Commissioned by Pitt St Parish
This week as we prayed the Daily Offices, as we do every week – Morning Prayer, Noonday Prayer – also, as we gathered together on Wednesday for Mass on the Grass, the Eucharist we celebrate in the summer months – I wrestled with the prayers assigned by our Book of Common Prayer to this week’s holiday. In particular I wrestled with the collect for Independence Day, which is on page 242 of the BCP. It begins with this address to God:
Lord God Almighty, in whose Name the founders of this country won liberty
for themselves and for us…
I couldn’t help adding, after the words “liberty for us,” the words, “but not all of us.”
Not all of us then, certainly – when our nation’s founders fought the American Revolution, those who reaped the full benefits of liberty did not include large numbers of human beings in our country. Men, women and children, kidnapped from their home countries or born to those who were kidnapped, enslaved here to benefit European settlers – they did not win liberty. The Native Americans whose lands we conquered did not win liberty. Women, without rights or equal status to men, did not win liberty. The groundwork was laid, for these things, eventually – for emancipation, nearly a century later – for women’s suffrage, a century and a half later – for desegregation, almost two centuries later. But even today, not everyone in this country is able to say that they are fully free. We do not all have the same access to health care, to safe shelter, to education, to equal treatment and respect in our criminal justice system, in our military, our schools, our churches, or in our elder care.
And for many, this week brought that reality into sharp focus, as legislation was passed that has put millions at risk for losing health care, food and personal safety.
Many are grieving for the divisions in this country we love; many are afraid. There are protests in the streets. This has been a difficult week to celebrate freedom in our country.
So this morning’s readings hit home, as they often do. In particular, Paul’s letter to the Galatians, and the reading from the Gospel, in which Jesus sends out seventy of his disciples, two by two, to preach and heal and teach the good news of a new way of living in community with God and with each other, knowing that not everyone will listen to them, that not everyone will receive them, that they will be strangers in strange lands and that in some places, they will be lambs in the midst of wolves, and that sometimes they may need to shake the dust off their feet and move on.
But listen to what Jesus tells them to do first, whenever they arrive in a new place. He says:
“Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’”
Peace to this house.
“And,” Jesus continues, “if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you.”
Theologian Amy G. Oden points out that Jesus “assumes that these apostles he sends, do in fact have peace” to take with them. “Jesus says that ‘Your peace’ specifically, not just random, generic peace, will rest on others or return to you.”[1] Even though Jesus tells his disciples not to bring any money, bags or shoes with them, they do not go out into the world unprepared – the disciples go out into the world grounded in the peace of Christ, and they are then able to extend that peace to others, including those who may be against them.
And in a time when people were divided by religion and culture, when the divisions between those in power and those without power were clearly drawn, when the Roman government was bent on conquering and maintaining power, Jesus told his disciples to speak first of peace, to offer peace – a peace that radiated from their beings – not a peace imposed by the rule of law – but a peace that reaches out to the other, to the stranger, and seeks to find common ground.
Peace to this house.
“This house” might be this church, or this city, or this nation – “this house” is the world in which we live and move and have our being. And so we are to live and move and have our being in it, grounded in the peace given by Christ, then and now. As Christ’s disciples traveled into the world, they offered peace first, the peace they carried with them, that strengthened them. Then healing was possible – then teaching and conversation and community was possible.
And in this day and age, when the lines between those with power and those without seem just as clearly drawn, peace can and should still come first, as hard as it is, especially when our human words, even our human prayers, feel inadequate, even inaccurate. We extend peace first, making healing, and teaching, and community, possible. And yes, when we listen to the anger and the hate, when we read the social media feeds and the news headlines it becomes extraordinarily difficult to ground ourselves in peace instead of anger, much less carry that peace into the households of strangers, as lambs among wolves.
For some insight, we can look at Paul’s letter to the Galatians, which he wrote as a reminder of Christ’s teachings at a time when the Galatians needed it. And he makes several very clear points.
Paul writes: Bear each other’s burdens.
We are not to go at this alone. Just as Christ showed by sending his disciples into the world two by two to build his ministry town by town, household by household, we are to be in community with one another. We are to carry the weight of this life together and that includes celebration as well as grief, work as well as rest – and it includes sins as well as good works. It is why we speak the confession of sin together every Sunday morning, as a community.
Bearing one another’s burdens means we take care of the vulnerable among us, that we welcome the stranger to our household, our city, our country – we recognize that we are all interconnected, and that we work together to do better when we fall short.
Paul writes: You reap whatever you sow.
I’m not sure he’s talking about blessings or punishments raining down from heaven based on some tally of our good and bad behavior – Paul is writing about what we plant, and harvest, not just as individuals, but, again, as community, we as the Church, as citizens of nations. If we the people sow peace, then we reap peace together. If we the people sow violence and oppression, then we reap violence and oppression together. If we the people sow hope, then we harvest hope together. What we plant grows into trees that shade more than just ourselves, that bear fruit that everyone tastes and sees is good.
And Paul writes: Let us work for the good of all.
Not for the good of ourselves, or of a few, or of those we think are deserving or worthy. Let us make sure that everyone is loved, is strengthened, is embraced and taken care of by community, by we the people.
In times when it seems the world is inundated with fear, with grief and hatred, God sends us out into the middle of it, two by two, household by household, church by church, city by city, to do the planting of justice, of respect, of sanctuary, of hope, and to wipe the dust off our feet in protest, if we must.
This past week, Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe published an op-ed[2], and I encourage you to read it if you haven’t already. In it, he writes about the particular patriotism of the Church, the faithfulness to and love for all people that must guide our faith and our work as Christians, even when it means protesting against the demands of earthly powers.
Sean Rowe writes:
“We must see beyond the limitations of our tradition and respond not in partisan terms, but as Christians who seek to practice our faith fully in a free and fair democracy.
“We did not seek this predicament,” he writes, “but God calls us to place the most vulnerable and marginalized at the center of our common life, and we must follow that command regardless of the dictates of any political party or earthly power.
Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe writes:
“We are now being faced with a series of choices between the demands of the federal government and the teachings of Jesus, and that is no choice at all.”
I invite you to pray with me the prayer that is on page 258 – a Collect for our Nation.
Let us pray.
Lord God Almighty, you have made all the peoples of the earth for your glory, to serve you in freedom and in peace: Give to the people of our country a zeal for justice and the strength of forbearance, that we may use our liberty in accordance with your gracious will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-14-3/commentary-on-luke-101-11-16-20-4
[2] https://episcopalnewsservice.org/2025/07/03/presiding-bishop-once-the-church-of-presidents-the-episcopal-church-must-now-be-an-engine-of-resistance
