OUR GREAT NATION

(Seeking Unity in Diversity)

A sermon preached on the Sixth Sunday of Pentecost, July 4, 2010, at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Bedford, New York, by the Rector, The Reverend Terence L. Elsberry.

I

          One day week before last, my wife came home from work delighted by something she’d seen that day. Here and there, all around the town of Darien, Nancy had seen mail boxes tied with bright-colored balloons. Printed on the balloons were the words: “Congratulations, 2010 Graduates!”

          The same kind of balloons also festooned mail boxes in New Canaan to signal communities coming together—joining as one in celebrating its young people.

          In the midst of the tragedies and horrors of life, made ever present to us by the media, people were taking time out to celebrate the good and the positive in life. To celebrate the beloved children of American families poised on the brink of hopeful futures. In this time of drastically polarizing issues that face us as Americans, here was one point of agreement: we love our kids, and we celebrate them and what they mean to us.

II

          Today of all days, on this Fourth of July, on this great national celebration of what it means to be American, we need to lay our differences aside and celebrate unity. We know the things that divide us. What unites us?

          We’re realists, not ostriches. We know the economy shakes and trembles. We know the wars drag on. We know the terrorists still conspire against us. We know the immigration problem is still here. We know that, horror of horrors, the oil still gushes into the Gulf.

          Yet today, of all days, we need to celebrate our unity as a people.  Certainly, if what I can tell is true, our congress needs to find ways of coming together. Our elected leaders seem highly proficient at the questionable art of disagreement. I’ve talked with two people in the last several days who have personal contact with Capital Hill. Both told me the same thing: the political polarization in congress is stunning. If one side says black the other automatically says white. There is almost no sense of listening to the other side, of honoring political opponents as fellow Americans.

          And if I read the news right, a lot of that attitude percolates out across the country. And it’s logical that in times like these, opinions harden. We’re in scary times. To deny the anger and anxiety many people feel today would be absurd. And psychologists tell us that as human beings when we’re angry or feel afraid we tend to strengthen our opinions, hunker down into the safety of what we believe to be true.

          And there’s nothing wrong with that. In times of crisis, we find our strength where we can. It’s part of the survival process.

          The problem comes when we lessen our strength as a people, as a nation, by denying our unity. My friends who know people on Capital Hill say that disunity reigns and never the twain shall meet.

          I say it’s time the twain met.

          We’ve been hearing for years about the red states and the blue states. I say it’s time every state went red, white and blue.

          Makes me want to run out and buy a whole bunch of balloons, have Love USA printed on the side and put them up wherever I go.

          We’ve shown we can do polarization. It’s time we proved we can stick together, so that together we can solve the crises of our time,  together we can be our best selves, together we can forge the American future our Founders envisioned and that God calls us to.

          I’m not advocating everybody deny their opinions and beliefs for some kind of watered down neutrality. That wouldn’t be constructive. It wouldn’t be creative. It wouldn’t be healthy. It wouldn’t be American. And it wouldn’t be any fun.

          Diversity is written into our national DNA. What’s our national motto? E Pluribus Unum—out of many one. Out of many beliefs, many opinions, many life experiences, many socio-economic and racial and ethnic and geographical and educational and experiential and  philosophical and religious and generational and gender and prejudicial and political differences: one people. We are always  in the process of becoming one. Always in process, never fully achieving. Yet seek we must. We must never quit seeking out of all this incredible, yeasty, fomenting, quarreling, adventuresome, awe-inspiring diversity that is us the glorious, ultimate quest of democracy: which is a kind of unity that may yet astonish the world.

          And therein lies our destiny as free Americans: out of many, one.

          We deny our destiny when we become all Pluribus and no Unum.

          I’m an old-fashioned patriot. I get a lump in my throat when we sing the national songs. I love this country with all its faults and flaws and weaknesses. America is the best country in the world. We are still the best hope of the world. We’ve done democracy for 234 years. And we’ve for the most part done it well. The experiment works. We’ve shown the world how millions of diverse people can live and work and build together a magnificent nation. Ours is a great nation, and I don’t use the term greatness lightly.

          Despite the problems that plague and test and try us, we are yet a great nation.

          We are great because of our Constitution on which our liberties are based and lived out.

          We are great by our breadth of diversity and by the degree to which we tolerate the differences among us and by the great compassionate heart we show in reaching out to those in times of crisis and natural disaster both in our country and around the world.

          We are great by virtue of our physical size and incredible geographic variety and scenic beauty and natural resources.

          We are great because of our resourcefulness and ingenuity and persistence and can-do character and in the willingness our soldiers have shown in every generation beginning with the Revolution to lay down their lives that freedom might live.

          We are great because of our institutions—institutions of government, education, medicine, civic affairs, law enforcement, military, charities, culture, creative arts and religion.

          We are great because of the soaring successes of our scientific, medical, industrial and technological breakthroughs and advancements.

          We are great because our system of capitalism has brought economic life and hope not only to Americans but to nations around the world; and because—generation by generation—we’ve failed to settle for mediocrity and have pushed to improve the lot of human beings and make the world a better place.

          We are great by virtue of our separation of church and state which honors the practice of all religions while preventing the government from hindering our ability as free Americans to worship in our own way.

          But we can be greater.

          There is yet a higher degree, an advanced echelon, of greatness for us to achieve. This higher greatness is elusive. But it’s always out there somewhere up ahead—challenging us to seek and lay hold of and live into—both in our public and private discourse and interaction, and in our public and private lives.

          And this more perfect greatness—call it nobility of purpose—is where for me my citizenship as an American and my Christian faith come together. Because for me ultimate  greatness can be achieved only when a people or an individual earnestly attempts to emulate our Master, the Lord Jesus, who came to earth to teach  us new ways of being human.

          Those new ways apply to us as Americans and as Christian Americans on this joyous Fourth of July.

III

          The key is humility. David Brooks recently wrote about the founding of Alcoholic Anonymous by Dr. Bill Wilson, who lived in Katonah. Brooks says that “in a culture that generally celebrates empowerment and self-esteem, AA begins with DISempowerment. The goal is to get people to gain control over their lives, but it all begins with an act of surrender and an admission of weakness.” (David Brooks, The New York Times, June 29,2010)

          In the words of St. Paul: “God’s strength is made perfect in my weakness.”

          For anyone who joins an anonymous group, the price of admission is not money, it’s simply admitting the need for help.

It’s admitting that you can’t do it on your own. You are not sufficient unto yourself to overcome the addiction that dominates your life.

          The traditional way of introducing yourself when you tell your story in an AA group is: “My name is (give your name), and I’m an alcoholic.”

          What unity there is in these words. All have come to this place and gathered in this circle and are commonly bound by a single need: their need as men and women to overcome this problem.

          What if every time a U. S. senator or congressmen got up to speak in the halls of congress they opened with these words: “I’m  Chuck, and I’m an American.” “I’m Orrin, and I’m an American.”

          How might that change the climate in the halls of power as these people who wield power began by acknowledging the common tie that binds them?

          It’s a spiritual principle and one that when lived out lifts us up to our higher natures, this dichotomy of AA. This dichotomy, this principle God created within us that as we acknowledge our weakness we find our strength, that as we admit our need we begin the path to wholeness.

          That’s why God still calls us if we want the best for our country to begin by humbling ourselves. What God said to His people thousands of years ago, He says to Americans who will listen today:

          “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (2 Chronicles, 7:14)

David Brooks goes on. He writes: “In a culture that thinks of itself as individualistic, AA relies on fellowship. The general idea is that people aren’t really captains of their own ship. Successful members become deeply intertwined with one another—learning, sharing, suffering and mentoring one another. Individual repair is a social effort.”

          So the Lord has called us into His Church. “For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body . . . God has so arranged the body . . . that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.”

          Hear the words of President Lincoln in a far more desperate time than ours, when the nation was on the brink of the ultimate polarization, Civil War. Hear the desperate, God-inspired plea from the heart of a great leader: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. (May we be) again touched by the better angels of our nature.”

          Humility and a sense of respect and even affection for each other—as Christians and as Americans. In building our lives on these twin foundation stones we may yet achieve our ultimate greatness and destiny.

          Let’s go buy some balloons.