What I Love About America…

Right now, it is easy to list what is wrong with America.  You might even be tempted to think, “If those people would just see things my way, we could straighten this country out.”  This thinking is called “confirmation bias.”  If you only talk to people who see the world the way you do, if you only go to websites that agree with you, and if you only watch one news network that tells you the news the way you want to hear it, you create a circle of belief where what you believe is re-enforced, even if what you believe is wrong.  But step outside of your comfort zone and think about what is right with America. 

We are a country that is blessed.  Our country has been given wealth, power, and status that we have not earned.  Most Americans still know that when a crisis occurs, we still need God’s blessing.  Do you remember the night of September 11, 2001?  Congressmen, Democrats, and Republicans stood on the steps of the Capitol and sang “God Bless America.”  If I were to offer you ten million dollars on the condition that you move permanently to Somalia, most of you would refuse the deal.  Better to be middle class in America than rich in Somalia. 

I love that in America, we still have people of courage.   Martin Luther King, Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and spoke of a dream: “I have a dream that one day my three children will not be judged on the color of their skin but on the content of their character.”  Ronald Reagan stood in front of the Berlin Wall and said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”  Soldiers take up arms and fight for our country.  First responders run to the danger.  There are still politicians who will stand for what is right and not worry about re-election. 

In America, we still think in terms of right and wrong.  My son told me a story of traveling overseas and watching an airline official accept a bribe.  Bribes happen in America, but at least we know it is wrong.  There are places in the world where young girls are forced into marriage.  Slavery still exists in areas of India and Africa.  Much of the world still honors “might makes right.”  In America, we know right is right. 

Freedom is not something to take for granted.  In the most populous country in the world, China, your access to the internet is tightly controlled.  All people over age fourteen are required to have an internal passport in Russia.  This is so the government can track your movements and control where you can and can not go.  I can drive across the country, and if I obey the speed limit and traffic laws, no one will stop me and demand to see some identification.

We have a sense of justice.  The Biblical injunction, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth,” is meant to make sure justice is proportional.  In Singapore, you can be beaten with a cane for chewing gum.  In some Muslim societies, you can lose your hand for stealing.  I know we do not always get this right in America, but I would rather take my chances in an American courtroom than in any other courtroom in the world. 

I love that I can call my congressman and senators and tell them I think they are wrong.  No one will come to arrest me.  I love that when I vote, no one knows who I voted for.  No one is peering over my shoulder to make sure I mark my ballot correctly.   

On Sunday, I can stand and preach what I think is a message from God.  No policeman is there to arrest me for preaching.  I have no “official” script issued from a government office. No worship service will be interrupted by the secret police.  I actually love that people I disagree with theologically can gather down the street and worship in their own way too.  Freedom for me requires there to be freedom for them as well.

 There is a lot wrong with America, but there is a lot to love.  If you love America, you should ask, “Why has this country been given so much?”  I believe God made America for a reason.  The reason, I am sure, has less to do with us enjoying the “good life” and more to do with being the “good people.”  Let us be the people, the nation God made us to be.

Soul or Slave?

An African-American family, the Walls, served the Gordon family, who were white, in rural Mississippi.  They worked in the field from sun-up to sun-down.  They milked the cows and cleaned the Gordon’s house.  No money ever changed hands.  The Walls ate whatever they could catch from the creek or kill in the woods, plus scraps from the Gordon’s table.  Forbidden to see a newspaper, or to learn how to read and write, the Walls family had no idea what was going in the outside world.

Though the Gordon family went to church, they failed to live by some of Jesus’ most basic teachings: “Love one another as I have loved you.”  One day, Lela Walls, the mother, and her daughter, Mae, age five, were called up to the Gordon house to clean it.  There two men raped them, though the woman of the house protested.  Lela was told if she spoke of it to her husband, he would be killed.

Lela had already witnessed brutal beatings of her husband, beatings her children saw as well.  They had seen the whip wrap around their father’s body; they had seen the blood flow.  Once, the beating had been so savage, they threw themselves on their father’s body to take the blows themselves. 

Maybe you are shaking your head, thinking, “This is an awful tale of the South from before the Civil War.”  This story, however, is from rural Mississippi, from about 1945 to 1962 (see People, March 26, 2007).  The Wall family did not know they were free people.  They were still living the lives of slaves.

God never intended people to be slaves.  When he created us, he placed us in a garden where we could do life with him, meeting him in the cool of day.  We destroyed God’s intentions when we said “Yes” to the tempter, who dared us to believe that God was not loving, but unfair and selfish.  So our enslavement to sin began.

Enslavement to sin is concealed in a multitude of disguises.  We can be enslaved by addictions, held by the power of alcohol, porn, drugs, food, anger, and more.  We can be enslaved by entanglement in a relationship, dependent on another person for our identity, losing our knowledge of ourselves.  We can be enslaved by our culture, which puts upon us stereotypes because of our race, our education, and our politics.  We can be enslaved by expectations to achieve and perform that push us to be unbalanced in our lives, neglecting family for work, neglecting health for money, neglecting friendships for status.  Ever since the Garden of Eden, we are prone to slavery as a shadow is prone to light.

Out of his great mercy, God saw we sold ourselves to slavery.  So, he sent Jesus, his one and only son, to set us free.  When Jesus died on the cross, he paid sin’s price.  When Jesus rose from the dead on Easter, he broke sin’s power.  This is why Jesus said, “If the Son has set you free, you are free indeed (John 8:36)!” 

This is the sad part: Jesus has come to set you free, but you must choose to be free.  I see people who claim to be Jesus followers who still live as slaves.  Sadly, some of these folks seem to have no desire to be well.  Maybe they’ve lost the hunger to be free.

Mae Wall, the five-year-old girl did not lose her hunger to be free.  The Walls and the Gordons parted ways, and the Walls ended up in Kensington, Louisiana, serving another white family.  Mae was 18.  She was called to white family’s house and told to clean it.  Something in her soul told her she was no longer a slave.  She refused.  The family threatened to kill her.  She ran away, ran away from slavery to freedom.  In time, she found out all white people were not mean.  She learned to read and write, married, bought a house, and adopted four children.  Mae found God made her to be a soul, not a slave.

God made you to be a soul, not a slave.  He made you to have relationships, freely chosen.  He gave you a body to inhabit and oversee.  He put in you a mind, with the ability to think and feel.  And he put in you a heart, a will, so you could decide how to live your life. 

The most important thing you can decide?  Will you be a slave or a soul?