Minister Moment: Celebration and Repentance - July 5th, 2026

Sunday after Sunday, we gather here, and one of the things I think we’re doing when we worship, listen to scripture, pray, sing, and listen to sermons is reminding ourselves how to be in the world, but not of the world. We come to remind ourselves how to look through the lens of our faith at the world we’ve been born into and which continues to turn on and on, doing many things that we wish would be otherwise, and which are very much out of our control. 

Jesus was very much in the world during his 33 years on earth. And yet he was not of this world⚊although at the same time you could make an argument that he was absolutely of this world, and the world was of him, and he was equally of heaven. 

So, considering that we humans are very much in the world even though we seek to look at it through the lens of heaven, I do want to talk a bit about the 250th anniversary of our country, or more specifically, of the signing of the Declaration of Independence today. 

In Matthew 5, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells those listening, "when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.” 

I admit that big anniversaries are sometimes fraught for me because pure celebration never tells the whole story. Here we are celebrating 250 years since the signing of the declaration of independence, and we, as a nation, cannot - or at least should not - lift up only our achievements without naming the harm that has taken place in the name of the United States of America and our government, and those in power within our country⚊and ignore who has been harmed, how harm has occurred, and where harm continues to occur along the way. 

As the Black liberationist writer James Baldwin said, “I love America more than any other country in the world, and for exactly this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” 

The passage from Matthew 5 about making amends and seeking reconciliation seems appropriate to lift up alongside what we just read from the book of Acts, which reminds us that God sees all of us as beloved children, regardless of our nationality or our citizenship or where we reside today. God looks on each of God's creations through a different lens - one of unconditional positive regard of the Creator with the created - not one that prioritizes national borders and power and prestige and earthly wealth.

So, if we are leaving our gift of only whooping and hollering in celebration, and we are seeking to reconcile – also, of course, knowing that we can't reconcile until we admit our wrongs – then what wrongs might we admit? And especially for Christians, how do we identify, admit, and hopefully ask forgiveness for these wrongs, and then go forward with changed ways? Can we look with clear eyes at the way in which Christianity and conquest and colonization have been intertwined in the development and governance of our nation and continue to affect how many Americans act today? 

Many of us believe our country is great, and we were taught to believe it's the greatest country on earth, but we might become disillusioned when we learn about all the harm that was done in the name of building this great nation. Starting back before Christopher Columbus sailed for our shores, papal bulls were issued: in the words of Professor Philip P. Arnold, Professor of Religion at Syracuse University, these papal bulls “gave sanction to Christian monarchs to seize lands, goods and [to enslave] non-Christian people beginning in West Africa, and then eventually around the world for the purposes of creating an empire [of] Christendom.” These papal bulls were codified into the doctrine of discovery in 1823 by a US Supreme Court decision - John vs. M’Intosh. These papal bulls laid the groundwork for Americans in power to continue to operate under the legal agreement - agreed upon as surely as by the highest court in the land - that when Christians enter the lands of non-Christian people, those lands are automatically deeded to the sponsoring nation state. 

The theology of conquest that led to the violent actions of explorers who set out with the intention of conquering indigenous lands is a part of our history that we need to reckon with. This theology of conquest led to land theft, forced conversions of indigenous people to Christianity - all the way to the development of boarding schools for Native American children beginning in the 1860s until the last one finally closed in 1996. This same perspective, as mentioned earlier, led to the development of the transatlantic slave trade and forced chattel slavery of so many stolen human beings from the shores of West Africa to build out our budding nation from 1619 until its official abolishment in 1865. 

When I lived in Hawaii, I saw the legacy of the interplay between capitalism and Christian missions - the spread of the faith but also of lucrative industry that required forced labor, and the way that Christianity was used as a tool of control and judgment instead of upliftment and liberation.

Most of us know intellectually that the United States was not founded to be a Christian nation, but I think even today we progressive Christians need to admit that we may have been raised with a covert or even overt belief that the US is favored by God - a Christian God - over other nations. I know as a young person, I can definitely remember the suggestion - or even belief - that Christianity should have preferential treatment and rights and privileges above other religions in the United States of America. There are plenty of people who would say, “Of course! How could you even suggest otherwise?” White Christian Nationalists suggest that we absolutely should be a Christian nation, by which they also mean that we should have a Christian government or theocracy. Most of us balk at this now, thankfully, and preserve space for the flourishing of other religions and no religion, but we also know that there are many people who currently have a lot of power who would like to require Christianity to be our state religion. On its surface, this might not seem like such a bad thing, except that we know how power can be wielded when it is held by only a select few, and the way that what may seem to be based in goodness and love can be warped to be a tool of judgment and violence when it is forced. 

Just yesterday, we saw hundreds of masked men with the white nationalist group Patriot Front marching in Washington, DC, carrying American flags and Confederate flags, chanting “Life, liberty, victory” and “Reclaim America.” Reclaim America from whom? 

This activity and language is appalling, but in some ways it is not surprising, given our nation’s beginnings. I would put to you that it is the job of those of us who are progressive, inclusive, and TRULY in favor of liberty FOR ALL to make sure that in counter action to those who are wanting to retract and exclude, we continue to build a longer table instead of sitting idly by when others want to build a higher wall. It is our job to reframe what seems to be a White American impulse to decide that only European descendents truly belong, and others are here to be of service or to labor or to be subjugated. 

In his speech, What, to the Slave, is the Fourth of July? Frederick Douglass speaks out against the Fugitive Slave Law, which allowed slaves who had escaped from the South to be captured in the northern states, and forbade anyone from providing them with safe harbor. Douglass says that by this law, “the power to hold, hunt, and sell men, women and children, as slaves, remains no longer a mere state institution, but is now an institution of the whole United States. The power is co-extensive with the star-spangled banner, and American Christianity. Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter.”

Douglass goes on to say, “I take this law to be one of the grossest infringements of Christian Liberty, and, if the churches and ministers of our country were not stupidly blind, or most wickedly indifferent, they, too, would so regard it. At the very moment that they are thanking God for the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, and for the right to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences, they are utterly silent in respect to a law which robs religion of its chief significance, and makes it utterly worthless to a world lying in wickedness. 

The fact that the church of our country, 

(with fractional exceptions,) does not esteem “the Fugitive Slave Law” as a declaration of war against religious liberty, implies that that church regards religion simply as a form of worship, an empty ceremony, and not a vital principle, requiring active benevolence, justice, love and good will towards man. It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. A worship that can be conducted by persons who refuse to give shelter to the houseless, to give bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and who enjoin obedience to a law forbidding these acts of mercy, is a curse, not a blessing to mankind.” 

Douglass goes on to praise England for its swifter termination of the slave trade and redress of those affected by it - even though America declared its Independence from Great Britain in 1776, by the mid-1800s, America itself was more of the oppressor than its parent nation. He writes: “You declare, before the world, and are understood by the world to declare, that you “hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal; and are endowed by their Creator with certain, inalienable rights; and that, among these are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”; and yet, you hold securely, in a bondage, which according to your own Thomas Jefferson, “is worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose,” a seventh part of the inhabitants of your country.” 

After these scathing words, Douglass ends with hope, which is what I also want to do today. The premises upon which our country was founded are inconsistent - from the moments that conquerors arrived on the Atlantic shores with the intent to colonize the 

land, domination of those already living here was the plan. And yet the ideals written into the Declaration of Independence are still such worthy ideals. As Rev. Adam Russell Taylor, the editor of Sojourners magazine, says, “‘Liberty and justice for all’ is still an ideal worth celebrating.”

As we celebrate, let us hold all this history, the weight of it, the pain of it - in tension with the glory of it so that we don’t simply whitewash our history and forget those who were trampled by it. 

Before we make our gift at the altar, let us reckon with these facts from the years gone by as well as with the awful deeds still being done in the name of this so-called liberty which does not liberate. Let us continue to pursue the ideals that we hold dear, speaking out against injustice, siding with the oppressed, seeking liberation for all. Then, as we celebrate, we know that we are seeing with clear eyes, that we have hope for the future, that all human beings may continue to be lifted up and nurtured to thrive, to live into their highest potential, no matter who they are! Let us celebrate AND repent, commemorate AND confess, applaud AND repair. Let our joy and patriotism have integrity, knowing that we are also reckoning with the harm done by our nation and our religion. May God bless us as we look forward to all that is to come, for all the ways we may continue to mend the tears in the fabric of our nation and our faith. Amen.