This coming Sunday, in order to commemorate the Fourth of July, we will be having a different sort of worship experience at St. John’s.  We call it “Speeches and Songs in Celebration of Independence Day.”  In place of the Old Testament and New Testament lessons, we will have readings from our shared American history that have been impactful and which express, either explicitly or implicitly, vital Christian themes.  Our readings will be from Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Emma Lazarus, Anna Howard Shaw, and Martin Luther King, Jr..  Each informed by their faith, each in their own way, each in their own time, proclaimed their understanding of how the Kingdom of God might find its way into the common life of the people of the United States of America.

There is power in the spoken (or written) word – power to create, power to confront, power to transform.  Whether an important speech delivered or an intimate poem recited, the spoken word has the ability to move its hearers to a different place, to help readers see the world and their lives differently. The spoken word can make anew that which is broken or incomplete.  Yes, there is power, real power, in the word.

That is one reason why we come to church on Sunday mornings.  We come to hear and be transformed by the Word of God.  The Bible is an account of human beings’ relationship with God.  Through prayerful listening, reading and study of the Bible, we come to have a clearer understanding of who God is and what God’s dream for his creation looks like.  We gain insight into how we might deal with other people and live faithfully.  The Bible is both sublimely inspirational and amazingly practical.  

As we allow our lives to be shaped by God and God’s word, we experience the flow of God’s grace and mercy.  We gain the courage to become the people God intends and to do the often difficult work that God has called us to do.  And further, as we allow the words of the Bible to permeate our minds and hearts, we actually encounter the living Christ who lives in and among us.  Yes, in reading the word of God, we come face to face with the Word of God, that is, the living Christ.

There is power in the word.  There is power in the Word.  May the words of our celebrated forebears move us on this holiday weekend.  May the words of Holy Scripture inspire us.  And may the Word of God, the living Christ, transform us into the people of God’s dreams.

~Father Art