“America the Beautiful?”

July 6, 2025

“AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL?”
PHILIPPIANS 4:8-9

A Disclaimer
Across this land, there are preachers who will tell their parishioners exactly what to think and what to believe. I hope you know by now that I am not one of those preachers. As a Minister of the Word and Sacrament for the PC-USA, I have always strived to present to you avenues, roads, streets, even pathways to travel upon, to provide you with tools to see and hear with, to offer context – both historical and modern day, and to paint multiple perspectives and mindsets, all in an effort to help you decide with your own mind and heart how you can become the best disciple of Jesus Christ that you can be. As Paul states in his letter to the Philippians, “Therefore, my beloved…work on your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

And such is no different today.

Will today’s sermon experience be political? Yes. Will it be controversial? I don’t believe so. Also, you will be listening to the heart of a Presbyterian minister. I only ask that you listen and in listening that you will contemplate and then in contemplating, that you will only then craft your own perspective regarding the observations, the thoughts, and the perspectives of this, in the grand scheme of things, of this one insignificant minister.

So let us begin and do so with prayer.

Prayer of Illumination
Holy God, silence our agendas; banish our assumptions; cast out our casual detachment. Confound our expectations; clear the cobwebs from our ears; and penetrate the corners of our hearts and minds. Amen.

Scripture
With the celebration of the 4th of July, our nation’s birthday this past week, I discovered myself reflecting…a lot…about foundational things – both political and spiritual. Hear now the words of scripture from Paul’s letter to the Philippians chapter 4 verses 8 and 9.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. As for the things that you have learned and received and heard and noticed in me, do them, and the God of peace will be with you.

Sermon
Throughout our nation’s history, despite what it confronted, America has had people emerge whose words and actions helped to shape this country’s identity and its voice.

So, on this Sunday following our nation’s birthday…how would you characterize America’s identity today?

What is America’s voice?

At critical points in the history of this country, our nation’s voice has, more often than not, been resoundingly clear. But, today, I think it is garbled at best.

Our identity has become so muddled that for a description or characterization, it truly depends on who you ask.

While one or more leaders may help define America’s identity and voice, clarify it, and epitomize it with their actions, America’s identity itself goes beyond a personality. America’s identity goes beyond the vocalization of precepts and principles or specific initiatives.
A nation’s identity has presence and power. It characterizes ages, it codifies eras, it creates the culture, and more often than not, a nation’s identity foretells the nature of a future society.

We only have to recall a few critical periods in America’s history and the personalities that led us through them — from the Declaration of Independence to the end of the Cold War — to be poignantly, and sometimes painfully, reminded of the great void that exists today.

Through the first quarter of the 21st Century, what is America’s current identity? What is her voice? If you are able to discern it, able to describe it, what does it say about where we are headed both domestically and globally?

Admittedly, there may not have always been agreement with the policies or the way of life that came about as a result of a course America took, but, at least, historical accounts show that contemporaneous Americans had a better sense and understanding of the rallying cries, and the shared beliefs in which they were grounded.

We only have to recall and revisit those critical periods in American history.

Through the work and words of the founding fathers and the framers of the Constitution — John Adams, Thomas Paine, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and others —America gained its identity and a voice that determined its course through the end of the 18th century, and the identity and her voice were clear.

Throughout the 19th century, America’s identity and voice defined the ages from the establishment of the institution of slavery to the Civil War that ended it. And the Jim Crow era that began after that war and lingered into the 20th century until the Civil Rights Movement fought to end it.

America’s identity during these critical periods in its history was represented by many. Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., to name a few.

Also, during the 20th century, World War I was fought to make the world safe for democracy. Whether it did or not, historic events characterized the decades that followed.

America roared in the twenties, crashed economically in the early thirties, and joined the war, World War II, to defeat Hitler and Nazi Germany in the forties. And we lived and breathed the Cold War and its remnants for the next nearly fifty years.

We all know these seminal historical events and the leaders that brought us through them: Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy.

During any of these periods, America’s identity and her voice were discernible, if not always strong. Those past times seem more definable, the direction clearer, even while some of us lived through some of them.

It seems, at least to me, that a greater sense of American purpose and culture was passed on from one generation to the next back then. It was inculcated in almost every aspect of our lives, from lively debate around the dinner table, to the town square, and into the classrooms.

Today, through technology, we have the ability to be connected 24/7 and have access to information, policymakers, and can participate in our government and political processes at whatever level we choose.

We are able to help define America’s identity and voice unlike any other period in our history. But are we?

When we look at the state of American politics today, where are the political and philosophical giants that represent America’s identity, her voice?

They seem to be missing in action.

Here are just three of the areas that have traditionally defined America’s identity – its treatment of immigrants, the centrality of inalienable rights for all, and the preeminence of the rule of law. But in today’s climate, it is vitriol that dominates the public discourse about these areas of identity. We are constantly overwhelmed by our political, social, and economic divisiveness and discordance.

I ask you, what has happened to America being identified as a nation of immigrants? Afterall, America was and continues to be built by immigrants.

What about the apparent retreat or denial of the inalienable rights “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” when it comes to women? Women seem to be losing rights that they have fought so hard to gain. And too many other citizens continually face obstacles in exercising their right to cast a vote and exercise other rights.

That is just a snapshot of what is happening on the home front.

During the last decade, we have also watched the perception of America’s identity change on the world stage, based on the leadership or lack thereof, and on how domestic and global issues have been dealt with or failed to be dealt with.

Whether those issues involve the Ukrainian war, the Middle East conflict, our role in the NATO Alliance, our relationship with Russia, with China, our adherence to the Climate Accords, nuclear disarmament, to name just a few.

How does the current state of American politics and policies help clarify our nation’s identity and voice?

What is it saying to us here at home? What is the message conveyed abroad?

So, I come back to that opening question…how would you define this present age? Who are the people that will help America shape its identity for the 21st century and find its voice?

As I ruminated on these thoughts about identity and voice this past week, I couldn’t help but consider what you might call my foundational spiritual principles. I am an American, but first and foremost I am a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ, one who believes in bringing about God’s Kingdom here on earth. So, here are a few of my foundational spiritual principles. As a whole, these principles create the lens through which I observe life and interpret my life in this community, this state, this country, this world. Here are my principles:

Luke 10:27
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.”

Luke 6:31
Do to others as you would have them do to you.

Micah 6:8
He has told you, O mortal, what is good,
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice and to love kindness
and to walk humbly with your God?

Exodus 23:9
You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.
Matthew 18:14
Even so, it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.

Romans 12:2
Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Those are some of the key spiritual principles that guide my life, and when you think about it – they have undergirded the identity of this experiment called America and have substantiated her voice throughout the decades. But I am witnessing things that now go counter to that identity and voice. And, personally, I’m quite concerned.

Believe it or not but I sometimes find myself thinking about Humpty Dumpty. You know the old English nursery rhyme.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

Is America Humpty Dumpty? Are we about to have a great fall?

A couple of weeks ago, I discovered a song titled, “A 9-Year Old’s Letter to the President.” It definitely pulled my heartstrings. I kindly invite you to listen, if you will.

Play song

I find myself asking “why”…a lot these days.

So, my good friends, how would you define this present age? What is America’s identity? What is her voice? And if she should have a great fall – can she be put back together again? And if she does fall, who can put forth the herculean effort needed to do just that.

Isaiah 58:1-12 gives me hope for just such a situation. Listen.

Shout out; do not hold back!
Lift up your voice like a trumpet!
Announce to my people their rebellion,
to the house of Jacob their sins.
² Yet day after day they seek me
and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness
and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments;
they want God on their side.
³ “Why do we fast, but you do not see?
Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day
and oppress all your workers.
⁴ You fast only to quarrel and to fight
and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today
will not make your voice heard on high.
⁵ Is such the fast that I choose,
a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush
and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
a day acceptable to the Lord?

⁶ Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
⁷ Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
⁸ Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you;
the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
⁹ Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall cry for help, and he will say, “Here I am.”

If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
¹⁰ if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.
¹¹ The Lord will guide you continually
and satisfy your needs in parched places
and make your bones strong,
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water
whose waters never fail.
¹² Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to live in.

There is my hope.
Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to live in.

Should the need arise, to put America back together again, to accomplish that herculean effort – who will it take? Why it’s you and me. We can repair any breach. We can restore the streets. We can re-create a place worthy of living in.