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Let us pray: God bless America, land that I love. Stand beside her and guide her through the night of the 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 my home sweet home. Amen
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, One nation under God indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Listen to these words sung by John Lennon that are still true in the year 2008 sadly for many in this world:
“Imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try. No hell below us above us only sky. Imagine all the people living for today. Imagine there’s no countries, it isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for and no religion too imagine all the people living life in peace. Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can? No need for greed or hunger in
brotherhood of man. Imagine all the people, sharing all the world. You may say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one. I hope some day you’ll join us and the world will be as one.”
The dictionary defines “imagine” as derived from the word “Imagination” which is defined as:
“The power to form mental images of objects not perceived or not wholly perceived by the senses || the power to form new ideas by a synthesis of separate elements of experience, and the ability to define new ideas”
Thus to imagine is to visualize within ones mind what might be out there, how life could be verses how life is at this very moment.
I want you to imagine living in a house made out of animal dung, drinking the same water that you bathe and wash your dishes in. Walking for miles with no shoes, no clothes, sleeping on the ground and waking up to walk for miles looking for something that you can make into food or having to go without food, let alone medical care.
Imagine being female and your world consists of being property, having babies with no proper neonatal care, and most likely knowing if you can keep your child, if your child is not born with AIDS, if your child does not die from malnourishment…. You will have to raise the child alone or abandon the child with a prayer, that someone will adopt your child before the child dies.
Imagine living in a world where you feel there is no where to go when you die, for there is no hope to live for at this very moment and all you can do is imagine what it would be like to live in a world of peace, ‘with the people sharing all the world.’ …Living in a world where all you and others can do is dream, for there is nothing else to live for.
…Living in a country like Zimbabwe whose election of the people for a new president consisted of only the current president and if your finger did not have a red dye mark on it you could be killed for not voting to re-elect the current president. And we as citizens of the United States of America live in a country where presidential candidates spent millions on their campaign, athletes get paid pathetically high amounts of money to play and lipo-suction is common, did I mention abortion?
All of this we have, due the freedoms we have as Americans on the two hundred and thirty-second year birthday of the United States of America that was founded by our for fathers and for mothers who came to America; not to shop at the mall or to go to McDonalds or any of the 1,000 other places there are to eat in Springfield and the surrounding area. No they came to America for religious freedom to practice their faith and not be in fear of persecution and or death.
Freedom that we have at this very moment; due to the veteran’s who have, who are, who shall, serve in defense of our freedoms.
Open your Bible to the Book of Galatians 5 and hear freedom that the Apostle Paul speaks of for the Galatian Church sat in the middle of the Empire and the message of Christian was vigorously opposed. The Galatians faced the same basic choices that we have in the year 2008, right here where we are at this very moment: “Should we choose power and freedom in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior or slavery, through useless and destructive solutions of this world? Should we choose freedom through Christ or freedom through an earthly habit?
Galatians 5:1:
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit to a yoke of slavery.
They are innocent children born into a world of a living hell where there is nothing to live for, only to exist looking at the sky knowing that you are going to die and that is the end. They have been abandoned and orphaned as their parent/parents have AIDS and are dying and cannot care for their child/children.
Left to fend for themselves in the countryside, to beg and exist in a hell no child
deserves. Left to die by themselves, Scared and alone, vulnerable to being taken
advantage of by adults with perverse minds and animals of the wilderness.
They are the children of Uganda who did not ask to be born, let alone left alone in a world to die of starvation. A man traveled to Uganda in the early 1980’s after hearing over 15,000 orphans die of starvation in Uganda. Ray Barnett (an orphan himself), is the man who traveled to Uganda.
Because Ray heard the call from God to step out of his comfort zone and travel to the other side of the world, he has made sunshine in these children’s lives. I know what you are thinking. I can read your nonverbal signs. How can one man make a difference, let alone help; 15,000 orphans in a country that is landlocked in Eastern Africa?
How can I make a difference in the life of another, irrelevant of where they are?
A child was walking along the beach at sunset and someone noticed her picking something up, and throwing it out into the ocean. Time and time again she picked something up, and threw it into the ocean. As the individual got closer, noticed that she was picking up starfish and rather puzzled asked: “What are you doing?” The child replied, “I’m throwing these starfish back into the ocean. You see, it’s low tide now and all of these starfish have been washed up onto the shore. If I don’t throw them back into the ocean, they’ll die up here from lack of oxygen.”
“I understand,” replied the individual who had been watching, “but there must be thousands of starfish on the beach. You can’t possibly get to all of them. There are simply too many.
And don’t you realize it is probably happening on hundreds of other beaches all over? Can’t you see that you can’t possibly made a difference?”
The child smiled, bent down, and picked up yet another starfish, and as she threw it back into the ocean she replied, “Made a difference to that one.”
The freedoms each and every one of us have (irrelevant of our gender, race, age or intellect), are starfish in our lives. Many are thrown out, lost, dying… due to a lack of oxygen, helpless as we lie on the beach of life dying physically, psychologically, emotionally and spiritually.
The ministry of life for you and I is to be like the child who threw the starfish back into the ocean. To share our freedom to make another’s life better… freedom that does not come from living and walking on the streets, but from within. With freedom comes great responsibility. We are not free to live excessive lives. We are not free to pursue selfish ends. Our freedom should not make us infidels who have to be in complete control.
As Paul so eloquently puts it: Galatians 5:13-14
For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom, as an
opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants to one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Then Paul states, Galatians 5:15
But if you bite and devour one another take heed that you are not consumed by one another.
The founders of the United States of America were serious about their desire to have political and religious freedom. In fact the founders of the
United States of America made little difference between political and religious freedom. For in freedom, they saw liberty.
That is why the Declaration of Independence says that liberty is not endowed by nature but by God Himself. In the words of Patrick Henry:
“I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.”
We are called to be free. Those are the words of the Apostle Paul, and they are deeply theological and the bedrock upon which the United
States of America was founded. We are made in the image of God, free to live, think and act. To walk away from sin or to participate in sin, for God gave us the freedom of free will. We are made in God’s image, free to have the grace of God and to be at liberty from our sins.
We are free to be self-absorbed or to help that one starfish is who dying. Yes, we may not be able to save the world, but we can make the choice in our freedom to help another, to make their world a better place by reaching out, hand in hand with them on their journey we know as life in the sin of the flesh. With tears in my eyes and a lump the size of a tennis ball I have seen and listened to voices of the orphaned children of the African Children’s Choir that travels internationally sharing their story and how the presence of God in their life has made a difference from a dying starfish to a starfish that is alive and full of happiness and living free. Because of Ray Barnett not ignoring what God had laid on his heart.
For all those times you stood by me
For all the truth that you made me see
For all the joy you brought to my life
For all the wrong that you have made right
For every dream you have made come true
For all the love I found in you
I’ll be forever thankful baby
You’re the one who held me up
Never let me fall
You’re the one who saw me through it all
You were my strength when I was weak
You were my voice when I couldn’t speak
You were my eyes when I couldn’t see
You were the best there was in me
Lifted me up when I couldn’t reach
You gave me faith ‘coz you believed
I’m everything I am
Because you loved me
You gave me wings and made me fly
You touched my hand I could touch the sky
I lost my faith; you gave it back to me
You said no star was out of reach
You stood beside me and I stood tall
I had your love I had it all
I’m grateful for every day you gave me
Maybe I don’t know that much
But I know this much is true
I was blessed because I was loved by you
You were my strength when I was weak
You were my voice when I couldn’t speak
You were my eyes when I couldn’t see
You saw the best there was in me
Lifted me up when I couldn’t reach
You gave me faith ‘coz you believed
I’m everything I am
Because you loved me
You were my strength when I was weak
You were my voice when I couldn’t speak
You were my eyes when I couldn’t see
You saw the best there was in me
Lifted me up when I couldn’t reach
You gave me faith ‘coz you believed
I’m everything I am
Because you loved me
I’m everything I am
Because you loved me
God who watched as His only Son sat in the Upper Room with His disciples on the night of His betrayal and took the bread, broke it, and said, take, eat, this is my body given to you. Then after supper Jesus took the cup, blessed it and said, “Take, drink, this is my blood of the New Covenant shed for the forgiveness of the sins of many. Drink this often in memory of me.”
On this 4th of July weekend 2008, in the words of Pope John Paul II: “Every generation of Americans needs to know that freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.”
Let us rejoice in the freedom of open prayer:
Father God thank you for picking us up like a starfish and not leaving us to die in our sin of this world; may we follow in your footsteps making a difference in the life before us. From our sin may we have freedom, may we use this freedom to teach others where we have been so as to better their life.
I am everything I am because you love me. Amen
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