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Services every Sunday at 7:00 P.M.

"Living a Life of Freedom" - 7/4/10 - John 8:31-36

Each year around the 4th of July holiday I can't help but to pause and think about the freedoms that we have in this country. And then on the flip side of the coin to think think about the ways that we still experience oppression in its many different forms. And then I start to think about that I am drawn to look at the freedom and oppression that other parts of the human family experience. It says in our Declaration of Independence these words of freedom that our forebears envisioned as a way of life for our country: "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." We know that even before the ink was dry on the Declaration of Independence that there were men who signed this document that owned human slaves. As we look at our history it was after the Revolutionary War that white men who owned property could vote. It would be another 100 years in 1868 that black men would get to vote and not until the civil rights movement in the 1960's that black men and women would be able to exercise that right.

Women first demanded the vote in 1848 and it took nearly ¾-century later in 1920 that women would be able to vote. And we come even closer to home in lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgendered people are stilt fighting to have some of the basic rights, such as marriage, to be a part of our, freedom as citizens of this country ."We have come a long way baby" as the old commercial use to say and yet in our country and definitely in other countries of the world we as a human family are not all treated equally and do not have the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I invite us tonight to think about the ways that we as individuals are free to be who God created us to be and secondly how we can be a part of helping the whole human family to be free. Freedom in many ways begins in our hearts. It begins with the knowledge and acceptance that we are created by a loving Creator just as we are. Not good, not bad, not perfect, not a mistake -- just as we are. Just as the person next to us is created by that same Creator exactly like they are. Many times I think we can imprison ourselves with guilt and shame, for example, because we're not meeting someone else's expectations of who they want us to be.

Just sit with it a moment and imagine God saying "I created you and love you just as you are in this moment in time." What a freedom come to our lives when we let that truth set us free. We don't have to measure up to some standard set by our parents, we don't have to be heterosexual just because the church we came from wanted it that way.

We don't have to be young, gorgeous, and thin just because the TV commercials want us to be that way so they can sell their products. Who we are innately inside, in the sight of God is exactly who we are free to be. And when we can live that out each and every day we are truly free.

When I can accept and love myself - I am then free to accept and love those around me and let them be who they are created to be. We can build bridges to one another that unite rather than divide. We can work to live in a world that celebrates diversity rather than wanting us all to took, think, and feel alike. We can share of our material resources and time with those who don't have the same abundance as we have. We can look around us each day and ask who needs me to be the Good Samaritan who goes the extra mile to help someone who may be totally different than I am. We can pray for a world where problems are solved through mutual respect and communication rather than with hatred and a pointed gun. We can make choices in our daily lives to think about the decisions we make and how they will affect others. Our actions do have a ripple affect that touches the lives of others.

On this 4th of July weekend may we celebrate and cherish the freedoms that we have. And may we work with all our might to fight oppression in its many forms so that someday we will live in a world where indeed everyone is free. There we can celebrate the rainbow of diversity that is a reflection of the face of God.

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