Being American                                                                                7/5/42

 

Scripture:  Hebrews 11: 8-16

 

Text:  Hebrews 11: 16  -- “But now they desire a better country, that is, a perfect one; wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He hath prepared for them a city.”

 

A little more than a month ago, we people of the United States of America were asked by our president to observe the last Sunday in May as “I am an American Day.”  We had made plans in this church to rededicate our organ on that day, and so the sermon was dedicated to a theme appropriate to that occasion rather than to the patriotic theme suggested by the president’s designation.

 

However, today being the Sunday nearest Independence day, it may be appropriate to give some attention to the matter of being American.  It is right that we should do this.

 

Our relation to our country can be a very proper part of our religious life.  When we place the flag of our nation in the church, it does not mean that the church is subject to the nation.  We have always believed in the principle of separation of church and state, each from the authority of the other.  And we see abroad the degrading effect on both church and nation when the nation undertakes to dictate to the church.  But the flag in the church does mean that our country is one of the real interests of our religion.  It makes a difference to us as Christians what kind of country this is.

 

Let us as Christians, then, think carefully during these few minutes, what it means to us to be American.  At this season especially, and in this year especially, we think of freedom from tyranny, of the high privilege of governing ourselves independently.  What else does it mean to say, I am an American?”  Several things, some of them pleasant and thrilling; some of them serious and humbling; some of them challenging and inspiring.

 

Being a citizen of this country involves blessings that should set us singing praises to God.  There is not time here to count all such blessings, but we should be reminded of a few of them which are outstanding.

 

Foremost of all, there are those national ideals that are ours, originally and permanently; set forth in our Constitution and Bill of Rights, in the Declaration of Independence, in Lincoln’s Gettysburg address.  Few nations, if any, have such a set of fundamental principles, conceived, adopted and defended by the people themselves and held sacred for so many years.

 

Emphasized in these ideals are some of these great values; human equality and right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  These are not values that remain as unyielding as stone or iron.  They are given of God, but can be marred and abused by man when he perverts his talents to evil ways.  But, rightly conceived, they help to save him from evil ways.

 

There are further values which spring from our great national ideals; freedom in thought, speech, assembly, religion.  These are not to be taken for granted.  They have been bought and defended at great sacrifice.  They are not universal.  We who have never lived under a government which makes a crime of “dangerous thoughts” can realize only with effort how precious is our freedom in this respect and how carefully it should be exercised.  Freedom to speak, to gather together, to worship as we wish, is definitely denied to the subjects of tyrants, and often to the unwilling objects of empire.  It belongs, through struggle, only to free and vigorous and right-intentioned people.

 

Another value of our national ideals is government as the agent of the people, protecting these great rights and promoting the common welfare.  Those who scoff at these ideals, either do not know what the ideals mean, or desire their crushing for selfish reasons.

 

The heritage of our ideals means that our heroes are not Napoleons or Caesars or dictators, but people of integrity and noble character.  Not intrigue, not ruthless power, but honest ability characterizes the lives of those whom we revere in our nation.

 

Two names stand high above all others: Washington and Lincoln.  These men were vastly different, yet the same in spirit and in service.  Washington was an aristocrat; dignified, stately, handsome, wealthy.  Lincoln was poor, struggling, homely humorous, friendly, simple as the soil of the earth.  Yet both were men of uncompromising integrity, lofty in soul, completely unselfish in service.  It is an excellent symbolism that places the Washington monument at one end of a parkway in our national capital, and the Lincoln memorial at the other.

 

Because of our ideals, it is possible for our nation to practice good will under unusual circumstances.  It is a nearly universal custom for a victorious nation to compel a vanquished nation to pay heavy indemnities.  Over against this ruthless standard, it is possible to point to several facts in our own national policy.  At the close of our war with Spain, our government paid Spain 20,000,000 dollars in consideration of our taking the Philippines.  (And we were in the process of liberating the Philippines when the Japanese invasion occurred.)

 

The story of our taking the Panama Canal is not a lily white sheet; it involved some ruthlessness.  But our government later paid 25,000,000 dollars for it, voluntarily.

 

We set a precedent following the Boxer rebellion in China.  Together with other nations involved, we handed in a bill for reparations and expenses of the invasion.  But then, unlike the other nations, we made no demand for territory or other rights, but gave back to China the entire amount of the indemnity paid us.  That gesture has been of tremendous importance in securing the good will of China.  The use made of the money in founding a splendid university there, in sending Chinese student to America, and in establishing certain fine institutions has meant friendship and vital cooperation rather than resentment and hatred.

 

Our nation has held together a fast growing body of people from many lands and races without sacrificing the ideal of government by the people.  We have been peaceful with our neighbors, north and south.  For more than a century there has been peace between ourselves and Canada.  On the whole, our relations with the other nations of this hemisphere have been growing better and firmer.

 

We must not be boastfully proud of this record, for we have had resources and territory of our own which other nations have not had.  But we have a right to be glad of the record.

 

I could take the entire time allotted for the sermon this morning discussing the better side of our national life and history.  We could go out happy and comfortable and complacent if I did.  But the business of Christ’s church is to be something more than comfortable!

 

There are dark spots to this matter of being an American.  It will do us good to face them.  With all of its complexity, it is still true that in our dealings with the American Indian there has been much of which we can not be proud.  Our relations with these original inhabitants have been stained by ruthlessness, disregard of their plain interests and rights, and irresponsibility for their welfare.

 

We are not proud of our war with Mexico nearly a century ago.

 

The reconstruction period after the abolishing of slavery during our Civil War is painful in the light of the spirit and intentions and way of Lincoln.

 

Much of our splendid idealism about human equality is tarnished and corroded by our treatment of the Negro.  We of the north do not have the obligation or right to point any finger of scorn at the South on this matter.  The Negro problem is an unsolved problem in every local community of the North where it is impossible for a Negro to eat in a restaurant or sleep in a hotel whose business it is to sell those services.  So long as color or race, regardless of ability and integrity, remains a cause for differential treatment of people, just so long do we continue to have unsolved this very grave problem.  Under a government such as ours majorities must not treat with discrimination or indifference the problems of the minorities.

 

We are not proud of the growth of depressed classes, of recurring corruption in political life, of economic ruthlessness, of irresponsibility in the movements of labor and management alike whenever and wherever it is found.  We are not happy that education is so often the perquisite of the privileged, unavailable to the poor beyond a minimum point.

 

The dreadful pressure of war is forcing us to open our eyes and come to judgment on our sins and failures.  We have had to be sternly awakened to our international responsibilities by the awful contemplation of what would happen to all of us should Britain fall, Russia or China break, or if the rest of the Americas should be indifferent due to our somewhat condescending attitude of the past.

 

No one of us can be an American in the right way without including the prayer of the publican, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

 

But the inspiration and the call to being American shines in the ideals to which we imperfectly aspire.  There is a kind of people of whom God is not ashamed.  As we look about our world, we wonder how that can be.  The iniquity of a people whom we are told God once determined to destroy by flood can scarcely be worse than much that we see today.  Yet our text of this morning says that there are people of whom God need not be ashamed.  Who are they?  “But now they desire a better country; that is, a perfect one.  Wherefore God is not ashamed to be their God; for he hath prepared for them a city.”

 

Blessed though our country may be and is, it can and should be better.  Its best fact is the hope before it.  Its best possibility is that which leads its citizenry not into ease, but up long, arduous, trails toward a country “not far from the Kingdom of God.”

 

God has prepared for us such a city and such a country.  His plans are drawn eternally.  He has tried to prepare us for that city!  Every true citizen should desire it with his whole soul.  Every one of us ought to desire for every living soul deliverance “from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.”

 

Perhaps we will all agree with William P. Merrill when he asserts that  “one can rightly say ‘I am an American’ only when that shall mean something very like what we mean when we say, ‘I am a Christian.’”

 

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dates and places delivered:

 

            Wisconsin Rapids, July 5, 1942