During my recent trip to Scandinavia,
I visited the home of composer Edvard Grieg in Bergen, Norway. While I was
there, I enjoyed a piano concert of Grieg’s music. It was a real treat for a
music lover like me! Norwegians say that Grieg’s music embodies the soul of
Norway. That’s because Grieg was a master at capturing experiences in his
music. His quiet, lyrical pieces recall the sunlight falling on the long-awaited,
first green grass of spring. The low, deep chords in some of his compositions
reflect the mysterious depth of the fjords, as well as the darkness that covers
Norway during their long, cold winters. And when you listen to his composition
“In the Hall of the Mountain King,” you can’t fail to picture the fabled trolls
of Norway frolicking in their mountaintop caves with their knit hats and their long
beards. From a spring morning to the gloom of a mountain cave, Grieg
captured it all.
It got me to wondering: what music
embodies the soul of our United States? We have a huge country to capture! What
music reflects all of that? We might choose the music of the American west. When
we sing “Home on the Range,” we remember the independent pioneers who helped to
settle the West; and when we listen to Grofé’s “Grand Canyon Suite,” we picture the vastness of
one of our grandest natural wonders. But we might choose something very
different: the music of Stephen Foster, for example. We hear “Way down upon the
Suwanee River,” and we think of the Old South with its plantations and cotton
fields. The world-renowned Kentucky Derby always plays one of Stephen Foster’s
compositions, “My Old Kentucky Home,” just before the horses begin to race. Other
folks would say that we can’t forget our cities; and they might choose the
music of George Gershwin: “Rhapsody in Blue,” perhaps. Its wailing clarinet and
syncopated rhythms reflect both the sophistication and the quirkiness of New
York City. And on the Fourth of July, surely we would all agree that the
marches of John Philip Sousa capture the soul of an America that is afraid of
nothing! Who can hear “The Stars and Stripes Forever” without getting a few
goose bumps of pride that we are Americans?
There are lots of choices when we
think about music that embodies the soul of our nation. We’ll probably never agree
on just one; and that’s OK, because we are a vast, diverse nation both in natural
resources and in our people! But whatever the soul of our nation may be, no one
can dispute that the church of Jesus Christ has helped to make it what it is. Christians
are, and have always been at the heart of the political entity that we call the
United States. We Christians are not a political group, but “a royal
priesthood, a holy nation… the people of God” (I Peter 2:9-12). The church of
Jesus Christ has always influenced our nation for good. Our own soul – the soul
of a church that is loyal to Jesus Christ above anything else – has helped to
shape our national soul into something that we can point to with pride. Here’s
what I mean.
The United States is one of the most
generous nations in the world. If you consider how many of our citizens donate
money to a charity, volunteer their time, or offer help to complete strangers,
we rank 5th in generosity in
the world! That figure was generated by the World Giving Index and published
by the Charities Aid Foundation after a survey of 195,000 people in 153
countries worldwide. That generosity didn’t just appear. It is a result of our
Christian heritage that has taught us to help others. We all know the story of
the Good Samaritan who stopped to help a stranger in need (Luke 10:25-37); and
we take that story seriously. We donate our money, our time and our possessions;
and our generosity has worked its way into the soul of our country. I, for one,
am proud that it has.
There’s something else that makes me
proud: the fact that our country considers all people to be equal under the
law. We all know what the Declaration of Independence says: We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness. It sounds very much like the book of Galatians that says:
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor
female, for all are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). We Christians don’t
believe that anybody is better than anybody else. A white man who is the CEO of
a Wall Street investment firm is no better than a poor black girl who lives in
the inner city. God created all people equally in his image. Now, we don’t always
do very well in putting that into practice. It’s easy to fall into the trap
that “we” are better than “they” are, especially in this day when Americans are
divided and disagree on so many things! But throughout our history, Americans
have fought for the rights of not just a few, but everyone; and I am proud of
that.
We Americans have a long tradition of
hospitality, too. We have welcomed millions of immigrants over the 241 years of
our history! They have come from England, Ireland, and Wales; from Germany,
Denmark, and Norway; from Italy and Greece and Russia; from India and Laos and Cambodia;
from Syria and Lebanon and Jordan; and I haven’t even begun to name all the
countries in Africa that were home to millions of slaves who were brought here
against their will! We are a country of people who originally came from
someplace else; and America has always welcomed those strangers. Inside the
base of the Statue of Liberty is a plaque containing a poem by Emma Lazarus.
I’ll bet that you are familiar with its final lines:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
That’s what we do, we Americans, we
welcome people; and that hospitality is part of our Christian heritage, too. The
book of Hebrews gives us this advice: “Do not forget to show hospitality to
strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without
knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2). We are a country whose arms have always been open
wide to welcome those people who needed a welcome the most; and I am proud
of that.
Generosity, equality, hospitality. We
Christians helped to put these virtues into the soul of America. Since our
country was founded, they have been part of the cornerstone of who we are and
how we do things. They are so much a part of our country that we take them for
granted! But we Christians can’t stop proclaiming them; and here’s why. Some
Americans are still greedy. They are like the main character in the 1987 movie Wall Street who believed that “Greed is
good.” We Christians need to keep proclaiming generosity. Some Americans are
still prejudiced. They look down on anyone who isn’t just like they are,
whether those people are women, homosexuals, or people of color; and they want
the laws of our land to reflect their prejudices. We Christians need to keep proclaiming
equality. And some Americans are afraid. Because they are afraid, they want to
close our borders to people who aren’t just like we are. Is it protection of
our own citizens or prejudice against foreigners? I don’t know the answer to
that, and time will sort it out; but I do know that in our global society, we
Christians need to keep proclaiming hospitality.
Our country isn’t perfect. But with
God’s help – and with our Christian witness – it can get better! On this Fourth
of July holiday, as we celebrate our independence and everything that it means
to us, I invite you to pray for our country; and then to think seriously about
what we can do to make it better. Remember the words of John F. Kennedy, “Ask
not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
It’s what we’re called to do, as good citizens – and as good Christians.
No comments:
Post a Comment