Free Servants
a sermon for the Fourth of July

1 Peter 2.11-25

“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”…these words of course come from our Declaration of Independence, a document that launched us on a journey of becoming a country unlike any other.  The men who crafted these words were men of deep faith, men who believed that their work was grounded in God, the same God who created them and inspired in them a profound sense of longing for freedom.  They saw themselves as witnesses to the God they knew and believed that their efforts, their pain, the number of lives that would be lost because of their longing for freedom, would all be worth it.

They wanted a democracy, a “form of government that demands more virtue of its citizens than any other” but I bet they knew that even a democracy would not guarantee that these virtues would always be exercised.[1]  I bet they knew that we human beings would fall short sometimes, that their hopes for this country would go unrealized and that their vision would be incomplete.

Christians throughout our nation’s history have wrestled with our country as if entangled in a lover’s quarrel.  How do we love a nation while not making an idol of it?  How do we realize the vision of our founding fathers while knowing that freedom comes first from God?  In the words of William Sloane Coffin, “…a precondition to real freedom, <is grounded in our> ability to make choices that are generous, loving and wise.  Our wills are not free when they will what is bigoted, narrow, and ungenerous.” 

When I hear the words crafted by men hungry for freedom, words that are so old and yet so new, “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,” I wonder if the men who wrote them imagined what their longing for freedom would produce.  These words called them to the will of God even in ways they could never have dreamed.  When women asked to be included in these words, when slaves born in this country asked to be included in these words, when children asked to be included in these words, this nation of ours was called forth again into the will of a loving God.  These words created a democracy, but throughout our history, we have learned that even a democracy does not guarantee that our better angels will always prevail; even a democracy does not prevent sin from creeping in. 

In our scripture for this morning, we meet a people new to their Christian faith.  They were so new to their faith and their faith was so new to the world that they were struggling to live it out under a government that didn’t want them.  The writers of 1 Peter declare with absolute boldness, “For the Lord’s sake accept the authority of every human institution, whether of the emperor as supreme, or of governors, as sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right.  For it is God’s will that by doing right you should silence the ignorance of the foolish. As servants of God, live as free people; yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil. Honor everyone. Love the family of believers. Fear God. Honor the emperor.  Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh …” and when I hear these words today, I cringe. 

They remind me how radical our founding fathers really were.  Because they were in love with God, they envisioned a nation unlike any other, they dreamed of a place that was very different from the time in which this scripture came.  These words in 1 Peter remind me why we have parades and join together with our families and friends to mark this day as different from other days.  Because of those who have gone before us, because of those who have fought and died, because of those who believed in a nation that did not yet exist, we are invited to raise our voices in protest, asking those in power to bend us, not toward emperors or governors, but to freedom.  Because of this day, we are invited to bend our lives, not toward any master, but instead to our God.

The men who launched us on the journey to be a country unlike any other wanted a democracy, but they knew that even a democracy would not guarantee that the principles on which this country was founded would always be upheld.  And it is in this spirit that I think of us as free servants, especially on this day of our nation’s birth.  We are free because God put the taste of freedom in our mouths.  We are free because of the men and women who were willing to stake their lives on the hopes made manifest in the promises of 234 years ago.  We are free servants, but as Christians we are called not to be servants of a nation state, we are called not to render everything to Caesar, we are called not to be subjects to an empire, instead we are called to be servants to our God.

The scripture tells us, “For the Lord’s sake accept the authority of every human institution…” and because of this day, we remember that there is simply no human institution, no government or empire, no leader or nation whom we should blindly follow.  Rather it is only God who can lead us beyond ourselves.

Some Christians find it difficult to label themselves a patriot out of fear of worshiping a false idol, but I think of those of us who long to follow Jesus, not as servants of a nation, nor as the scripture says servants of emperors, governors or masters, but as servants of a God whose hopes for us shine brighter than our failed attempts at life, liberty and happiness.  Let us celebrate today, not as “uncritical lovers” who make a god of a nation, but as disciples of Jesus Christ, who “carry on a lover’s quarrel with <our> country”[2]; a nation that even if imperfectly longs to be a place unlike any other.  We are free servants, servants to a God who pulls us closer to becoming a people who live out the words on which our country was founded.  “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”…May this be so.  Amen.

[1] William Sloane Coffin.  Credo.  Westminster John Knox Press, 2004.

[2] Coffin. 83.