Last Thursday our country with much fanfare once again celebrated its independence. As most of us learned in history, the Continental Congress gathered in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776 to sign the Declaration of Independence, a document that eloquently expressed the deepest convictions of a young aspiring nation.
Back in high school, one teacher had my class memorize its opening lines. “We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
For 243 years, possessing such rights have been the American dream and for most of her residents, that dream has been fulfilled. Working together in good times and in bad, the people of this nation have survived wars, scandals, and depressions, seeing their country grow even stronger.
Unfortunately, the dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness was not realized by everyone. Prejudice and bigotry have always colored our nation’s history. When Thomas Jefferson wrote “all men,” he wasn’t being inclusive. The notion that a slave would have any such rights was unthinkable to many colonists back then. Such attitudes eventually precipitated a civil war that nearly destroyed our nation. The Civil War should serve as a sobering reminder that no nation dare take its nationhood for granted no matter how long it has existed.
Consider ancient Rome, the greatest empire in the western world when Jesus sent forth his disciples to preach the Good News. It lasted much longer than 243 years. Despite its wealth and dominance in ancient times, Rome eventually fell, because its citizens lost sight of what really mattered.
In his classic study of ancient Rome, Edward Gibbons gave five reasons why this happened. 1. The significant increase in divorce, which as we know today by our own experience, destroys many homes. 2. An increase in taxes to fund a bigger military than was needed and to build arenas for the sake of entertaining the general public. 3. The craze for pleasure, especially brutal sports. The movie,Gladiators, which came out in 2000, showed how the crowds delighted in witnessing the needless slaughter of men. 4. Increased military spending even though Rome’s real enemy was not foreign. 5. Last but not least, the decline in religion in Roman society and in the home even though by then Rome was a Christian nation. I find Gibbon’s diagnosis haunting for he seems to be describing the American scene today.
Inherent in our pursuit of happiness is a deeply rooted yearning for peace. Jesus senses that need and often spoke of giving us his gift of peace. In the gospel he instructed the disciples to begin their ministry on that note, “Peace to this household. If a peaceful person lives there, your peace will rest on him.” What does it take for us to find this peace?
The simplest answer would be placing God first in our lives. That advice is implicit in our nation’s motto, “In God we trust.” The peace we yearn for cannot be achieved through self-centered pursuits that result in broken homes or shattered lives, uncontrolled addictions that destroy a person’s dignity, or overindulgence of any kind at the expense of caring for those struggling to survive. When we place God first, we will discover the emptiness of our worldly notions for pursuing happiness and learn that true happiness and God go hand in hand.
Like the 72 in today’s gospel Jesus appoints every disciple of every time and place, and that includes you and me, to go before him to bring peace into the lives of others. Wherever we go and whatever we do, we have the responsibility and the ability to proclaim the presence of Christ in our midst.
We herald God’s kingdom and conquer evil when we make moral and Christian decisions in our homes, at work and in our daily lives. Be a herald of the gospel that says, “Treat one another with fairness and respect as you also wish to be treated.” Would you, for example, care to be treated in the same way that families fleeing the insurrection in Central America are being treated along our borders?
We are heralds of God’s kingdom and conquerors of evil when we strive to treat each one, especially those in the family, with respect and love. It is easy to fall into habit of speaking ill of one another but such negativity destroys relationships and lives instead of bringing about peace.
We have been called to be heralds of God’s kingdom in our nation as well. When we go forth from here, we can continue the work of the seventy-two to be messengers of God’s reign of peace, compassion and reconciliation.
A country’s greatness is seen in the way it treats its poorest members, not just those who are destitute but also those who are totally dependent and vulnerable from the unborn to those afflicted by dementia and other disabling illnesses to those who are incarcerated or homeless. By actively reaching out to the less fortunate who seek as we do to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we bring a new way of life to our land. Only then can we hope that the American dream will never fade.