Rector's Reflection—Easter 6 C
May 9, 2010
It's Thursday and I've just come from the Mayor's Breakfast held in observance of the
National Day of Prayer. From an efficiency standpoint, it was light-years better than last year's
breakfast. Food was ready to be eaten when guests arrived and there were more serving lines than last year...
something that kept the Mayor's Breakfast from becoming the Mayor's Brunch. There really wasn't
much time to mingle but there was something very special about being shoulder to shoulder with
people from diverse backgrounds who were there for the singular purpose of participating in the
National Day of Prayer.
I give this bit of background because, among the many prayers and acknowledgments, two
things struck me. OK... there were lots of striking moments, but these two caused me to sack the
reflection I had started yesterday. (Thing 2 comes next week.)
The first was an announcement by Mayor Dupree that he had received a notice (from some
federal judge, I think) that reminded him that the very gathering he was addressing was'illegal.' I
can't remember if this remark came before or after the'Star-Spangled Banner', but either way the
notice and the national anthem didn't fit well together.
If you have wearied of me making references to an assault on Christianity in this country,
then this reflection probably isn't for you. I think we in Mississippi are somewhat insulated—make
that detached—from other parts of the country where anti-Christian bias may soon become a video
game (if—eek—it hasn't already). It has sadly come to this: some judge whose position was created
and defined through the blood of patriots going on 300 years now, feels empowered to threaten
public officials like Mayor Dupree, and presumably any other official who endorsed this day of
prayer.
As I pondered this chastisement, I saw in my mind the American flag that is displayed in our
chancel... and probably in that judge's office. I know priests who have removed the flag from their
worship spaces, many under the guise either of not wishing to offend people of different nationalities
or citing the'separation of church and state' as their rationale. Well, like it or not, this is a Christian
country... at least it started out that way. Declarations... Constitutions... Articles... Bills of Rights...
all of the'stuff' that defines how we live in community didn't come from a think-tank. It came from
people of faith who understood divine Providence... who understood where they came from—and
I don't mean England.
Have mistakes been made? Of course. But what has made this country great is coterminous
with Christianity. The last verse of the National Anthem goes like this: "Oh thus be it ever, when
free-men shall stand between their loved homes and the war's desolation! Blest with victory and
peace, may the heaven-rescued land praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, and this be our motto, "In God is our trust." And
the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!"
This isn't triumphalism, it is a confession. Faith in God underpins who we are, but if we
allow people to redefine who we are... or worse yet, bully us into renouncing our God out of some
skewed sense of egalitarianism, we will have to rewrite that last verse of the National Anthem... and
it won't be melodic.
Susan+
