| Coming Forth On The Fifth | | Print | |
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The Fourth of July has always been one of my favorite holidays since my earliest remembrances as a child. I guess I am a "closet pyromaniac" but I always enjoyed firecrackers and fireworks displays. As an American, I guess I thought I understood the concepts of Freedom, Liberty, and Independence and looked upon them as "core" values in my belief system. However, spending this Fourth of July in Puerto Rico gave me a chance to reflect on those values again and proved to be a source of a new revelation into what the founding fathers were actually trying to achieve when they founded this nation. The "revelation" has profoundly challenged me as an American and a Christian because I can now see that God has not called me to live independently but interdependently as a part of a community. Were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and the rest of the founding fathers really wanting to launch a nation of completely autonomous individuals - each living as they pleased without little value for the needs of others as some people seem to indicate as a God given right an the ideal model of the perfect society? I doubt it. Just a brief look at the Preamble of the American Constitution reveals that the primary concern of that document was about building community together. it is about "interdependence" more than it is about independence from one another. The very first word of the document defines the rest of the document - "We". The constitution is about "We". It is about how we need to live together, how we need to work together, how we need to take care of each other, and how we need to value, protect, and respect each other. The constitution was not about "I" it was about "We"! To punctuate that point, the authors said it twice in the opening phrase of their wording - "We... the people". The core value of our nation was never intended to be "I the Individual". It was always meant to center around the community concept of "We the people". If that truth has eluded you as long as it has me, stop a moment and let it sink in because it changes everything in how we work and live together. I am not free to think only of myself. I am suppose to be committed to addressing the needs of everyone around me just as much as I am my own needs. In other words, the constitution of the United States was intended to bring forth a society built on the so called, "Golden Rule" - Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. In that context our responsibilities and duties as Americans take on a whole new light. There is no guarantee of "Freedom" that ignores the needs of others. Our Declaration of Independence was never a proclamation declaring that we were individually independent from each other. In point of fact, it declared that we were withdrawing from any system that supported the rights of a few at the expense of others. We chose to try to set up a society where we would look after the needs of others with equal diligence as we would our own needs. There will doubtless be many who will be offended by this "revelation" of mine but I would offer as evidence of the validity of this claim that we have only looked at the first three words of the document. This that follow reiterate the same theme over and over again until it is unmistakable. In order to emphasize that point, allow me the liberty to simply quote just the Preamble below. Note each time community values were emphasized. The results may shock you and I hope will challenge you to reconsider what it really means to be an American. "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." This was not a document written to bless anarchy, personal prejudices, unfair advantages, or a lack of concern for the needs of others as some people seem to indicate. In fact it is just the opposite. I was about the community values of living in harmony together, of protecting each other, and looking after the general welfare of each other. When viewed in this context, the concept of the much touted "constitutional rights" also take on the added requirements of "constitutional obligations" which are often ignored but just as relevant. I have a "constitutional obligation" to consider the welfare of others. I am obligated by the constitution to be concerned that others are protected. I am required by the constitution to be committed to living in such a way so as to foster tranquility with those around me. There is no individual rights clause that supercedes the rights of the community. Something has gone terribly wrong with America and I am sorry to say that the church is partly to blame. We allowed ourselves to buy the lie that God did not call us to our concept of freedom - He called us to His concept of freedom. His concept of freedom requires us to look out for each other as much as we do ourselves. His concept requires us to live in community and become "one" with each other. When we apply this test to what it means to live as Christian Americans, we find that we have perverted what both the Bible and the Constitution requires of us. Notice how similar John 17 is to the concepts presented in the Preamble. John 17:20-23 "I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. Both documents call us to the same thing. But, as headstrong people, it has been all too easy to rear our "individualism" at the expense of the value of true community. We have allowed ourselves to be duped into advocating our supposed "rights" as though they were an all important part and parcel expression of Christianity. But we forgot to advocate our "constitutional obligations" that we have to others as well. We forgot that the constitution calls us to form a community. It challenges us to view the needs of our society as a whole - not just our own personal needs. It affronts us with the reality that we are interdependent not merely independent. Coming to that realization changes what it means to be free. I am not free "from" you - I am only free "with" you. I do not have the right to ignore you and think only of myself. That was never what America was meant to be. The Bible put it a different way. If I have extra and you have nothing and I am not willing to share with you out of my excess, I can't really call myself a Christian. Or, as 1John 3:17-19 puts it, "If any one of you has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in you? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence." As you reflect on this Independence Day and its meaning in your life, It is my prayer that you will refocus your values around the values that truly made our nation great - the values of "We" - the concern for those around us. It is the core value that we are to treasure above all else. And it is the only real value that we are to extend to the world. Upon this one truth rests our future. |
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