SPECIAL DAYS: Sunday before the Fourth of July

LESSON: 2 Chronicles 7.14, NRSVA

SERMON TITLE: This Land Is?

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  1. God Bless America, Irving Berlin

    God Bless America (1)

    In the fall of 1938, as war was again threatening Europe, Berlin decided to write a "peace" song. He recalled his "God Bless America" from twenty years earlier and made some alterations to reflect the different state of the world.

    Singer Kate Smith introduced the revised "God Bless America" during her radio broadcast on Armistice Day, 1938.

    The song was an immediate sensation; the sheet music was in great demand.

    Lyrics:

    While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,
    Let us swear allegiance to a land that's free,
    Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,
    As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer:

    God Bless America.
    Land that I love
    Stand beside her, and guide her
    Thru the night with a light from above.
    From the mountains, to the prairies ,
    To the oceans, white with foam
    God bless America
    My home sweet home. God Bless America,
    Land that I love
    Stand beside her,
    And guide her,
    Through the night
    With the light from above,
    From the mountains,
    To the prairies,
    To the ocean,
    White with foam,
    God bless America,
    My home sweet home.God bless America,
    My home sweet home.
    God bless America my home sweet home.

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    1. Is it a Christian or a Secular Nation?
  2. The dedication of Solomon's Temple and the revelation of God have often been appropriated to apply to our Nation
    1. The great temple was completed.
    2. All the gathered people witnessed the solemn dedication of the temple.
    3. Fire from heaven consumed the burnt offerings and the sacrifices.
    4. The glory of the Lord filled the temple.
    5. When he great dedication was over, God appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him:


      6. 2 Chronicles 7:12-22, NRSVA

      12Then the LORD appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him: "I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. 13When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, 14if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

      15Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place. 16For now I have chosen and consecrated this house so that my name may be there forever; my eyes and my heart will be there for all time. 17As for you, if you walk before me, as your father David walked, doing according to all that I have commanded you and keeping my statutes and my ordinances, 18then I will establish your royal throne, as I made covenant with your father David saying, 'You shall never lack a successor to rule over Israel.' 19"But if you turn aside and forsake my statutes and my commandments that I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, 20then I will pluck you up from the land that I have given you; and this house, which I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight, and will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

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      2121And regarding this house, now exalted, everyone passing by will be astonished, and say, 'Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land and to this house?' 22Then they will say, 'Because they abandoned the LORD the God of their ancestors who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they adopted other gods, and worshiped them and served them; therefore he has brought all this calamity upon them.'"

    6. Times of spiritual crisis lay ahead and it would be important to know what needed to be done to correct the situation and to reconstruct the damage which the crisis might create.
      1. What do the people need to do?
        1. 14if my people who are called by my name humble themselves,
        2. pray,
        3. seek my face, and
        4. turn from their wicked ways,
      2. What will God do?
        1. then I will hear from heaven, and
        2. will forgive their sin and
        3. heal their land.
    7. Implicit in what is offered are both Blessings and Curses
      1. Curses do not describe a potential action on the part of God, but rather a detailed assessment of an alternative future.
        1. If you do this, this will be the result.
        2. The same is true of blessings.
        3. If you do this, this will be the result.

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      2. The parallel passage to 2 Chronicles is found in 1 Kings 9:3-9, NRSVA
        1. The pronouncements of God are clearer and sharper and leave little room for misunderstanding.


          2. 3The LORD said to him, "I have heard your prayer and your plea, which you made before me; I have consecrated this house that you have built, and put my name there forever; my eyes and my heart will be there for all time. 4As for you, if you will walk before me, as David your father walked, with integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you, and keeping my statutes and my ordinances, 5then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised your father David, saying, 'There shall not fail you a successor on the throne of Israel.'

          66"If you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, 7then I will cut Israel off from the land that I have given them; and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight; and Israel will become a proverb and a taunt among all peoples. 8This house will become a heap of ruins; everyone passing by it will be astonished, and will hiss; and they will say, 'Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land and to this house?' 9Then they will say, 'Because they have forsaken the LORD their God, who brought their ancestors out of the land of Egypt, and embraced other gods, worshiping them and serving them; therefore the LORD has brought this disaster upon them.'"

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      3. In a series of speeches Moses exhorted obedience to God and pronounced curses for disobedience.
      4. The curses found in Deuteronomy 28.37, 45, and 63 and the ones in Deuteronomy 29:22-26, NRSVA are transferred in 1 Kings and in 2 Chronicles from the people to the temple.


        5. Deuteronomy 28:37 (NRSVA)

        37You shall become an object of horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the LORD will lead you....45All these curses shall come upon you, pursuing and overtaking you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the LORD your God, by observing the commandments and the decrees that he commanded you...63And just as the LORD took delight in making you prosperous and numerous, so the LORD will take delight in bringing you to ruin and destruction; you shall be plucked off the land that you are entering to possess.

        Deuteronomy 29:22-26, NRSVA

        22The next generation, your children who rise up after you, as well as the foreigner who comes from a distant country, will see the devastation of that land and the afflictions with which the LORD has afflicted it--23all its soil burned out by sulfur and salt, nothing planted, nothing sprouting, unable to support any vegetation, like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD destroyed in his fierce anger--24they and indeed all the nations will wonder, "Why has the LORD done thus to this land? What caused this great display of anger?" 25They will conclude, "It is because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their ancestors, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. 26They turned and served other gods, worshiping them, gods whom they had not known and whom he had not allotted to them;

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    8. The temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 608-606 BCE, and again in 70 CE by the Romans.
      1. The people did this, and this was the result.
      2. The people and the whole nation went after other gods.
  3. This whole process has been transferred by some to the United States.
    1. The debate rages in religious circles and the feelings run strongly that American is or is not a Christian Nation.
    2. John Winthrop about 1628 on the establishment of Massachusetts Bay Colony wrote: (2)


      3. "We are a Company professing ourselves fellow members of Christ...knit together by this bond of love..We are entered into covenant with him for this work."

      "For we must consider that we shall be City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us, so that if we deal falsely with our god in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through the world."

    3. Winthrop obviously refers to the dedication of Solomon's Temple and the blessings and curses which followed.
  4. It is argued that the secularization of America will lead to its dissolution.
    1. This may be true, but it will not be because of the nature of the Nation.
    2. And a the same time we ought to remember and the rest of our history and the implications that are to be found in it.
      1. If you were not a member of a congregational Church you could not vote or serve in public office.


        2. In 1646, 7 significant men, important to the welfare of the Massachusetts colonies presented a petition to the Massachusetts Court requesting that the current restrictions on enfranchisement be removed.

        Formal notice was given that, unless the petition was heard, recourse would be had to the English Parliament.

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        In Creeds and Platform of Congregationalism, Williston Walker wrote.

        "It is impossible not to have a high degree of sympathy with these men in their complaint. The formidable barriers which stood in the way of church-membership have already been pointed out, and justifiable as they seemed from a Congregational standpoint as to the proper composition of a church, they were a departure from the practice of all ecclesiastical bodies of importance then to be found in the Protestant world. (3)

        "The matter of the franchise was even more galling. Though the population of Massachusetts was probably over 15,000 at the time of the petition, up to 1643 only 1,708 persons had become citizens in the Colony, and of them a number had removed to Connecticut. If the ecclesiastical test was not applied in Plymouth, the case was even worse there; so difficult was it to obtain citizenship that out of some 3,000 inhabitants only about 230 had been enfranchised by 1643 Not only were the majority of the male inhabitants thus shut out from any active share in the government, the ranks of the excluded contained many of wealth, character, and influence in the community." (4)

        In another place Walker reports on how difficult it was to gain church membership

        "The Salem covenant of 1629 was a single sentence, embracing a simple promise to walk in the ways of the Lord. In brevity and contents it resembles other covenants of the period which have come down to us. From this brevity and simplicity it has been erroneously concluded that our New England churches, in their early state, applied no doctrinal tests as a condition of membership. No opinion could be farther from the truth. The causes which led our ancestors to America related to church polity rather than to doctrinal views ; and hence the public formulae of our churches on this side of the water concern themselves at first with matters of organization rather than with points of faith.3 This agreement with the Puritan-Calvinistic portion of the English establishment was so entire that their doctrinal position could be taken for granted, and was not therefore at first formulated. But if the doctrinal beliefs of the churches as a whole needed no general statement, the case was far different with the individual applicants for church-membership. They had to submit to a searching private examination by the elders of the church both as to "their knowledge in the principles of religion, & of their experience in the wayes of grace, and of their godly conversation amongst men." And the evidence is ample that this "knowledge" implied familiarity with and assent to the main doctrines of the Scripture as expounded by the Calvinism of the period. Once accepted by the elders, the candidate had to render an account to the church, dwelling largely, of course, on experience, but not wholly omitting doctrine.2 In case of men this relation was usually oral ; the women frequently rendered it by means of a written statement, and men sometimes exercised the same privilege. But so far were these tests from being matters of form, that even in the early days of the first generation of our New England settlers the decided majority of the colonists were unable to show sufficient evidence of faith and experience to enter into church relationship.

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    3. But circumstances soon compelled our New England churches to bear a more public testimony to their corporate and collective faith.
      1. The doctrinal disputes that developed were the results of the work of Roger Williams, Mrs. Annie Hutchinson and the Quakers.
      2. There were questions about church membership, baptism and enfranchisement, and these were not settled by the Cambridge Platform.
      3. It would not be until late June or early July of 1662 that a letter from the King of England would result in the enfranchisement of the population.
        1. This is primarily the result of the influx of tradesmen and businessmen into the colonies.
        2. People who were secular and not religious, or at least not as religious as were the founding father and mothers.
  5. The founding mothers and fathers were Christians.
    1. They sought to establish a system of government that would incorporate Christian principle into the lives of every family.
    2. They found ultimately that this was impossible.
    3. And beside, If America were a Christian nation what do you believe it would look like?
      1. I found this site on the Internet which proclaims that we are a Christian Nation and what it ought to do.
        1. The Government must propagate the Christian religion.
        2. The Government must foster true Christian worship.
        3. The Government must act in the Name of God.
        4. The Government must covenant with Christ.
        5. The goal of Government must be the Christian faith.
        6. The Government must extend the Christian religion.
        7. Governments were established to spread the Faith.
        8. The Government must advance the Gospel.
        9. Universities must propagate the Christian religion.
        10. The Bible (including the Old Testament) must be the Standard for Civil Government

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      2. Does this sound like a place in which you would desire to live?
        1. How does a government decide.
        2. What would be the results of the decision of those who chose to be non participants?
        3. Would we have another inquisition?
        4. Would there be mass deportations of dissenters?
        5. Remember the Pilgrims?
    4. And besides, if America was to become a Christian nation which body of Christians would you desire to be in charge.
      1. So, out of the hundreds of denominations which would you choose?
        1. A coalition of liberal Christians, Presbyterians, Methodists, United Church of Christ?
        2. The Southern Baptists.
        3. The Missouri or the Wisconsin Synod Lutherans
        4. The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints.
        5. The Seventh-day Adventist
        6. The Roman Catholics.
      2. Perhaps we could all work together.
        1. You believe that we hold to basic principles of biblical understand, but we don't
        2. Why do you think we have so many denominations?
  6. Because of its increasing pluralism, we will not resolve the nature of our country according to our religious principles.
    1. We can only resolve what we will be and use our influence to help our land by passing, observing, obeying sound principles of law and mercy, grace and justice for all people.
    2. We celebrate the birth of a nation which is no longer one nation, under God.
    3. We celebrate a nation that offers indivisibility with liberty and justice for all.

    4. In the words of Woody Guthrie, This Land Is Your Land (5)

      This land is your land, this land is my land
      From the redwood forest to the New York island.
      From the snow-capped mountains to the Gulf Stream waters
      This land is made for you and me.

      As I go walkin' my ribbon of highway
      I see all around me my blue blue skyway
      Everywhere around me the wind keeps a-whistlin'
      This land is made for you and me.

      I'm a-chasin' my shadow out across this roadmap
      To my wheat fields waving, to my cornfield dancing
      As I go walkin' this wind keeps talkin'
      This land is made for you and me.

      I can see your mailbox, I can see your doorstep
      I can feel my wind rock your tip-top treetop
      All around your house there my sunbeam whispers
      This land is made for you and me.

  7. This land was made for you and me.
    1. It was made for the African Americans, the native Americans, the Asian Americans, and the European Americans.
    2. It was made for the Buddhist, the Muslims and the Christians, and the Atheists.
    3. This land was made for you and me and for all of us, without exception. 

      1. Copyright © Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov

      2. Cited in Democracy, Liberty, and Property: Readings in the American Political Tradition, p. 20

      3. Williston Walker, Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, Grounds of Dissatisfaction, p 106

      4. Ibid

      5. Ronald D. Cohen & Dave Samuelson, liner notes for "Songs for Political Action," Bear Family Records BCD 15720 JL, 1996, p. 197. Lyrics as reprinted ibid., p. 203.

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