Celebrate When Justice Flows (on the USA's 250th)

I'm having trouble with celebrating today. It's the Fourth of July marking 250 years since a band of farmers and merchants signed the "Declaration of Independence," thus marking off the beginning of a revolution against rule by the British Monarcy. With that declaration came a lot of dreams and hopes bound in the concept of government being answerable to the will of the governed. It also came with a statement on equality, human rights, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness.

For generations, we pretended we had arrived at those lofty ideals, though slavery disavowed the equality, only white men who owned land could vote or hold office, and we oppressed one group of people after another, whether slaves, native peoples, or the latest immigrants to these shores. We threw aside the ideas of "The Divine Right of Kings," but step by step allowed the the growth of government controled by the wealthy and their interests. Greed became our King, our God, and the fuel for the entirety of our economic system.

Throughout our first 250 years, voices would rise to call us back toward those ideals of equality, freedom, and justice for all. We would take steps for course correction, though never falling completely in line with those ideals. We were on a path allowing the long arc of history to shift toward justice. It was always two steps forward, then a step backwards as the powerful pushed back.

The last few decades I have noticed a change in all of that as the center of our political and economic and social and religious structures has shifted away from justice for all, moving the Overton Window without most people taking note. I've heard plenty of prophetic voices calling us back toward justice, equity, equality, freedom, and representation for all. I have also noticed more and more that we have been silencing those voices and reacting out of fear to the shifting of our national demographic makeup. That fear has been weaponized as a tool for the unjust and greedy to consolidate power and influence over large swaths of the nation.

We've come to the point I can't help but hear Amos' message from milennia ago as applying just as easily to the nation in which I was born and long people denied housingld in esteem as a shining example for others to look to as an example to follow. The injustices of yesteryear once hidden from my recognition have risen to the surface with increasing inequality, injustice, and oppression. As Amos says, "Ah, you who turn justice to wormwood and bring righteousness to the ground! ...They hate the one who reproves in the gate, and they abhor the one who speaks the truth. Because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not live in them.... I know how many are your transgressions and how great are your sins—you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe and push aside the needy in [court]. The prudent will keep silent in such a time, for it is an evil time. Seek good and not evil, that you may live.... Hate evil and love good and establish justice in the court. Perhaps Yahhweh God of hosts will be gracious...."

The rise of people denied housing, medical bankruptcy, rising food bills, data centers hogging utility services, oppressing minorities, warmongering, and harming the very environment while refusing to hold the wealthy and powerful accountable for crimes against women, children, and humanity itself should be sobering. It should be a call to action. Rather than celebrations with flags, fireworks, parades, and cookouts, this is a time for sackcloth and ashes.

Amos continues, speaking for Yahweh, "I hate, I despise your festivals, and I have no joy in your solemn assemblies. Though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I won't accept them, and the offerings of well-being from your fatted animals I won't notice. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I won't listen to the melody of your harps. Rather, let justice flow like water and righteousness as an ever-moving stream."

Though many friends are celebrating, I sit in mourning.

I mourn the mistreatment of so many mentioned in the Epstein Files, while the guilty find protection.

I mourn my immigrant neighbors being detained and denied due process by agents of our government.

I mourn insurance companies denying coverage and care, interfering with physicians practicing medicine.

I mourn national lands being ravaged by corporate interests for profit.

I mourn destroying the environment on which our lives depend.

I mourn divestment in education.

I mourn divestment in scientific research.

I mourn propping up petrochemical companies at the expense of implementing renewable energy strategies.

I mourn wielding the court system to punish the innocent and intimidate opponents.

I mourn cutting off relief funding.

I mourn increasing budgets for war machines while people struggle for food, housing, healthcare, clean air, and clean water.

I mourn the use of media as propaganda to support greed and injustice.

I mourn the devolution of Christian sects into the tools of state.

I'd love to believe again that the nation is dedicated to the general welfare with justice and liberty for all. Unfortunately, we have wandered far, far away from those ideals declared by the framers of the nation's founding documents. We have become a piggy bank for the greediest among us at the expense of those who can barely afford to eat. The ever-growing economic disparity is itself the loudest note of condemnation for a nation whose economy is built on unrestrained greed.

To me, tonight's celebrations will sound like cries of self-condemnation by those who turn their faces away from the injustice and distress all around. I won't be celebrating. I love this nation way too much for that. We are not who we could be. We are not who we should be. I can only hope we are not who we will become. I yearn for Amos' vision of justice flowing freely as a never-ending stream. Where there is liberty and justice for all--where the need of others are met--there will I celebrate.

— ©Copyright 2026, Christopher B. Harbin 

http://www.sermonsearch.com/contributors/104427/.

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