Deliver Us
Deliver me from those who work evil; from the bloodthirsty, save me. Even now they lie in wait for my life; the mighty stir up strife against me. … Each evening they come back, howling like dogs and prowling about the city. They roam about for food and growl if they do not get their fill. – Psalm 59:2-3 and 14-15 (NRSV)
What is our country celebrating tomorrow? Surely, it can’t be life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, or freedom and justice for all. No, not “all” while so many terrified people plead for God’s deliverance.
On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass asked an assembled crowd, “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?” Answering himself: “A day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty… You may rejoice, I must mourn.”
Today we ask, “What is the 4th of July to —”
To the undocumented and the ones who “did it the right way,” hunted like prey? To the hiding, abducted, and disappeared? The one whose very existence is debated, legislated, and adjudicated as invalid? The one whose life is threatened by cruel, conspiratorial pseudoscience? The womb-slave kept “alive” by force? The one whose throat is sore from crying for justice?
What is the 4th of July to the bloviating, performative politicians and pundits? The masked and anonymous federal agents and prowling gangs of white men in paramilitary drag—growling, insatiable? The adherents of this charismatic death cult chanting “death, oppression, and the pursuit of our enemies”?
What, today, is the 4th of July to too many to name?
A day of mourning for how things are. A day of longing for how things could be. A day of confession and repentance. A day of making God’s peaceable, just, and righteous Kin-dom and kingdom real.
Prayer
Deliver us from us, O God. Amen.
About the AuthorChris Mereschuk (He/Him) is the Director for Legacy and Church Redevelopment for the Southern New England Conference, UCC.