A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. As Jesus approached the Garradine boundary, boundary, he encountered two men coming out of the tombs. They were possessed by demons and were so savage that no one could travel even along the very road. With a sudden shriek, they cried out, son of god, why do you meddle with us? Have you come to torture us before the appointed time?
Now some distance away, a large herd of swine, pigs, were feeding. The demons kept appealing to Jesus. If you expel us, send us into that herd of hogs. Jesus replied, out with you. And at his word, the demons came forth and entered into the hogs.
The whole herd then went rushing down the bluff into the sea. That's the Sea Of Galilee. This is the the other bank. This is not Jewish territory. They ran the pigs ran down the bluff and hurled themselves into the sea, and the whole herd was drowned.
The swineherds, when they saw what had happened to their pigs, took to their heels and upon their arrival in the town, told everybody everything that had happened, including the story about the two possessed men. The upshot of all this was that the entire town went out to meet Jesus. But when they caught sight of him, they begged him to leave their neighborhood. They didn't want any parts of him. And this is the gospel of the lord.
In the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit. Amen. This, of course, has nothing to do with Independence Day in a sense. This is the reading appointed for the regular day, the thirteenth week of the liturgical year. But this is Independence Day, every kid knows that.
And we all have more or less fond memories of Independence Day when we were still free enough to have some firecrackers and had the liberty to blow off our hands and finger fingers. It was a lovely time, enjoyed by everybody. We call it Independence Day. What are we independent of? Now, the framers of our constitution, whether they were Christians or not, is highly debatable.
I mean, the constitution isn't very Christian, to put it mildly. But there's no doubt that they all believed in God. I don't think there was an honest to God atheist among them. They all believed in God. Most of them were theists.
Now, you say that everybody believes in God. Take up any take the 0.25 out of your pocket, and you'll see in God we trust. Take a nickel out. In God we trust. Of course, what's on that nickel isn't worth a nickel for all the practical purposes it has in influencing lives.
And that's my point. You see, I don't know whether this is something that you get a prejudice and a bias or a blindness about, but I am coming more and more to the conclusion that people, while they may talk about God, including little old me, we talk about God and we say we're dependent on God. Now if there's anything our blessed Lord added to a basic concept of almighty God was our dependence upon God and God's interest in me. In me. And our blessed Lord used the most emphatic, the most dramatic language.
Not a hair falls from your head. Go into a barber shop and look at the hairs falling. And yet cry and think of the millions and millions and millions of people with all the millions and billions and trillions of hairs falling. And the Lord said, not one hair falls from your head. Do we think about this?
Well, you know, you've heard this from the time you were knee high to a grasshopper. Then our blessed lord said, at the sparrows. And in those days, there were plenty of sparrows around. There were plenty of camels and donkeys around, so you had plenty of sparrows. And he said, not one of them falls from the sky without your heavenly father's permission.
Again, this is so familiar that it's meaningless. We don't it it doesn't grip us. The philosopher says we are contingent beings. That's fine language. What does it mean?
It means we dangle from the hand of God. Dangle. God's holding us out there. Now we're we're not puppets. We have a responsibility.
Responsibility. We have a measure of freedom. We have a measure of independence. We have the kind of independence that our dear friend, Lucifer, who we more familiarly known as the devil, that we can stand up before God and say, I will not serve. That's the freedom we have.
So we're not puppets. At the same time, when you say I am contingent, when you quote our blessed Lord and say not a hair falls from your head without your heavenly father's permission. And who among you can add one tiny stature inch of stature? Oh, we can add. We can add weight to ourselves, but try adding a couple of inches of height.
You see, we in every in every way that we are, we depend upon God. And the theist differs from the deist because the theist says, God is interested in me here and now. He's running the show. There's such a thing as divine providence. He didn't just wind up the clock and put the clock on the piece and then let it run down.
Oh, no. That's the deist point of view. And that and Christ himself, our blessed lord, certainly does not line himself up with that kind of nonsense. Our blessed lord said, not a hair falls from your head. And don't why are you so worried about what's going to happen to your life?
You don't control your life in many, many ways. Look at those lilies, whatever they were, these flowers that in the springtime in in Palestine cover the hillsides. Absolutely as plentiful as daisies are and goldenrod here. He said, look at that stuff. Look at the grass of the fields, which with it would and you throw it and be burned.
And if God takes care of that kind of thing, if his interest is in that, how much more is his interest in you? Oh, ye of little faith. And that's me. That's little old me. See, we lose contact with this truth.
I ask you, how often when you're faced with decisions do you say, What does God want me to do? What is your ambition in life? What is my ambition in life? We are all sucked in, and I say this from a certain amount of contemporary experience. We are sucked in by materialism or secularism or any words you want to use.
In other words, we are more and more making this world the beginning and the end of everything. And in order to have this world as we would like it, we need a thing called money. And so the pursuit of wealth now by wealth I don't mean million, I mean the pursuit of a healthy paycheck becomes the beginning and the end of life. We weigh everything in terms of what will it get us. That's the world we're living in.
And we call ourselves independent when we're tied into a dollar. And what's a dollar? It's a piece of paper which has nothing behind it except the credibility of a nation. You don't carry much gold around in your pocket. And diamonds in this country are not exactly current currency.
And so on this feast, on this day of independence, we have every reason to thank God for the country in which we live. Any of you who've traveled abroad, any of you who have met people who have come to make their home with us lately, the last twenty years. Know what you have, but do you appreciate it? And do you do we really know what we have? So often people say we don't appreciate what we have until we lose it.
Isn't that a horrible thing to say? Isn't that a miserable thing to say? Isn't that a mean thing to say? And yet we take so much for granted. And that's now this isn't any this is just because we're human.
And remember, our blessed Lord was human. He understands all this. He doesn't expect us to actually be perfect. We will never achieve it. No ideal is ever achieved.
By definition the ideal is unachievable. As a fine Frenchman once said, Don't let the best be the enemy of the good. But let's not forget there is a best. And so today, we celebrate the birthday of our nation, the first thing that should come to our hearts is gratitude to almighty God because this happened under his guidance. Now don't ask me how I reconcile God's providence with free will.
I only know I have to accept both of them. Tolstoy, to the contrary, notwithstanding in his war and peace. But I know that these things exist. I know that God's running the show, and at the same time I know I have a certain responsibility. It may be extremely limited, but it's my responsibility to admit there is an almighty God who spoke to us by his son Jesus Christ, who brought us the living message through his church to bring it right down into my daily living.
I have no excuses for being ignorant. I have no excuses for being ungrateful. I have no excuses for being unappreciative. I have no excuses for not realizing the glories that God surrounds me with and has made me part of. I have no excuses.
And because I need a savior, even to save me from excuses, God sent his own son. And that's the story of Christian's independence. In the name of the father, the son, and holy spirit. Amen.