What to the Christian is the Fourth of July?

 

Friends, 

 

This weekend will be quite the celebration throughout the US. It is not my intention to be a wet blanket, but I must confess my ambiguity over the 250^th birthday of the US’s declaration of Independence from Great Britain. A few years ago, on the weekend of Independence Day, I spoke about Frederick Douglass’ astounding reflection, “What, to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” After worship it turned out that one of Douglass’ descendants was visiting with us and he thanked me for it. Since that time, I have made it a discipline to read it annually. Again, it is not for the purpose of being a killjoy, but because a key part of the Christian journey is to be committed to truth, especially when it is easier to be swept up with enthusiasm. 

 

When Douglass asked what the Fourth of July meant to a slave, he leaned on the important issue of perspective in our observance. The irony of an enslaved person hearing their owners and taskmasters celebrating independence is thick. It is part of the enduring power of sin that those who are set free easily become oppressors. It was a temptation that God addressed repeatedly when the People of Israel were entering the Promised Land. In the words that will be part of our focus for the month of July, God says, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deut. 6:4-5).  Then God commands the people to bind those words on their hearts and their heads – making it both part of their thinking and their feeling. Then, comes this warning: “When the LORD your God has brought you into the land that he swore to your ancestors … and when you have eaten your fill, take care that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” For the next four chapters, God recounts the ways that God had been faithful in bringing the people through the wilderness to the good land, and how they had repeatedly put God to the test. Now, the challenge would not be their scarcity and fear, but their abundance and forgetfulness. 

 

“Remembering” is not just a sweet feeling in the heart. It has ethical teeth, such as when God says, “You shall also love the alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt” (Deut. 10:19). God was not being a wet blanket, but was urging them to see their prosperity as “blessings” – gifts to be received with thanks and shared with joy. 

 

So, to paraphrase Mr. Douglass, “What to the Christian is the Fourth of July?” It is certainly a cause for celebration. It is a time to be thankful that we have freedom of expression and can practice faith without restraints from the state or an “official” religious body. It is a time when we can look around us and see the diversity of cultures, languages, histories, and journeys that gather in the US as a bouquet of beauty. There is much to celebrate. But there is much to remember. 

 

We remember the displacement and massacre of Native Americans, sanctioned in part by the “Doctrine of Discovery,” whereby the church blessed taking land, forcing migrations, coercing conversions, and sanctioning executions.  We remember how, in 1619, the first African slave ships came to Comfort Point, off the coast of my hometown of Hampton, VA, starting a three-centuries-long practice of slavery that was supported by the “founding fathers” and given license by the church. We remember the “Trail of Tears.” We remember the appropriation of lands that were once considered part of Mexico and are now the hotspots of immigration enforcement. We remember the era of Jim Crow laws that tried to institutionalize separation based on racial identity. We remember segregated schools, water fountains, and the lynching tree. We remember the exploitation and oppression of Chinese railroad workers. We remember Japanese internment camps. We remember exceptions to workplace and minimum wage standards when applied to farmworkers. We remember the Tulsa massacre. We remember Stonewall Inn and The Pulse Nightclub shootings. We remember neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville and repeated school shootings. We remember George Floyd and the cloud of witnesses victimized for being black. Rather than trying to erase these hard truths about the American story, we should teach them to our children, bind them on our head and heart, to remember in hopes of achieving “Never again.” 

 

What, to the Christian, is the Fourth of July? Unlike the triumphalistic “will to power” that is espoused by so many Christian Nationalists, this weekend calls us to two things. It is a time to celebrate what is good and noble; and to remember what is difficult but still true about our nation’s brief history. Remembering our ambiguous history is the key to living into a future of doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly before our God. 

 

Mark of St. Mark