Sermon

Nationhood

by The Very Rev. Terry White, Dean

In an Independence Day homily at St. Margaret’s Church, Little Rock, a few years ago, Dr. Mary Donovan said:

One of my earliest memories of grade school was standing in my first grade class, reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag each morning. Standing beside our desks with our hands over our hearts, we repeated the words that our teacher Miss Lang called out. “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

 I don’t know when it was that I actually learned what allegiance meant or what a republic was—or even when our class began to say the words without Miss Lang’s prompting—but I do remember the feeling that I and my class were somehow a part of something much bigger and more important than us, yet something that each of us had a tiny bit of ownership in—Our Country, Our Nation, “indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

(A postscript—Dr Donovan was in first grade prior to Congress in 1954 adding the words “under God” to the pledge of allegiance. But, she writes, we didn’t need the words, “under God”. We knew it was a holy moment—we knew the Almighty was involved.)

She goes on to say: I’ve gone back to the first grade because I’m trying to figure out what it is we really celebrate on the Fourth of July. What is a nation? How is it born and shaped? What does it mean to pledge allegiance? To be a patriot? How do we teach our children about patriotism?  Our Bible readings today remind us again how much of our understanding of nationhood is based on the Hebrew vision of Israel.

Isaiah calls the people of Israel to rejoice with Jerusalem. As the Hebrew people obey God, Jerusalem will be blessed by God to be a nurturing mother, prosperity will flow like a river, and the people will flourish like the grass.

The Psalmist exhorts: Be joyful in God, all you lands, sing the glory of his Name; sing the glory of his praise. Bless our God, you peoples, make the voice of his praise to be heard.

Our concept of nation is based upon allegiance to Almighty God as King of Kings and to God’s vision found in the Law, the prophets, and in Jesus’ life and teachings. The pledge of allegiance’s commitment to liberty and justice for all could well be based on the prophet Micah alone: “So now, oh Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with our God.” 

Dr. Donovan continues (and I have done little editing of her words from this point on):

This ideal of nationhood was in the minds of the Puritans when they first set foot on the American shore. Their governor, John Winthrop, urged the new settlers to create a “City set on a Hill” that would demonstrate God’s justice and mercy to all the world. And in the next two centuries, as more and more people found their way to this new land, the ideal of a commonwealth, a community shaped by God’s requirement for justice and mercy, continued to inspire the new residents. It fell to the leaders of the American Revolution to transform this biblical idea of nationhood into reality. And that task required extraordinary efforts on the part of our founders. Let me flesh out those efforts by looking briefly at just two of those founders—John and Abigail Adams.

When the fighting began at Lexington and Concord in 1775, the Adams were living in Braintree, MA, a little more than an hour’s horseback ride from central Boston.

He was forty, she was thirty-one. They had four children, ranging from Abby, age ten, to Thomas who was not quite three. Living on a small farm, the Adams raised their own vegetables, kept chickens and sheep and produced cider from their own apple trees. In the previous decade, John had continued to ply his trade as a lawyer in Boston, but as the British seized control of the city, John’s legal practice evaporated.

Interestingly, it was as a lawyer that he was first involved in the growing rebellion. Five years before, after the event known as the Boston Massacre, John Adams agreed to defend the British soldiers who had fired into the mob, killing five men. Though his sentiments were already with the patriot’s cause, he steadfastly held that even the unpopular Redcoats deserved a fair trial. Most scholars agree that it was Adams’ eloquent defense that led to the acquittal of Captain Preston and seven of his soldiers.

In 1774, after the British closed Boston Harbor in response to the Boston Tea Party, Adams was elected as one of the five Massachusetts delegates to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Before he left for Philadelphia, one of his best friends, Jonathan Sewall, tried to persuade him not to go— warning that Adams would be destroyed by the irresistible power of Great Britain. “Swim or sink, live or die, survive or perish, [I am] with my country . . . You may depend on it, “ was Adams’ reply. (1)    John Adams spent the next five months in Philadelphia, working with representatives of the other colonies trying to draft some kind of a unified response to the British.

Meanwhile, at home, Abigail kept house, managed the farm, prepared lessons for their older children, and kept track of John’s mother who lived nearby—and still found time to write long letters to John keeping him abreast of conditions in Boston.

This first separation set the living pattern for the Adams for the remainder of the war years. In the 15 years between 1774 when John Adams was first elected to the Continental Congress and 1789 when he was chosen vice-president of the United States, John spent a total of less than two years at home in Massachusetts. The family did have about three years together in Europe as John served first as peace commissioner and then as ambassador to England. But for most of ten years they were apart. John wrangled with committees, negotiated with foreign ministers and economic advisors from many countries and engineered endless compromises and agreements. Abigail planted the crops and tended the farm, educated the children, nursed them when sick and tried to steer them through the romantic crises of early adulthood.

Their rich correspondence makes it evident that both partners chafed under the separations. In 1778, when after four years of service with the Continental Congress, John was appointed to the peace commission in Paris, Abigail wrote imploringly, “Can I . . . consent to be separated from him whom my Heart esteems above all earthly things, and for an unlimited time? My life will be one continued scene of anxiety and apprehension, and must I cheerfully comply with the Demand of my Country?” (2)

On their 18th wedding anniversary, she poured her heart out to her absent husband, lamenting, “Who shall give me back Time? Who shall compensate to me those years I cannot recall?” (3)

In a return letter, noting they had been apart for over three years, John wrote, “I must go to you or you must come to me. I cannot live, in this horrid Solitude, which it is to me, amidst Courts, Camps and Crowds.”(4)   And yet even after she agreed to take the transatlantic journey to be with him, it took over a year before they were reunited.

Abigail and John Adams present us with a complex model of patriotism. Today we seem to be defining the word “patriot” rather narrowly. In his movie, Mel Gibson becomes the Patriot when he picks up his musket to shoot at the British. We call a missile the Patriot because it destroys the enemy. We use Patriot as a title for a legislative act that gives the government great power to “deter and punish terrorists.”

Patriotism is more complex. It is focused more on creating, building and strengthening life which flows from liberty and justice. It is the work of an entire nation, a people committed to a common vision. John and Abigail Adams both worked at tasks that would build community. Abigail sheltered and fed refugees from the fighting in Boston. John wrote and haggled and spoke and negotiated to ensure that the new nation would be based on principles of justice. They sacrificed their life together and their financial wellbeing to the creation of this new nation. And they knew what they were trying to build—“one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Our Baptismal Covenant calls us to seek and serve Christ in all people, loving our neighbors as ourselves, to strive for justice and peace among all people, and to respect the freedom and dignity of every human being.  Jesus sends us out today to be heralds of this good news.

As we think today about what our nation should be and could become through the hard work of each of us, we can do no better than to read John’s letter to Abigail the day after the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence:

 “Yesterday, the greatest question was decided that was ever debated in America. . . . . A resolution was passed, without one dissenting colony, ‘That these United States are, and of right ought to be free and independent states.’ . . . The 4th of July, 1776, will be a memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to Almighty God.

It ought to be solemnized with pomp, shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of the continent to the other, from this time forward, forever.

You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil, and blood, and treasure, that it will cost to maintain this declaration, and support and defend these states; yet through all the gloom, I can see the rays of light and glory.“

As we consider Abigail and John Adams’ sacrifice, and seek to follow John advice and continue with solemn acts of devotion to Almighty God, let us never forget that our model is a nation of liberty and justice and pledge ourselves to the hard work of seeing that both are preserved in this land.

Homily by Dr. Mary Donovan, St. Margaret’s Church, Little Rock. AK, June 30, 2005 http://www.stmargaretschurch.org/view/41 (Scroll down for a link to a PDF of the sermon.)

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1 David McCullough, John Adams, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001) 71.
2 Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), 95.
3 Ibid., 136.
4 Ibid., 138.

© Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral