“When in doubt, say Mass.” So said a wry old Catholic priest to me many years ago at a hastily arranged Eucharist after some national horror I can’t even recall.
He was referring to the Catholic tendency to slap a Mass on every occasion. If something noteworthy happened, joyous or devastating, local or global, Mass was the way you marked it. The Eucharistic liturgy was the vessel that held what needed holding, the grounding and clarifying act by which the community steadied and oriented itself.
“When in doubt…” It was a cheeky quip, but the priest who said it wasn’t being entirely facetious. If nothing else, a reflexive recourse to the liturgy is a way of persisting, the kind of repetitive showing up that’s easily dismissed as rote, but is rather (potentially, anyway) a training in perseverance. And God knows that showing up, persevering, is no mean thing in the face of evil’s demonstrated determination not to go away easily or any time soon. “Saying Mass” at every turn was a way of declaring “We’re not going away either.”
But even more, “Saying Mass” was testimony. Every time the church sat down at the Table, it engaged in a public counter-liturgy (in William Kavanaugh’s words) to all the liturgies of doubt, anger, upheaval, fear, cruelty, violence, and injustice celebrated daily by the world’s powers.
As such, “saying Mass” when in doubt, or in any other human circumstance, was not merely a way to strengthen, ground, steady, and orient the community; it was justice-doing itself. Taken together, the various movements of the Communion liturgy are a defiant refusal to accept the world’s claim to be “real” and an assertion that the real “real world” shows up, a real presence, in all the just things we say and do at the Table:
We gather, we don’t divide.
We welcome and bless, we don’t condemn, exclude, or curse.
We attend to a true Word, not a false narrative.
We give thanks, we don’t claim and assert self-authorship.
We share equally in the earth’s gifts of food, we don’t grasp and hoard.
We honor bodies and recognize their labor, we don’t exploit.
We distribute food to all, we don’t withhold it from some.
We welcome a real presence, not create a real absence.
We do not erase and falsify, we remember, we remember. We refuse to forget.
In Anglican theologian Kenneth Leech’s words, the Communion liturgy is “the weekly meeting of rebels against a Mammon-worshiping world order…, a freak event in a world where bread and wine are hoarded, not offered; concentrated, not divided; unequally distributed, not commonly shared.”” And we could add:
Because Communion is freely available to all, and all are fed according to their need, Communion enacts a counter-politics to the politics that says hunger is necessary. It’s an economic confrontation with the entrenched assumption that for some to have, others must not.
Because Communion is sheer gift, it enacts a non-shaming reality in a world where the powers decide who is worthy to eat.
Because Communion makes one Body, we are each other’s flesh. Communion enacts a new social space wherein bodies are sacred, of infinite worth, not dispensable on a whim.
And in our current context of reprisal and revenge, of getting even as a way of life and as a way of governing, Communion enacts mercy, for the Body it makes is the body of the Victim who returned to those who disappeared him without a word of retribution on his lips. And with him, every disappeared victim, all the marginalized, poor, and oppressed, also materialize, for he is eternally and absolutely identified with them: “Whatever you do to the least, you do to me.” And we see them.
We shouldn’t politicize the sacraments. But the Eucharist is already politics just by being bread. And just by refusing to forget. And just by materializing disappeared victims. And just by being open to all. And just by hallowing created things. And just by being a feast of persevering and resilient joy. And just by being a communion, a new and just human polity, a new social order that denies the very premises on which the old order runs.
And because it recognizes no legitimacy whatsoever in that system, the Communion liturgy is provocative and dangerous. If, as Paul contends in 1 Corinthians, Communion wrongly practiced can make you sick, rightly practiced it can get you killed. (Ask Oscar Romero about that.)
In the progressive circles I run in, we don’t have much of a liturgical reflex. Only rarely do pastors and people go first to the Table and then to the march or set a table in the streets “in the sight of our foes…”
Only rarely is the Eucharist taught and celebrated in our congregations as the church’s most fundamental and effective source of transformation for communal witness and justice-doing.
Much less have we cultivated in the faithful a strong sensibility that it is through this ritual activity that the world we are fighting for “out there” materializes every time we gather “in here,” and we can touch and taste it and lend ourselves to its transforming grace.
And it can transform us. By faithful Eucharistic engagement over time, we can become one Communionized Body, enacting in the world the justice we embody at the Table.
We should “say Mass” more often. Yes?
——-
For Holy Communion as Testimony, Justice-Witness
When We Assemble
LM
Words: Mary Luti
Tunes: ACH BLEIB BEI UNS (Lord Jesus Christ, with Us Abide), HERR JESU CHRIST DICH ZU UNS WEND (Lord Jesus Christ, Be Present Now)
* When we assemble, we say no
to pow’rs that scatter and divide.
To gather is the way we show
that none of us belongs outside.
*
When we say thank you, we say no
to pow’rs that tell us we’re our own.
Our grateful praise is how we show
we owe our lives to God alone.
*
When we remember, we say no
to pow’rs that lie to leave no trace.
Refusing to forget, we show
their victims cannot be erased.
*
When we are sharing, we say no
to pow’rs that take and hoard and keep.
To feed each other is to show
that everyone deserves to eat.
*
When we assemble, break the bread,
remember bravely, share, and bless,
we say the nos that Jesus said;
and then to Love we say our yes.
——-
For more on Communion and Justice, see UCC Stillspeaking Writers Group, “Do This: Communion for Just and Courageous Living,” available from the Pilgrim Press.
This communal reading replaces the formal reading of Acts on Pentecost Sunday.
Directions:
Assign parts.
If read in the sanctuary, position various readers around the chancel and in the pews.
If read virtually, double check to be sure all readers are unmuted before beginning.
No extensive rehearsal required, although readers should review their parts ahead of time. All readers should be ready to jump in when indicated. No long lags between parts!
Hard copies of the reading for the congregation (or a projected copy if your congregation uses a large screen) should omit all stage directions except for those that pertain directly to the congregation.
If read virtually, screen-share the congregations’ copy.
Everybody should totally ham it up.
Maybe a little intro music first… and then begin.
The Reading
Luke: Friends, I know a great story about God. Want to hear it?
Congregation: Yes, tell us! We’re all ears!
Luke: OK. Here goes… Once upon a time, after Jesus returned to heaven, people from all over the world were in Jerusalem to celebrate a big holiday. But Jesus’ friends were in a house praying.
Choir: Praying? For what?
Luke: For the promise of Jesus to come true.
Choir: Promise? What promise?
Luke: That the Holy Spirit would come and be their helper.
Child: Why did they need help?
Luke: Because Jesus told them to go to the ends of the earth and tell people to trust God, to welcome strangers, and to love their enemies.
Child: Oh, I get it! But that’s not an easy thing to do…
Luke: Right! The disciples needed all the help they could get! Anyway, they were praying away, when suddenly… the house began rocking!
Choir: (Making noise like strong winds): Woooo! Woooo! Woooo!
Musician: (On the organ or other instrument, plays spooky music underneath the woo-wooing and the rumbling)
Luke: And after that, fire came down and settled on their heads!
Congregation: Their heads were on fire?!
Luke: Well, not exactly. Sort of. You had to be there. And then…
Congregation: There’s more?
Luke: Yes! Listen! Then, all Jesus’ friends started talking in other languages!
Choir: Like this? (In different languages, and all at once: Alleluia! Praise God! Thank you, God! God is good!)
Luke: Just like that! People in the streets heard them and hurried to the house. They were amazed! They said,
Congregation: “But they’re all Galileans! How come we understand them?”
Choir: “We are from Parthia, Media and Elam, Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Crete, Arabia and Libya.”
Child: And I’m from San Diego! (or whatever town the child is from)
Luke: It was an amazing scene! But some onlookers made fun of the apostles.
Bystander: You know what I think? You’ve all been drinking instead of praying!
Luke: But Peter, who was the leader, stood up and said,
Peter: No, no, no! We’re completely sober! It’s nine in the morning, for goodness’ sake! No, what you ‘re seeing is what God promised through the prophet Joel a long time ago!
Musician: (Plays something pompous and prophet-y sounding here to introduce Joel)
Joel: (Clears throat and begins, loudly)…
In the last days, God says,
I will pour my Spirit out upon all flesh.
Your sons and daughters shall prophesy,
the young shall see visions,
the old shall dream dreams.
And everyone who calls on the name of God will be saved!
Luke: And that’s the story of Pentecost! THE END!
Child: Hey! Wait a second! I wanna know what happened next! Did the friends of Jesus stop being afraid?
Luke: Well… you’re all friends of Jesus, aren’t you?
Everyone: Yes, we are!
Luke: Well, that’s a question you have to answer!
Choir: A question we have to answer? Um….We’re going to need some help with that!
Choir: Wind sounds… AND Congregation: Rumbles…. AND Musician: Spooky music….Sound effects die down… a brief silence follows. Then, on to whatever is next in the order of service.
“For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk.”–1 Corinthians 11:21 (NRSV)
“And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.”—Matthew 14:20 (NRSV)
Years ago, a faithful member of my congregation sidled up to me after Communion and cracked, “The service was great, but the portions were small.” I laughed. And then I didn’t.
So, let me ask, what’s up with equal-sized portions, little cubes of pre-cut bread, precisely measured thimblefuls of juice in identical, tiny cups? What’s up with strict Communion parity, exactly this much and no more for everyone, precisely the same?
You’d think we were on a group trip being served a set menu at a tourist trap instead of enjoying a homemade meal at the family table where you can eat as much as you want, according to your hunger, according to your delight.
St. Paul says that at the Lord’s Supper table no one should drink too much and get drunk, or eat too little and go hungry. But that doesn’t mean that everyone should be served exactly the same minimally calculated, pre-measured portions, which always tend to be small.
Now, to be sure, Jesus can convey his loving presence with us by any means at all, including one-inch square white bread cubes. His life will surely come to us even in shot glasses. And sometimes, like during a pandemic, we have no choice but to package him up in mass-produced, pre-proportioned containers, like a holy Keurig cup. It’s the necessary, safe, and prudent thing to do.
But when we have a choice?
When we have a choice, it might help to remember that Communion is a sign. Among other things, it discloses God’s generosity. It’s embodies God’s unrestrained impulse to feed, to feed abundantly and well, and to feed everyone without discrimination, holding nothing back. It enacts a divine justice that is not minimal, but maximal. With God, it’s not just enough for all, it’s always more.
If tiny elements are any indication of what we think justice is, the one who collected twelve baskets of leftovers after the crowds ate as much as they wanted might beg to differ.
Communities that get this will make sure there’s bread that looks and tastes like bread and flowing juice for all. There will be leftovers. They’ll gladly pass them around, too. Seconds and thirds for anyone who’s still hungry.
And we are always hungry. Everyone, so very hungry. Communities that get this will also give bread, wine, justice, and themselves away in the world, in very generous portions, with great service, and even greater joy.
_______
O Christ of Boundless Treasures
7.6.7.6.D
Words: Mary Luti
Tunes: WEST MAIN, ANDÚJAR, WEDLOCK (American/Lovelace)
In an interview on PBS a few years before she died, Julia Child said, “A country that is afraid of food should be ashamed of itself.” She was referring to the anxiety about healthy eating in America that has led us to put warning labels on things we formerly ate with a carefree spirit.
Now, Julia Child knows perfectly well that in this nation we suffer from a variety of serious conditions with strong connections to the sorts of things and how much of them we put in our mouths. She is not a foe of healthy eating or safe eating. What gets her goat are the exaggerated messages we get from every side that make us feel that if we fail to make just the right choice between 1% and 2% milk on our weekly run to the grocery store, we may have sealed the fate of our health forever.
Shopping under the weight of high moral responsibility puts a bit of a damper on the joy of cooking, to say the least. In Julia’s view, we are victims of a mostly manufactured ethic about eating that is making us unduly skittish about simple enjoyment—we are a country afraid of our food. So whenever Julia, with that naughty gleam in her eye, tosses great gobs of butter, gallons of thick white cream, and oceans of good red wine into some hard-to-pronounce French concoction, you can be sure it is not merely an act of obedience to the recipe; it is also an act of disobedience to the food police.
Now, I bring up Julia’s dismay only because, if I read John’s gospel correctly, I think Jesus would have been on Julia’s side.
In this short text from the sixth chapter of John, we confront some big claims and even bigger bewilderment. Jesus’ listeners are confused and angry that a man whose parents and birthplace everybody knows to be local seems now to be claiming that he came down from heaven—and that he can go right back up there again whenever he wants. And of course we modern listeners are probably as put off as that ancient audience seems to be by that icky business about eating his flesh and drinking his blood.
We know, of course, that John does not intend us to take such extreme sayings literally. In fact, if we do take them literally, John sees it as a sign that we don’t “get” Jesus at all, that we are relying too much on a human way of understanding. If we don’t get “behind” Jesus’ statement, into the deeper meaning, John says we aren’t listening with the Spirit. This is the same dynamic at work in an earlier episode, Jesus’ famous dead-of-night meeting with Nicodemus, who could not fathom how a person could go back into his mother’s womb and be born again, as Jesus said we must. John makes fun of that sort of common-sense literalism. He wants us to look deeper, to see beyond.
But when you look at the Greek words John chooses to talk about eating flesh and drinking blood in this story, you really do have to sympathize with the disgusted folk who backed away. He does not make it easy for them to assume Jesus has metaphorical intentions. He doesn’t write “eat,” he writes something more like “munch,” “chomp,” “gnaw.” This is gustosyntax, finger-licking vocabulary! It is meant to make the point inescapable — Jesus’ flesh is in some sense“real” food, his blood in some sense“real” drink. Jesus means to be “eaten” — no, devoured— in a decidedly undainty and very hungry fashion.
What is going on here?
Well, one way of approaching things is to look first at a normal-sounding verse we might pass right over in our reflexive disgust at the body and blood stuff, verse 59: “He said all these things while he was teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.”Ah, now we have a context! John places Jesus in a local town synagogue, preaching a sermon; and that means he’s got a text unrolled in front of him, going verse by verse, expounding its meaning, making applications, and engaging in back-and-forth disputation.
So, what text is Jesus teaching? We can’t know for sure, but because of all the references to Moses and manna in the desert in our gospel portion, it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine it was Exodus 16, in which the hunger and complaint of the Israelites was met by God with heavenly bread. The application Jesus makes of these verses is to himself. He says heis the bread that comes down from heaven. He says heis a new kind of sustenance for body, spirit, and the life of the world.
So far, so good. But what could be lost on us is yet another claim being made about Jesus in this scene. To hear that claim, we need to know that there is a tradition of Jewish interpretation that sees scripture itself, the Torah, the Law, as the reality behind the manna of Exodus 16. This tradition teaches that God was indeed feeding the people with bread in the wilderness, but it wasn’t just a wafer-like substance God was providing; it was in reality the holy Law, God’s very Word, the nourishing bread of God’s wisdom.
And how do you get that wisdom? Like the manna, you eat it up! Every day a little portion, because it doesn’t keep well and it won’t last if you leave it lying around. You learn divine wisdom daily, bit by bit, not only with your intellect, but also with your body. Like food, you ingest it, you ruminate on it, like a cow chewing its cud, letting it roll around in your mouth and swallowing slowly, luxuriously; and eventually you digest it so that it becomes part of you, life of your life, flesh of your flesh, blood of your blood.
“Day and night I ruminate upon your Law, O God,” says one of the psalms. “Your Law is like honey, sweet to the tongue,” says another. “O taste and see how good the Lord is,” another urges us. If John presents Jesus claiming to be food, claiming to be the manna, then Jesus is also claiming to be the Word, the Wisdom of God. And thus he invites everyone to eat him and drink him, to relishhim.
This same Wisdom shows up in Scripture in another guise too. She is personified in several Old Testament texts as a mother who builds a house for her children—everyone who wants to know her and live in her. And wouldn’t you know it? She sets a splendid table in that house, and then she goes out and calls to her children, “Come,” the scripture says, “Come from East and West, North and South! Eat my bread, drink my wine! Come to the feast I prepared for you!”
This is exactly what Jesus says in John 6: “Eat me and drink me, and you will know the endless, deep, soul-food-deliciousness of God!”
I suspect that all this may sound very odd, mystical and impossibly poetic to us modern American Liberal Protestant Christians who usually expect no more from Jesus and the Word than an ethic for living, a few guidelines to life’s big issues, and some inspiration for action in the world. But our ancestors looked for more. In Jesus’ life and teaching, in his person and work, and in his continued presence in the Spirit, they expected to taste yummy flavors, complex memorable textures, enjoyment and delight.
Our usual approach to Jesus and the Word is via the question and the doubt. Is it true? Can I believe this? We are cautious and measured, a little like the way Julia Child says we approach our food. Is this good for me? Will it harm me if I have an extra ounce of this or one more calorie of that? Are there trans-fatty acids in this passage?
We hang around the edges of Jesus, hang back on the outskirts of Wisdom, ready to peel off and back away when we reach the limit of our reason and our patience with things that seem odd to us. We are often among the first to leave when something in Jesus’ person or in God’s Word tests our assumptions about ourselves or threatens to alter our sense of the world.
You can see it in the way we typically study Scripture. We approach the Bible as an object of religious interest, at a cool objective distance. We ask a lot of historical, cultural and ethical questions of the texts, wanting to understand what they all mean. Not a bad thing, and in fact necessary. But we are rarely aggressively subjectiveabout our learning. We don’t yearn to live with, in and through Scripture. And even more rarely do we simply stand in grateful awe of it. We only seldom speak of lovingScripture, although our Puritan forebears did. They, like their Hebrew ancestors, also spoke of chewing on it, digesting it, licking up its sweet dripping edges as you would a double-dipped cone on a sweltering day.
And the same is true of the way our ancestors in the faith regarded Jesus. They believed that we are meant to eat the rich food and fine wine that he has proved to be for the empty and the thirsty; we are meant to enjoy the free banquet he has always been for the thankful and the poor in spirit; we are meant to feel the heady flush he can be for the lover of justice and the doer of good works.
We are meant to staywith him too, even when others are all telling us that we would be better off leaving him and going away. To stay with him, even though he is a hard person to stay with because he will not let us endlessly cultivate our fears and our skittishness and our carefully constructed and controlled diet of distancing doubts and questions. At some point he just looks at us and say, “It’s all right. Let your fears go. Eat and drink. Enjoy it, enjoy me, and be at peace.”
I will never forget the very first time I attended a Jewish service on the Sabbath, especially the moment they brought out the Torah to chanting and celebration. They danced the scrolls around the sanctuary so that everyone could touch their prayer shawls to them. They were joyfully greeting not some inert object filled with rules and regulations, not some dead letter or object of study.
No, it was not some old and interesting and very wise Book, but a livingthing, a gift of God to God’s people, the very Wisdom and presence of God, the joy of the community, their glory and crown. They danced it and sang it like people at a great feast who were done with the questions for the day and who were eager for, not afraid of, the food they were sitting down to enjoy.
And I envied my Jewish friends their ecstasy. I longed to dance in my sanctuary as they did, cradling in my arms the Torah, the prophets, the book of the Four Gospels — and even those vexing old letters of Paul. I longed to dance with the whole of Scripture, and with the great traditions of our faith, and with Jesus himself! To put the Wisdom of God and the Savior of my life under my head as I sleep at night, to eat them in the morning with my corn flakes, and to dream of it them in the heat of the day.
But I am a Congregationalist. Who and what could compel me to take Scripture and Jesus seriously enough, or to trust their truth enough to dance with them, to dream with them, and, of course!, to argue with them — but not in that cool, distancing way that says “Prove it!”, “Prove yourself!”, but in that intimate, tough, expectant and tender way that people who adore each other fight, always ready to yield, sooner or later, out of sheer love?
“I am bread and wine,” says Jesus. “I am realfood and drink. I am a body and a spirit. I am Life and Wisdom. I am here to make you hungry. I am to here be danced and devoured. Don’t go away! Come to me, come to the table of the Word, and stay with me! Stay with the Beloved Community where my own flesh and blood live and struggle and serve and learn and love. And at the table of faith, don’t be afraid of your food. Don’t nibble when you could chomp. Don’t sip daintily when you could slug it all down the hatch with gusto! Dance and play with your food, as God danced and played with me, Holy Wisdom, before the foundation of the world.”
Long live God, who feeds us; long live Jesus, our food; and long live Julia Child, who commanded us to eat, and never to be afraid!
Every country has a story about its beginnings that gives you a sense of that nation’s ideals. You know some of these stories. There was a reference to one in our first reading. The Exodus story—the one in which God acted powerfully to free the Israelites from Egypt and fashioned them into a people in the wilderness. By telling and re-telling this story, Jews learn that to be a Jew is to be a people saved from oppression, and therefore a people that must be engaged in repairing a world broken by tyranny.
The Roman Empire had a founding myth too—a story about twins fathered by Mars, the war god, who left them to die in the woods. A she-wolf found them and took them in. But when they grew up, they became bitter rivals. Remus was murdered by Romulus, who’d become powerful through warfare. Eventually the great city he established ruled the known world. Romans who heard this story learned to pride themselves on military might. They learned that to be a Roman meant never to shrink from the destruction of your rivals.
America has a founding story too. Nancy Taylor is the pastor of Old South Church in Boston. That’s the church of the patriots that gave us the original Boston Tea Party. When she was installed in 2005, Nancy’s sermon began with a re-telling of America’s origins. It’s probably apocryphal, but most origin stories, are, so… here’s what she said:
As you know, the Pilgrims … were aiming for Virginia when they were blown off course into these northerly waters. Although they were not where they had hoped to be, and the climate was much colder than they liked, their need to drop anchor was urgent. As their journal entries attest, they were running dangerously low on an indispensable provision—beer. So if you look at it in a certain light, you can see that this whole endeavor—the ‘New World,’ the Colonies, the Declaration of Independence, American democracy—it all began as a beer run.
I didn’t learn that beer-run story in school. l learned another story, that the Pilgrims came to America for religious freedom. Here they built a shining city on a hill, a beacon of hope to the world that became a nation of unique and superior virtue with a sacred responsibility to extend our aspirations to other nations. The story I learned set our country apart from other countries. It conveyed the conviction that America was exceptional.
Now, there’s a lot of truth in this idea of an exceptional America. America’s idealsarea unique gift to the world. Even our enemies acknowledge that here, against the odds, we have shaped a civilization that is freer, more enterprising, and more socially and politically dynamic than any the world has ever known.But our story also has sorrowful downsides—slavery and racism, manifest destiny, jingoistic nationalism, economic selfishness, disastrous military adventures, periodic spasms of fear and hatred of the outsider, especially the immigrant.
Our foundational self-understanding is dicey in another way too. From the start most Americans have believed that our preeminent position in the world is divinely ordained. America is on an errand for God. Many Christians in America sincerely believe that an ardent patriotism is basic not just to citizenship, but also to Christian faith.
I did a survey of church websites around the 4thof July a few years ago. Turns out that many churches begin their services with a parade of American flags. There are sermons in support of the wars and great reverence expressed for ‘the ultimate sacrifice.’ One congregation heard a sermon entitled, ‘God, the Greatest American.’ I imagine that many people left worship more persuaded than ever that to pledge allegiance to America is to pledge allegiance to Jesus, and to stand up for Jesus is to stand up for our country. The founding story of America has given rise to a vision of America not only as an exceptional nation, but also as a Christian nation. We gather around a cross-draped in the Stars and Stripes.
Jesus, meanwhile, pledged allegiance only to God. At least that’s the way I read the gospels. He taught that loyalty to God did not mean standing apart from others. It meant standing in solidarity with them. It didn’t put you above other people, it put you alongside them, especially in their pain. And that’s why for Jesus, allegiance to God demanded that he align himself daringly with the poor, the hungry, the imprisoned, the sick, the stranger, and the weak.
The gospels show me a savior who was singularly unconcerned with singularity. He was concerned with commonality—with shaping a beloved community. He didn’t care much for privilege; he didn’t cling to his own. And he knew all too well the brutality of a great empire that regarded itself as the best and most virtuous nation the world had ever known. The banner of Rome demanded Jesus’ allegiance, but he refused to bend his knee to its pride and violence. That may have cost him his life.
Now, I love my country, and I love the Fourth of July. I intend to celebrate today with a reading of the Declaration of Independence and fifty hot dogs, one for each State! Well, maybe thirteen for the original colonies. I will contemplate and give thanks for the America that was and is; but I also plan to contemplate and pray for the country we might have been, and the country we still could be.
One thing I’m going to ponder is what our country might have been like today if our foundational story had been the beer run story, not the exceptionalism story. What we would be like as citizens if we’d all been taught from our childhoods that we became a people when we were running low on life’s necessities? That we are simply a nation of people with ordinary and urgent needs, like all other peoples of the world. A people with a mighty thirst, hoping to find the means to quench it.
If the beer run had been our founding story, instead of the one that says we are different from everyone else and better than all others, maybe we would have grown up more alert to our kinship with the majority of the peoples on this planet who, among other things, have no reliable water to drink.
Maybe if we’d seen ourselves all along as having arisen from an effort to satisfy the same basic needs everyone else has; if we had understood our unity with all who thirst—for dignity, for justice, for well-being and happiness—maybe we would always have acted wisely and decisively to ensure that basic commodities and the freedom that comes from mutual respect are always abundantly available to all. Maybe instead of our tendency to place ourselves apart and above, we would habitually have stood shoulder to shoulder with the orphan, the widow, the stranger, and the enemy, as our scripture readings today emphatically command us to do.
I don’t know which patriotic songs you’ll be singing in honor of our freedoms today, but between the hot dog course and the watermelon, I plan to belt out every last annoying verse of ‘Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall.’ And I plan to down a few.
Now, beer-drinking is not something I can or should encourage you to do, especially if you’re not 21 or can’t drink safely. But I do hope you will have a Fourth of July filled with a clear-eyed and chastened love of country, and with ardent prayers for our leaders, as the Bible commands.
And I hope you will also take a moment to pray for the profound conversion of all Americans—of you and me—to a resolute path of justice, solidarity, and peace in a world where everyone else loves their country too.
And in this spirit I freely say—and mean it with all my heart—‘God bless America.’
Sicut Locutus Est 