[Note: I preached this sermon for Tabernacle United Methodist Church in Binghamton, NY. I have edited it to publish here. A video recording can be found here: https://youtu.be/JqjLb2gMco4]
America! America! God shed his grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.
Twenty score and two years ago, European colonizers landed on the shores of the new Virginia colony, forcibly bringing some “twenty and odd Negroes” with them—the first enslaved Africans to be trafficked in the English colonies.
Twelve score and five years ago, on this very day, the Continental Congress assented to the words of another Virginian slaver, who put pen to paper to proclaim independence for those same English colonies from the authority of the colonial superpower of the day, and in so doing, declaring, “all men are created equal”—declaring the common humanity we all share—and that we are all owed the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
A key episode in the great American myth.
These certain inalienable rights, carved into our national consciousness, serve as the foundation of our ethos. America, we are told, is the only nation born not out of an ethnicity, religion, or geography, but born out of an idea. This idea. This self-evident idea.
And yet, the dramatic irony that undermines these truths is that this idea remains to be realized. It wasn’t realized when it was proclaimed in 1776, and it still isn’t realized in 2021. Not for all of us.
Not for many of us.
Not for most of us.
This challenges that key episode in the great American myth, the signing of our Declaration of Independence, which we celebrate today. I say this not to discount this event or to challenge its historicity. Myths are not stories that are untrue. Rather, they are stories that don’t fit neatly into the historical record, but serve as the foundation for a culture. And if ever there was a story that didn’t fit neatly into the historical record, at least not the way we like to tell it, but serves as a foundation for our culture and society, it’s this one: our national creation myth. This is not to discount it, or write it off as a mere story we tell ourselves. On the contrary, this speaks to the power and influence this story has. How it shapes the way we, as a people, see ourselves. And it’s why any threat to this story is seen as a direct assault on who we are and our way of life. We’ve definitely seen it unfold in our national discourse over the past few weeks and months, but I can assure you that it’s not a new phenomenon. We’re social creatures and nothing unites a group of people together quite like a good story.
For as long as we have been organizing ourselves into distinct groups, we’ve used these stories to form collective identities. For the vast majority of human history, story was how information was saved and shared. We are a storytelling people.
And yet, for just as long, there have also been voices from within groups that tell a different story. They tell the stories behind the stories—the stories that are obscured by the prevalence of the main or accepted story. And while the powerful, who have a vested interest in propagating the main story, claim that these stories are diametrically opposed, the reality is that the two stories have equal claims to the truth and can coexist, side by side.
As a people of faith, this should be no surprise to us. Our scriptural witness preserves both narratives, if you know where to look. Eminent theologian and Hebrew Bible scholar, Walter Brueggemann, explores this in great depth throughout his work. He identifies a core and counter testimony that is woven throughout the Hebrew Bible.
A core testimony that makes the normative claim that God is Good.
A counter testimony that responds, “show me the proof of God’s goodness”.
Two testimonies that are two sides of the same coin. Two testimonies that can be found, even woven into the telling of the same story.
Like, our scripture lesson today, for example.
Today, the lectionary offered the text from Ezekiel, as well as the story of David’s coronation as found in 2 Samuel 5.
Two stories. One, a key episode in a nation’s origin story. And the other, a challenge to the very foundation upon which that nation was built.
Two stories offered to choose from on a Sunday that just so happens to fall on the Fourth of July. A Sunday that just so happens to fall on the anniversary of a key episode in our own nation’s origin story during a time when we are all answering questions and responding to challenges of the foundation upon which our own nation was built.
A day when we celebrate the core testimony of America’s goodness.
To which the counter testimony responds, show me proof of America’s goodness.
America! America! May God thy gold refine, till all success be nobleness, and every gain divine.
And yet, even when we look at a passage like our passage from Ezekiel, a passage that, on the surface, feels hopeless and full of doom and gloom—I am sending you to the people of Israel, to a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have transgressed against me to this very day. The descendants are impudent and stubborn—even that passage contains a glimmer of hope. Even in that passage, we can find the good news that is woven throughout all of scripture.
This passage proclaims that God doesn’t give up on Israel.
God doesn’t give up on God’s people.
In spite of all of Israel’s failings, of which there are many—seriously, go read Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings and you’ll find genocide, apostasy, rape, incest, and murder—in spite of all of Israel’s failings, God never gave up on Israel. When we closely examine the history of Israel, we see that the seeds of her downfall were planted at her birth. And yet, despite this, God faithfulness to Israel is steadfast.
Because here’s the thing about those voices from within who dare to tell an alternative version of the accepted narrative, one that challenges its very foundations—here’s the thing about prophets. No matter what the powerful and elite say, prophets say what they say because they have a deep and abiding love for the people. The act of speaking truth and casting a vision for a more perfect reality cannot be done from a place of apathy, disdain, or hate. The task of the prophet is not to rejoice at the people’s downfall. Ezekiel was taken away in the Exile too. Ezekiel was with the exiled community. Ezekiel loved his people, and he knew that in spite of their present circumstance, in spite of every rotten and atrocious episode in their collective, national history, God loved them too.
God wouldn’t give up on Israel, and neither would Ezekiel.
The same can be said for us, here and now in our place and time.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not conflating the modern United States of America with the biblical Kingdoms of Israel. Our God is God of all the nations. Our God is the God of all, and all are God’s people.
And God still calls prophets from within God’s people and tasks them with raising their voices to testify and share the stories behind the accepted story. To shine light on the fact that the world as it is, is not as it should be. To cast a vision for a more perfect reality in which we all live up to and into our highest ideals. And, in so doing, to show proof of God’s goodness.
And so our task, as a people of faith, is to seek out and amplify these voices. To identify the prophets that God has called within our midst. To find our own prophetic voice, and show our love for our people by never giving up on them.
America! America! God mend thy every flaw, confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law.
In his 1903 essay, “Of our Spiritual Strivings”, W.E.B. DuBois introduces and lays out his concept of double-consciousness. He writes:
It’s a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,—this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging, he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that his Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face.
Our national creation myth obscures the atrocities that lie at our nation’s foundation. We are a settler colonial state on land that is not our land built by an exploited labor force. Rape and genocide and murder lie in our foundation as well. It’s no wonder we like to say that our foundation is an idea. But just because we don’t like to tell the uglier parts of our story doesn’t mean that they didn’t happen. And we don’t tell the uglier parts of our story to sow division and weaken ourselves, collectively. We don’t tell the uglier parts of our story because we don’t believe that idea is untrue. On the contrary, we tell the uglier parts of our story so that we can fully live up to and into that high idea.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people 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.
In spite of the fact that we have yet to fully realize it, I believe in this idea. I believe that we can, within our lifetime, make this idea a reality for all of us, not just for a few of us.
We have to be honest with ourselves and our history. About who has been and still is left out from the promise of that idea. To look to those who live with that double-consciousness. Who have experienced the brutality of our history first-hand and yet refuse to give up on us. Who continue to show their deep and profound love for us and who we can be, regardless of where we are right now.
We have failed to live into our high ideal. Our society is ordered in such a way where all are not created equal. Where the color of your skin and the zip code you were born in are the greatest predictors for your well-being. Too many, far too many of us do not have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Not really, anyways.
But I know that God’s love for us is steadfast and that God’s faithfulness knows no bounds. God won’t leave us where we are. And so I refuse to give up on us. There are prophets all around us, beloved. We just have to listen to them.
America! America! God shed his grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.
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