anyone know what the Establishment Clause of the first amendment actually says? That’s right – that there shall be no establishment of religion … and it’s also been read to say that the state can’t show preference of one faith over any other. Not that you can’t bring religious ideas into the conversation and certainly not that the church shouldn’t get involved in public life.
So we have these two poles and neither one of them really works. And in true Anglican fashion, I believe there is a third way, a middle way between American Exceptionalism and complete separation of faith and our public life. And the road map is one of our most treasured hymns … America the Beautiful. Take out your hymnals and take a look at it, it’s hymn 719.
America the Beautiful was written by Catherine Bates, an English professor at Wellesley College. In 1893, Bates was 33 and took a train across the country to Colorado and was inspired by the nation she saw along the way. And at the end of her journey, standing on the pinnacle of Pike’s Peak, the words of the poem came to her, and today it is one of the best-loved American songs.
For Bates it was a love sonnet. Had she been from Ghana, and had just finished traveling from Mole to Accra, she would have written it about Ghana. But she was an American who was overwhelmed by the beauty of her own homeland. There’s a special love for home. A place that home has in our hearts that nothing can replace, nor should it. And so Bates wrote this love song not because America was the best place on earth, but because it was beautiful and most of all it was home.
That needs to be OK for us to own. That needs to be OK for us to celebrate. It needs to be OK for us to thank God for and love this nation passionately and have it have a special and even exceptional place in our heart and not have that mean we think America has a special or exceptional place in God’s heart.
So let’s name it. What do you love about this country? What about this country makes your heart sing?
The congregation responds
Ray Simon is going to help us out a little bit here. With all these things on our heart, let’s stand and we’re going to sing the first verse of America the Beautiful.
All those things that are good about America. All the things that we love. We are so thankful for them and we should be. We should thank God for America, the Beautiful. America our home. But look again at those last lines.
America! America! God shed his grace on thee, and crown they good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea. This is what makes this hymn different and remarkable. Look at what we’re asking from God. We’re not asking God to “give us what we deserve because we’re so wonderful.” We’re asking God for two things.
First is grace. Grace is unmerited love. Unmerited. Grace is forgiveness. Grace is love for the sake of love, not for the sake of anything we are or anything we’ve done. Far from American exceptionalism this is a recognition not that God is using us for great purposes but that we deeply need God to be fully alive, to be whole, to be the nation and people God dreams for us and all nations to be.
Second, we’re asking God to take what is good and crown it with what? With brotherhood. Of all that is good about this nation, we are asking God to make our highest good a quality of relationship that is unparalleled in love and fidelity. As wonderful as anything else about this country is, we’re asking God to put in our hearts a deep love for one another and have that be our crowning good.
What’s remarkable and beautiful about this hymn is that we’re saying yes, America is Beautiful, but we’re not there yet. The deepest beauty. The most profound good has yet to be achieved. And that good – faithful love to one another – is our standard. And because by ourselves we fall short, we are appealing to God to continually shape us more into that image.
And that means it’s not only OK to name where we fall short of that lofty dream, it is our duty as citizens to name it just as much as it is our duty as Christians to name those places where we fall short of that other love commandment --- to love one another as Christ loves us.
So we named what makes our heart sing about our country. What makes your heart weep? Where do we fall short of that vision of being a grace-filled nation, whose good is crowned with brotherhood.
The congregation responds
We as a nation generally don’t do this enough and don’t react well when people do. We call people America haters or worse. Martin Luther King did this and he got called a communist. But if those insults are hurled at us we must not turn our faces away, because this literally is a matter of life and death. As Christians it’s a matter of life and death because we give our lives over to Christ, we put our whole selves, souls and bodies, on that table as a living sacrifice to that love. But as Americans it’s a matter of life and death because our nation’s actions mean life and death both for the people who sign up to defend it and also for the millions and even billions more whose lives live in the ripple effects.
And that’s why we sing this second verse.
People have served in our armed forces for many reasons -- from volunteering, to the compulsion of the draft to economic compulsion. But whatever the reason, that service represents a willingness to put their lives on the line for a greater good. To offer, if necessary, what President Lincoln rightly called "the last full measure of devotion."
As Christians, we have to respect that, because that act of self-giving is at the heart of our call to be disciples of the one who gave himself for the love of the world. It must be acknowledged, celebrated and even revered. In fact, the willingness to offer that "last full measure of devotion" is so sacred that we as a nation have a sacred duty to make sure it is never demanded except when absolutely necessary. That it is only demanded, as in the case of those honored dead at Gettysburg, literally to preserve not our nation's economic interest or our strategic position but the dream of a good crowned with brotherhood.
That's why in addition to honoring those "who more than self their country loved, and mercy more than life," we must ask God to "mend our every flaw." The soul of our nation must be confirmed in self-control, her liberty in law.
America has been called a grand experiment and a dream in search of realization. As Christians we believe true greatness comes from the same things that Catherine Bates sings about in this hymn – the ability to put our sisters and brothers before ourselves, our ability to control our appetites and distinguish between freedom and license, our ability to acknowledge our flaws and seek a higher wisdom and will than our own in the face of them.
The dream of America. The dream of Catherine Bates. The dream of Dr. Martin Luther King. The dream God had when God became human in Jesus. These dreams are one. They are the dream that we would all become fully alive in the way that can only happen when we give ourselves for each other and the life of the world. And our duty as Christians and as Americans is to hold on tight to that dream. To not let go of that dream. But to not only be dream-bearers but to be truth tellers. Not proclaiming American exceptionalism and not saying the Gospel has no place in the public square, instead living that third and most excellent middle way. To, in the words of Gandhi, be the change we wish to see in the world, in our nation, in our church and in our lives.
As Christians it is our duty to be engaged in the public life and to celebrate the goodness and beauty of our nation and also to hold ourselves and our nation to the standard of love that Catherine Bates sang and Jesus Christ lived. That is the dream we celebrate this day. A dream that though it at times has been in deep, deep disguise still lives in our hearts and in the heart of this and every tribe, nation and people.
AMEN
Happy Independence Day, everybody.
We have a strange and strained relationship between days like this and the church. I think it’s because we tend to cluster around two poles when we think of God and country.
The first – let’s say over here on the right -- is American Exceptionalism. This is the idea that the United States has a special favored place not just in the world but actually in the eyes of God. And that God has actually selected this nation for a special purpose.
The biggest problem with American Exceptionalism is that there is nothing in scripture that supports this and plenty that works against it. The idea of a special status for one nation – particularly the most powerful, wealthiest nation on earth goes against our belief in a God who demonstrates in scripture that if she has a preferential option, it’s for the poor and not for the powerful. Against our belief in a God who loved the whole world so much that God became human in Jesus Christ.
And yet American Exceptionalism and it’s cousin, Manifest Destiny, have been prime shapers of American domestic and foreign policy for most of our nation’s existence.
The second -- let’s say over here on the left --is the use of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to say that religious ideas and faith and the political realm shouldn’t mix and the church has no role in politics.
Now that’s a legittmate stream of belief. Not one I hold to, mind you, and certainly not one Jesus did. But you can’t get there using the establishment clause. Does anyone know what the Establishment Clause of the first amendment actually says? That’s right – that there shall be no establishment of religion … and it’s also been read to say that the state can’t show preference of one faith over any other. Not that you can’t bring religious ideas into the conversation and certainly not that the church shouldn’t get involved in public life.
So we have these two poles and neither one of them really works. And in true Anglican fashion, I believe there is a third way, a middle way between American Exceptionalism and complete separation of faith and our public life. And the road map is one of our most treasured hymns … America the Beautiful. Take out your hymnals and take a look at it, it’s hymn 719.
America the Beautiful was written by Catherine Bates, an English professor at Wellesley College. In 1893, Bates was 33 and took a train across the country to Colorado and was inspired by the nation she saw along the way. And at the end of her journey, standing on the pinnacle of Pike’s Peak, the words of the poem came to her, and today it is one of the best-loved American songs.
For Bates it was a love sonnet. Had she been from Ghana, and had just finished traveling from Mole to Accra, she would have written it about Ghana. But she was an American who was overwhelmed by the beauty of her own homeland. There’s a special love for home. A place that home has in our hearts that nothing can replace, nor should it. And so Bates wrote this love song not because America was the best place on earth, but because it was beautiful and most of all it was home.
That needs to be OK for us to own. That needs to be OK for us to celebrate. It needs to be OK for us to thank God for and love this nation passionately and have it have a special and even exceptional place in our heart and not have that mean we think America has a special or exceptional place in God’s heart.
So let’s name it. What do you love about this country? What about this country makes your heart sing?
The congregation responds
Ray Simon is going to help us out a little bit here. With all these things on our heart, let’s stand and we’re going to sing the first verse of America the Beautiful.
O beautiful for spacious skies,
for amber waves of grain,
for purple mountain majesties
above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee,
and crown thy good with brotherhood
from sea to shining sea.
All those things that are good about America. All the things that we love. We are so thankful for them and we should be. We should thank God for America, the Beautiful. America our home. But look again at those last lines.
America! America! God shed his grace on thee, and crown they good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea. This is what makes this hymn different and remarkable. Look at what we’re asking from God. We’re not asking God to “give us what we deserve because we’re so wonderful.” We’re asking God for two things.
First is grace. Grace is unmerited love. Unmerited. Grace is forgiveness. Grace is love for the sake of love, not for the sake of anything we are or anything we’ve done. Far from American exceptionalism this is a recognition not that God is using us for great purposes but that we deeply need God to be fully alive, to be whole, to be the nation and people God dreams for us and all nations to be.
Second, we’re asking God to take what is good and crown it with what? With brotherhood. Of all that is good about this nation, we are asking God to make our highest good a quality of relationship that is unparalleled in love and fidelity. As wonderful as anything else about this country is, we’re asking God to put in our hearts a deep love for one another and have that be our crowning good.
What’s remarkable and beautiful about this hymn is that we’re saying yes, America is Beautiful, but we’re not there yet. The deepest beauty. The most profound good has yet to be achieved. And that good – faithful love to one another – is our standard. And because by ourselves we fall short, we are appealing to God to continually shape us more into that image.
And that means it’s not only OK to name where we fall short of that lofty dream, it is our duty as citizens to name it just as much as it is our duty as Christians to name those places where we fall short of that other love commandment --- to love one another as Christ loves us.
So we named what makes our heart sing about our country. What makes your heart weep? Where do we fall short of that vision of being a grace-filled nation, whose good is crowned with brotherhood.
The congregation responds
We as a nation generally don’t do this enough and don’t react well when people do. We call people America haters or worse. Martin Luther King did this and he got called a communist. But if those insults are hurled at us we must not turn our faces away, because this literally is a matter of life and death. As Christians it’s a matter of life and death because we give our lives over to Christ, we put our whole selves, souls and bodies, on that table as a living sacrifice to that love. But as Americans it’s a matter of life and death because our nation’s actions mean life and death both for the people who sign up to defend it and also for the millions and even billions more whose lives live in the ripple effects.
And that’s why we sing this second verse.
O beautiful for heroes proved
in liberating strife,
who more than self their country loved,
and mercy more than life!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
confirm thy soul in self-control,
thy liberty in law.
People have served in our armed forces for many reasons -- from volunteering, to the compulsion of the draft to economic compulsion. But whatever the reason, that service represents a willingness to put their lives on the line for a greater good. To offer, if necessary, what President Lincoln rightly called "the last full measure of devotion."
As Christians, we have to respect that, because that act of self-giving is at the heart of our call to be disciples of the one who gave himself for the love of the world. It must be acknowledged, celebrated and even revered. In fact, the willingness to offer that "last full measure of devotion" is so sacred that we as a nation have a sacred duty to make sure it is never demanded except when absolutely necessary. That it is only demanded, as in the case of those honored dead at Gettysburg, literally to preserve not our nation's economic interest or our strategic position but the dream of a good crowned with brotherhood.
That's why in addition to honoring those "who more than self their country loved, and mercy more than life," we must ask God to "mend our every flaw." The soul of our nation must be confirmed in self-control, her liberty in law.
America has been called a grand experiment and a dream in search of realization. As Christians we believe true greatness comes from the same things that Catherine Bates sings about in this hymn – the ability to put our sisters and brothers before ourselves, our ability to control our appetites and distinguish between freedom and license, our ability to acknowledge our flaws and seek a higher wisdom and will than our own in the face of them.
The dream of America. The dream of Catherine Bates. The dream of Dr. Martin Luther King. The dream God had when God became human in Jesus. These dreams are one. They are the dream that we would all become fully alive in the way that can only happen when we give ourselves for each other and the life of the world. And our duty as Christians and as Americans is to hold on tight to that dream. To not let go of that dream. But to not only be dream-bearers but to be truth tellers. Not proclaiming American exceptionalism and not saying the Gospel has no place in the public square, instead living that third and most excellent middle way. To, in the words of Gandhi, be the change we wish to see in the world, in our nation, in our church and in our lives.
As Christians it is our duty to be engaged in the public life and to celebrate the goodness and beauty of our nation and also to hold ourselves and our nation to the standard of love that Catherine Bates sang and Jesus Christ lived. That is the dream we celebrate this day. A dream that though it at times has been in deep, deep disguise still lives in our hearts and in the heart of this and every tribe, nation and people.
O beautiful for patriot dream
that sees beyond the years
thine alabaster cities gleam,
undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee,
and crown thy good with brotherhood
from sea to shining sea.
AMEN
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