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5th Sunday in Pentecost (proper 9): July 5, Martha Rogers

I grew up in Rhode Island, the 13th colony to become a state. The history there is quite different from the history here. For instance, the house I spent the first 21 years of my life in was built in the     year 1711. It's still being lived in and is now 298 years old.

While I was living there, the house was listed with the National historic Register. It was built by a man named Nicholas Campbell who was a member of the Sons of Liberty. Nicholas took part in the Boston Tea party and one of his friends was Paul Revere.

We know that because Nicholas had Paul Revere cast a bell for each church tower in our town and they still ring out today. Nicholas and Paul fought hard for freedom. And in my hometown, we celebrate that freedom in a big way each and every 4th of July.

Independence from tyranny was well worth the      efforts of those early revolutionists. And that effort towards freedom is still celebrated and honored. We honor and esteem those revolutionary thinkers who fought the hard battle for our freedom.

They were sort of independent dependants.

Wanting independence for their country, yet dependent on each other's loyalty and courage to get the battle done. Dependent also on God to lead them to a new life. They knew that individually they would be weak, yet with Christ to depend on, they were strong.

Just like St. Paul in our 2nd reading today, who knew about hardships, insults, persecutions, and all those weaknesses each one of us knows about But St. Paul also knew that in these weak moments, those weak situations, it was a dependence on Christ, rather than on his own merits, that really made him strong. It is precisely in our own failures, our own experiences of poverty, deficiency, weakness, & emptiness that we come to experience God's restoration, healing love and strength.

Long after 1776, we continue to honor the veterans and those people in our armed services who fought for and protected our freedom, our independence, and our liberties with their own lives.

But do we think the same for Christ, who, thru the giving of his life, also fought for and gained us our freedom? That's not usually how we talk about Jesus.

It's more common for us to say that Christ died     for our sins. But Christ died for our freedom. The man, Jesus, the Christ, fought for and gained us our freedom.

The American Revolutionists didn't die for nothing. They defeated the domination and tyranny of power over them. The American revolutionists earned us a great country. A country we are proud to live in today.

The veterans and service people didn't fight and suffer in vain. They protected and maintained our freedom from tyranny of dictatorship and dominion of power over us. The freedom which we constantly value and celebrate.

Jesus didn't die for nothing either. He, too, earned us great freedom and independence from the tyranny and domination of power over us with sin and broken-ness. Yet, we often forget to be proud, to value and celebrate the freedom Jesus gave his life for.

Perhaps that's what the old prayer was telling us when it speaks of God "In whoseservice is perfect freedom." For me that means to follow God, to obey Love itself, leaves us the freedom to be the best and the most abundantly delighted that we have it in us to become.

For me, perfect freedom means recognizing that I am a weak individual who is dependent on God for everything.

So happy Independence Day weekend!

Enjoy your holiday this weekend. And be thankful for your freedoms: in this country, in our daily living as American citizens, but most of all, in our freedom to choose to be fully alive, fully human, fully loved and fully forgiven.

Choose well.

For when we exercise our freedom from sin and our dependence on the divine, I just know that God delights in us, liberates and strengthens us each and every day.

Freedom
Liberty.
Independence.

Good 4th of July words.

Independent dependents.
That's you and me.

Free from death and self destruction to love and eternal life.    Amen.

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