We are an aspirational people. In our nation we pledge to the ideal of liberty and justice for all and in our church we promise to respect the dignity of every human being.

And every day we listen to the breaking news of how far we have yet to go before that pledge is a reality. And every day we pray for the wisdom, the strength and the courage to keep that promise.

And … it is no coincidence that those two core values echo each other so closely.

Both the United States and the Episcopal Church were forged out of the crucible of the American Revolution … with some of the architects of our Constitution moonlighting as authors of the first Book of Common Prayers of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America … ratified in — wait for it — Philadelphia in 1789.

We are an aspirational people. And our aspirations are rooted deep in the soil of both revolution and transformation

To be an American traditionalist is to affirm the revolution that isn’t finished yet. To be an Episcopalian traditionalist is to affirm the ongoing work of the Spirit calling us forward into God’s future.

These words from the preface of our prayer book — ratified in 1789 — are the foundation on which our particular faith tradition is built … a tradition that has from its inception celebrated diversity and made elbow room for the ongoing work of the Spirit:

It is a most invaluable part of that blessed “liberty wherewith Christ
hath made us free,” that in his worship different forms and usages may
without offence be allowed, provided the substance of the Faith be kept
entire; and that, in every Church, what cannot be clearly determined to
belong to Doctrine must be referred to Discipline; and therefore, by
common consent and authority, may be altered, abridged, enlarged,
amended, or otherwise disposed of, as may seem most convenient for the
edification of the people, “according to the various exigency of times and
occasions.”

And these words from author, historian and journalist James Carroll remind us that the grand American Experiment is likewise an aspirational ideal — an audacious goal — that we have not yet achieved and continue to grow into:

America began… as a half-formed and rough idea, but that idea became
the meaning against which all life in this country has been measured ever since …
an idea summarized in the brilliant cliché of the Fourth of July: “All men are created
equal.” That the idea is dynamic, propelling a permanent social transformation,
is evident even in the way that word “men” strikes the ear as anachronistic now.
That Jefferson and the others were not thinking of women matters less than the
fact that they established a principle that made the full inclusion of women inevitable.

As a woman, I feel called to note that the full inclusion our brother James calls “inevitable” has yet to be realized — and yet we are on the journey. We know that after 243 years we are still miles away from reaching that goal.

We know that we are not yet a nation where liberty and justice for all is reality for everyone. Indeed, the last few years have set us back rather than moving us forward in the struggle to make that dream a reality.

Nevertheless, we persist … because we are an aspirational people.

And … the struggle is real.

Part of that struggle is that the very freedom God has given us — as a nation, as a church and as individuals – comes with the challenge to use that freedom responsibly … not just for ourselves, but for the whole human family.

As a nation, the freedom we enjoy was bought for us by those who went before: our founding fathers and mothers who had the courage and vision to imagine a nation “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all people are created equal.”

Just as we continue to build a nation where liberty and justice for all is not just a pledge but a reality, we continue to build a church where the Good News of God’s love is truly available to all – even in these challenging times when it seems we can hardly keep up with the “breaking news” that keeps breaking our hearts.

News of children in cages at our borders and news that our constitutional democracy is under siege; news that women’s reproductive freedom is being taken away an inch at a time and news that tanks and fighter planes are being exploited as props for partisan politics; news that white supremacy is on the rise and news that the ticking clock of climate change is being dismissed by those with the power to make changes before it is literally too late to save the planet.

It can all seem so overwhelming and impossible.

And yet we belong to a God who tells us over and over again that nothing is impossible. And we follow a Lord who loved us enough to become one of us to show us how to love one another. Even the people we’re not interested in loving. From today’s gospel:

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Let the love you extend be full just as the love God extends is full.

C.S. Lewis expanded on that core Gospel value with this reminder: “You have never talked to a mere mortal … your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.”

Your neighbor.
All your neighbors.

The ones you like and the ones you don’t.
The ones you agree with and the ones you are convinced are as wrong as they think you are.
The Boomers, the Millennials, the GenXers and the ones who fall into any of the other generational buckets it is increasingly fashionable to swing about as blunt instruments to beat each other up with.

Not a mere mortal among them.
Every last one of them as beloved by the God who created them as you are.
No exceptions.
No asterisk that reads *some restrictions apply.

Imagine just for a minute what the world would be like if we declared independence from all the lies we’re told about each other and embraced this truth Jesus came to proclaim.

Yes, it’s a tall order. But Jesus also said “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me — for my yoke is easy and my burden is light” — words of promise that there is nothing we have to bear by ourselves: nothing too heavy for Jesus to bear with us.

“Come to me.”

On this weekend when we celebrate the aspirational values of liberty and justice for all, Jesus’ words echo these words that are enshrined on the Statue of Liberty:

• Give me your tired, your poor,
• Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
• The wretched refuge of your teeming shore.
• Send these the homeless, tempest tossed, to me.
• I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Words of welcome. Of invitation. Of hope. Of healing. Just as the words on our Statue of Liberty remind us who we are when we live up to our American ideals the words of our Lord of Love remind us who we are when we live up to the ideals he calls us to as Christians.

And he reminds us of the freedom we find – not in a place, but in a Person – in the One who guides us, strengthens us, feeds us, sustains us for the struggle.

We are an aspirational people — it is this community of faith that equips, empowers and sustains us to live out those aspirations in our beautiful and broken world. In a moment, we will gather once again around this altar to be fed by the bread and wine made holy — to celebrate the freedom we’ve been given in Christ and then — nourished by word and sacrament — we will go out and do the work we’ve been given to do:

To respect the dignity of every human being.
To love not just our neighbors but our enemies.
To work to be a nation where liberty and justice for all is not just a pledge we make … but a reality we live.

Amen.

Sermon preached on Sunday, July 7, 2019 by Susan Russell at All Saints Church in Pasadena.