FIREWORKS IN AMERICA! A Sermon by Reverend Lynn Strauss Fourth of July fireworks are an American tradition that comes around every year, no matter how loudly or softly Freedom has rung throughout the land in the year since our last display of civic pride. Sometimes the Fourth can feel a lot like Christmas it can have us wishing we were children again, innocent celebrators of a story, whose symbols were colorful and exciting; young players in a story whose deeper meanings didn t really concern us kids much. We could simply enjoy the tinsel, or the sparklers, the reindeer or the marching band. There s a lot to love about celebrating the birth of our nation and our principled commitment to freedom. Patriotism has a definite allure, it reminds us that we are part of something larger than ourselves. It makes us feel we belong. Our family lived for ten years in the village of Oak Park, Illinois, an intentionally diverse middle class community with good schools and strong citizen involvement. Perhaps a bit like Rockville, or the small town where you grew up. Our kids loved the Fourth of July celebration in Oak Park. Everyone would walk to the high school where the fireworks display drew hundreds of families. We would throw down our blankets elbow to elbow and knee to knee with our neighbors.
All the kids ran freely amid the crowd, yelling and trying not to step on the smaller children. Patriotic music playing over the loud speaker. As the sun descended, anticipation rose things quieted, and the kids found their way back to their family blankets. Everyone settled down, passed around the bug spray, put earphones over the babies ears; and the youngest children, a little afraid of strangers and loud booming noise, tried to look brave. As the first rockets flew overhead and burst into color and light we all looked up. Looking up into the evening sky, is, I think, a primal human impulse. We look up at majestic trees just as our ancestors did in the forest. We look up at billowing clouds and at menacing ones too just as our ancestors did on the plains. We look up at the sunset and the stars as humans have done since the beginning of time. Now, we also look up at planes flying low overhead. And we look up at fireworks. Wherever we may be, we strain to see what is happening in the vast sky in that blue yonder in that darkening night sky in that place of mystery and wonder. There is a paradox in these experiences beneath the embrace of the night sky. We feel both connected to a beyond in a wondrous experience of intimacy and at the same time, we feel small and alone, dwarfed by the bigness of it all. If we are open to it, we stand under the night sky connected to both the
most intimate and most ultimate of reality. If we are openhearted, we know we are both larger than we can imagine and merely a small, but precious part of creation. Yet, sometimes we resist the experience of intimacy and ultimacy, sometimes we resist the pomp and circumstance of July 4 th. There are years we sit on the blanket or the lawn chair we look up at the fireworks and we don t feel a thing. We don t feel connected, we don t feel big or small, we simply are there...wishing we were somewhere else. At times we find ourselves resisting awe and wonder. We fight to resist the primal urge to look up. We resist the hum of the crowd the aah that rises spontaneously with each burst of light and color. Fireworks in America can give us goosebumps or it can leave us cold. Maybe those are the moments we wish we were innocent children again maybe those are the times we feel a deep loss, a sense of something missing perhaps we feel empty because we aren t sure if we love our country enough, we re just not feeling patriotic enough, we re not sure if we have been a good enough citizen or perhaps we feel our country has let us down Maybe this is the year that the aspirations of the holiday, have withered and we are ashamed of our politicians, troubled by the tone of public discourse, angry at the inequality and
injustice that still haunts the land. We are raw with the awareness of lives lost, of needs unmet, of people in America suffering yes, there is suffering throughout the land of the free. Perhaps we too are struggling and hurt by systems of oppression, perhaps we have been scarred by racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia perhaps we have been excluded from the American dream, left out of the promise of those spacious skies. Maybe this is the year we look up and wonder why we don t feel so proud of our country. From the beginning of time, human beings have formed tribes, stayed close to kin, organized themselves through association with others. For our species, this primal urge to stay with those who are most like us has been a successful survival strategy. None of us can thrive entirely on our own. Maybe we can bowl alone, but we cannot live out our lives in isolation. We need the company of others. We need to feel we belong. We need to protect, care for, and companion one another. For we know our lives depend on it our lives depend on others. And so, Krista Tippett asks, How do we live together in this moment in history? And John Inazu asks, How do we thrive
through Deep Difference in the pluralistic world in which we find ourselves? On this 4 th of July eve, how do we live out our lives as citizens of these United States of America? How do we find meaning and pride in the celebration of freedom symbolized by firework displays from sea to sea? For I want us to feel pride in America. I want us to feel pride in our state, in our county, and in our city. I want to look up and see the American flag flying not over the used car lot, but over our civic buildings, over our halls of government, over our schools, and I want to feel proud to be an American. When the marching band begins, when the national anthem is sung, when I vote in the presidential election in November, I don t want to resist the patriotic urge. I want to feel not that I am on outside, or that I am alone, or that I don t belong no, I want to feel pride. I do not want to be ashamed of my country. None of us do. Thinking about why I resist the hoopla of red, white, and blue why I resist thinking of my country as the greatest, and best is in part because I have read Zinn s alternative history of America. I have known the power of resistance to evil. I resist because I know that we can do better in caring for the poor and the children, I know we can do better in education
and health care, and prison reform. That we can stop the killing and the violence, that we can take guns off the streets and out of the homes of children. I know we can do better as a nation in our civic dialogue, in our modeling of respectful language We can do better in so many ways. In spite of the profound flaws of patriarchy, elitism, empire building and hubris, and yes, cruelty of our country, I haven t given up on my country. I haven t lost hope in a better future for all people. I haven t given up because my faith teaches that love conquers fear and love is stronger than hate. I haven t given up because we still gather in religious community and sing songs of hope. And because we try to tell the truth about America. We need to take America off of its pedestal. Our country is not an icon, it is not perfect, it is not a thing to worship. It is not a thing of beauty and truth to offer empty praise or thoughtless loyalty. Our UU faith has its roots in the Judeo-Christian religions. The prophet Moses brought to his people at Mt. Sinai the word of God on a tablet of stone. And the first commandment given was an admonishment against false idols, a law against idolatry.
Thou shall have no other Gods before me. No golden calf, no king, no ritual, no symbol. It is good to remember this admonition, for it is an admonition to humility, a call to resist domination. There is space for pride that is delight or elation rising from relationship and admirable qualities; but there is danger in raising one nation above all others there is danger in imagining that America is without blemish, without shame. Let us tell the truth about America! Let us hear the truth about America! I urge you to listen to the voices of those across our land who have not yet inherited the American Dream people of color, women, immigrants, children, the differently abled, those whose identities appear to you to be outside the norm. I urge you to listen to the voices of those who do not live daily in the bubble of white privilege. It s not hard to find those voices. And don t doubt whether you are black or white or brown, or young or old, or gay or straight don t doubt that these voices are speaking to you. One such voice came unexpectedly out of the BET (Black Entertainment Television) Awards show when Jesse Williams was given the Humanitarian Award.
Jesse Williams is known for his role on Grey s Anatomy, and he is an activist with Black Lives Matter. He produced a video called Stay Woke. As young as he is, he received the BET Humanitarian Award and he gave an inspiring speech. First he thanked his parents, and those who came before him, including community organizers, activists, teachers and mentors. In his speech he said, A system built to divide cannot stand. He said, The more we learn, the more we will mobilize. He thanked Black women for their caring for others over themselves. He said that everyday police de-escalate, dis-arm and manage not to kill white people He said, Whiteness is an invention! After hearing and watching Jesse Williams speech, Alice Walker wrote a poem about the fear of blackness in white culture. It is also a poem about parental pride. The Arts: from the play Hamilton, to the performance of Beyoncé, to the memoir of Ta-Nehisi Coates Between the World and Me, to the dancing of Misty Copeland, to the poetry of Langston Hughes and so much more so very much more The Arts are a source of national pride. The Arts are the place to find voices worth listening to:
Here It Is 2016 by Alice Walker Here it is the beauty that scares you -so you believeto death. For he is certainly gorgeous and he is certainly where whiteness to your disbelief has not wandered off to die. No. It is there, tawny skin, gray eyes, a Malcom-esque jaw. His loyal parents may Goddess bless them sitting proud and happy and no doubt amazed at what they have done. For he is black too. And obviously with a soul made of everything. Try to think bigger than you ever have or had courage enough to do: that blackness is not where whiteness wanders off to die: but that it is like the dark matter between stars and galaxies in the Universe that ultimately holds it all together.
Here is the most important message of the morning: Try to think bigger. Try to think bigger than you ever have or had courage enough to do Krista Tippett said it in the Ware Lecture. John Inazu said it.in his book on pluralism. Reverend William Barber said it in his GA speech to UU ministers and faith leaders. My colleague, Reverend Nancy McDonald Ladd said it in the Sunday morning GA Worship Service. It s a place to start As you look up at the fireworks tonight or tomorrow as you feel the intimacy of the embracing sky as you breathe into the ultimacy of life and death in the world this year and next as you consider pride in your country Try to think bigger! Don t resist the awe and wonder of life. Don t resist your place of intimacy and ultimacy. Don t resist the truth about our country or our calling. Try to think bigger! Find the courage to think bigger!