I want to start off this morning with a little history quiz:
In 1754, what colonel of Virginia Militia surrendered Fort Necessity in Pennsylvania to the French? (George Washington.)
In 1775 what Virginian, appointed by the Continental Congress, took command of the continental army at Cambridge, MA? (George Washington.)
In 1863, this famous civil war battle culminated in a famously failed charge of confederate forces under the command of General George Picket. (Gettysburg.)
For sports fans, in 1962 this man became the first African-American to be inducted into the national baseball hall of fame. (Jackie Robinson.)
All these events happened on this very day, 3 July.
You did very well. You remember where we have been.
Where are you from? It is a simple question really. How many times have you been asked that by an acquaintance, or a friend?
Where are you from? It is actually a very significant question, a question that will reveal you to another, gives them a sense of who you are, what has shaped you and formed you.
How you answer that allows another to understand you better; it builds relationships, allows for greater intimacy of conversation. Or not!
When we first came to Florida and people would ask me: Where’re you from, I would say Connecticut because that is where I spent most of my early childhood. And immediately I would be classed as a Yankee which had a whole catalog of qualities and characteristics attached to it by polite southern folk.
Or to the less polite, I was a Yankee with an adjective preceding that would imply that either my origin or destiny was related to the infernal regions where the devil and Bill Sherman presided.
So I learned. When good southern folk ask me: Where are you from, I say Connecticut but southern Connecticut, and it seems to make a difference!
When I was a child there was a series on TV – whose name I cannot now remember – about a man who awoke one day and could not remember where he was from. He had amnesia. He was rootless and thus identity-less. He didn’t know who he was and how he fit in, and the show went on weekly with him trying discover his roots, who he was.
We have seen this same story line, a character with amnesia, in the Jason Bourne series of novels and movies about a man who wakes up not knowing that he is a spy and assassin, and he is lost; he doesn’t know his place in the world or who he is until he finds out where he’s from.
We as humans seem to have a need to know where we are from, to know our roots because it helps us understand who we are today. Knowing where you’re from helps give shape to the question: Who are you? Amnesia – not knowing where you’re from – means you are truly lost in the world.
This Sunday, the Sunday closest to Independence Day every year, is called Patriotic Sunday here at Redeemer. It is a day that we remember where we come from, a day that helps us remember who we are, both as Christians and as Americans.
As Christians we are reminded every Sunday, and through the year with the various holy days, where we are from. The liturgy, the prayers and the scriptures, continually remind us, they give us identity. We are reminded where we come from.
God created us, shaped us in our mothers’ wombs, in his very image; our very lives are his unique gift to us.
We have been taken to the stable at Bethlehem where we see God being incarnate as a man, God becoming us so we could know God in a personal way.
We have been freed from slavery, slavery of sin, taken to the cross on Calvary where we see Jesus die for our sins and there redeem our lives.
We have been taken to the Easter tomb, the empty tomb where we have inherited new life, the promise of victory over death.
We have gone to the mount and seen Jesus ascended into heaven where we see his enthronement as Lord and receive the promise that he waits for us there preparing a place for us.
We have been to the Upper Room, been given the gift of his indwelling presence the Holy Spirit, to guide us and empower us to know that we are never alone, that he is always with us.
Every Sunday we go to the altar rail to be reminded whose we are and who we are.
There is no reason for a Christian to have spiritual amnesia, to not know their roots, to not know who they are, to not know their place in the world. For those that know those roots, and own them, that knowledge shapes our lives.
Unfortunately it is not the same in terms of knowing our American roots. America seems to have amnesia.
According to the results of the 2010 national assessment of educational process – what is known as the national report card – students are historical amnesiacs. Of the seven subjects on the test, students performed worst in U.S. history. Only 13% of high school seniors, and 18% of 8th graders, passed.
Some could not set the major wars in a chronological order; they did not know that the Civil War was before World War I. Some had no idea of what countries were the enemy in World War II.
Another poll found that only 74% of Americans know that we declared independence from England in 1776.
What does that say about where our country is going? One educator summed it up: “Overall, the quality and success of our lives can only be enhanced by a study of our roots,” said Steven Paine, former state schools superintendent for West Virginia. “If you don’t know your past, you will not have a future.”
Winston Churchill in his time recognized the same issue as necessary to the survival of a nation and civilization when he said: He who fails to learn from history is doomed to repeat it.
And he is probably paraphrasing the words of Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Words etched in granite on a wall outside the national archives.
Tomorrow we celebrate a fundamental event in the history of this nation. On this day in Philadelphia in 1776, final changes and editing were being made on a document that would be made public the next day, July 4th. It would be a document that many claim changed the world.
It stated as a premise:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men 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. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness.
Among other things, this document first recognized that God is the source of freedom, of individual dignity, author of life itself. These are gifts given by God to each person.
This nation: Its formation, its laws, its governing structure, its very existence was undergirded by an undeniable belief in a sovereign God, whose leading, guidance and blessing were constantly sought.
Christian faith, Christian belief, the Christian worldview were intimately woven into the fabric that would become the United States of America.
Did you know that 52 of the 56 signers of the declaration of independence were Christians, three of the others were what might be described as deists, who believed in a sovereign God who personally intervened in the lives of men?
A number of the signers had degrees from seminaries.
This same congress that gave us the Declaration of Independence, formed the American Bible Society, and voted to purchase and distribute 20,000 copies of scripture for the people of this nation.
The place of Christian thought and faith as a foundation of this Country has become a reality lost, forgotten, slipped into the fog of amnesia.
As we see prayer, bibles, and ultimately Christians, more and more excluded from the public sphere, the concept of separation of church and state has been reinterpreted to become the separation of church from state.
As Christians we need to recognize our place in this great nation, to remember, study, re-discover, our history in this nation. We need to be snapped out of amnesia that has us wandering about unsure of our place in this society, and we need to pray, to pray for our leaders – regardless of who you voted for – because it ultimately is God who will ensure the life or demise of this nation, not a political party.
Let me end this plea with the words of Ben Franklin, certainly not an evangelical Christian, and who is hailed today in history as an atheist, a secularist, a model founder of the modern, secular society.
It was July 28 1787, and the constitutional convention was in political deadlock. Then, according to James Madison’s notes, 81 year old Ben Franklin addressed the convention:
In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the Contest with G. Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection.- Our prayers, Sir, were heard, & they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth- that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that “except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.
I therefore beg leave to move-that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the Clergy of this City be requested to officiate in that Service.
May we be likewise be persuaded to heed Mr. Franklin’s encouragement, to pray for our nation, asking God’s protection, guidance, and direction on a daily basis that this nation will fulfill his sovereign purposes in this world.