The following sermon was delivered in Truro Episcopal Church on Sunday, July 2nd, 1978. The preacher is the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Church. 

During the bicentennial year, Thomas Phillips, chairman of the Raytheon Corporation, was the speaker at the Mayor's Prayer Breakfast in Dayton, Ohio. and he suggested at that time that there is a historical cycle that seems to repeat itself over and over again in the history of nations and that in his opinion was repeating itself even now in the history of America. He said it goes something like this, that a people that knows bondage in one way or another, political oppression, financial bondage, a people that has nowhere else to turn is cast back upon God, and that very bondage leads to faith.

Oppression leads to faith. Being downtrodden leads to faith. Faith inevitably leads to courage.

That as you really begin to trust God, as you really begin to see another hand in the circumstances of men and nations, whereas you were fearful, you begin to hope. And courage emerges. Because courage leads to freedom.

Because there's no way you can defeat those who are courageous. And freedom, given enough time, will lead to abundance. A free people will be a prosperous people.

Abundance, however, he said, all too often seems to turn inward and produce selfishness. No matter how much we've got, it's not quite enough. And it seems as if the more we get, the more fearful we are of losing it.

Selfishness, again given some time, will lead to complacency. An investing of the status quo with some kind of sacrosanct character. And complacency leads to apathy.

then tragically as the cycle begins to become complete apathy turns to fear fear of losing our privileged position fear of losing our material well-being fear leads to dependency and dependency finally back to bondage it's a sobering thought isn't it And then Phillips raised the question, where in this cycle are we? 200 years ago, Cotton Mather expressed much the same thought, much more simply. He said, religion produced prosperity and the daughter destroyed the mother.

it was an interesting exercise to work among students during the 60s you saw on our college campuses and in the private schools of our country you saw a very curious phenomenon taking place but the so-called disadvantaged the people who had not previously been able to get into the system to speak, were suddenly being welcomed, in fact courted, sought out. Places were being made available for them, minority positions funded within the elite schools of our land. And these so-called disadvantaged young people came with a kind of unabashed excitement at finally getting a crack at the American dream, the possibility of making it economically, socially, perhaps even politically.

And while that was happening, in my opinion at least, the majority of the majority, those who had come from the well-to-do or the upper middle class kinds of backgrounds, the white and wealthy, were saying in one way or another, We're bored, we're indifferent, we're apathetic, or possibly we're angry. Having made it, in other words, having already received the benefits of the American dream, either in one way or the other, they were saying, making it doesn't make it. So we witnessed great numbers of students dropping out, turning to drugs, turning to sex.

Someone in for blowing up their universities. Had an educational revolution, a political revolution, a cultural revolution, a racial revolution to some extent. It was as if every facet of American life was being held up to the light of re-examination, re-evaluation, in many cases, rejection.

I remember one student saying to me, I hate, I despise, I abhor everything my father stands for. And I know I'm going to be just like him. isn't that curious kids who were never allowed a chance before were coming in bright eyed and bushy tailed saying now's our chance while it seemed at least to this observer as if those who had had every opportunity came from backgrounds that knew every advantage said it doesn't add up to anything and either boredom or revolution was the alternative they proposed we witnessed the whole rise and fall of the hippie movement so marvelously summed up by Bill Coffin he said the hippies know at least this that even if you win the rat race you're still a rat it's the truth there there's a truth there that even if you win the rat race you see if you've never even had a chance of winning the rat race then the American dream still holds out all manner of promise but what if you've already run it what if you've already won it what if your family's already won the race and you find out it doesn't satisfy then what?

it seems to me that if there was one lesson to come out of the 60's and one that perhaps at this late date we need to be reminded of again it's simply this that things don't satisfy all the glitter and tinsel promised by success however you define it doesn't satisfy If you've never tasted it, you can't know that. But if you've tasted it, and you've found it to be dull and boring, then you either go on looking for more and more exotic variations of the same, or you begin to realize things don't satisfy. Isn't it true that whatever goal we set for ourselves, promotion, another job, a bigger house prep school for our kids certain level of status whatever kind of thing, goal up to the point of attaining it we say, if only I could have that whatever that might be if only and then you get it somehow, miraculously, things fit together so the unattainable becomes yours about a half hour later you want something else a little bit further removed a little bit higher stories told about a man who went to see Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman you remember the story of the little salesman, Willie Loman the pathetic little man who so desperately wanted to make it big and never could this man saw the play and it absolutely rocked him and he dropped everything and took a trip across country to go see Arthur Miller the playwright somehow found his house and went up and had the temerity to knock on his door and Miller himself answered the door and this man said I'm Willie Loman help me And Miller slammed the door in his face and said, I have no help.

So he could diagnose the problem, but he had no answer for it. Ralph Barton, one of the world's leading cartoonists of the last generation, left a note pinned to his pillow before he took his life. He said, I've had few difficulties, many friends, great successes.

I've gone from wife to wife, from bed to bed, from house to house. I've visited great countries around the world, but I'm tired of inventing devices to fill up 24 hours of the day with artificial meaning. The poet Byron said, My days are in the yellow leaf.

The flower and the fruits of life are gone. The worm and the canker are mine alone. And H.G.

Wells, the science fiction writer and popular historian, said this, I have no peace. All life is at the end of its tether. why is it that these men who would seem to have attained everything that life promises that most of us long for and keep reaching for and keep striving for would be able to say all life is at the end of its tether I've made it and making it doesn't make it Most of you know Thoreau's comment.

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation. If you haven't yet made it, then you might still think that making it is the answer. But what when you've made it and that doesn't make it?

It does seem to me to be some kind of relevance in all of this to our great celebration of independence in this country. Because we're talking about the American dream. And the American dream for so many of our people has become defined in material terms, in creature comfort kinds of terms, in status terms, in financial terms.

I'd like to suggest to you that when that's what the American dream becomes, the truth of the matter is it's a nightmare. Things don't satisfy. And if you think that things will satisfy, you will have wasted your life.

I can't remember if I told you the story some time ago. It's one of my favorites. One of the old Twilight Zone stories, which came around again a couple of weeks ago at 11 p.m. on Channel 20.

But a man who was sent to hell, only when he got there he didn't realize that's where he was because all his life he'd been led to believe that hell was a place of fire and brimstone, of devils and of the endless anguish cries of the damned. Only he found himself in a vacation paradise. Plush surroundings, exotic foods, the finest wines, expensive cigars, Gorgeous women, a girl for every mood, a girl for every moment, and every one of them at his beck and call.

And as time went on, he soon discovered that it wasn't only the girls who came at his slightest wish, but every wish was immediately fulfilled, more wondrously, more fully than he'd ever dared to dream. in life he'd never had sufficient funds to be content in death his bank account however often tapped continued full his generosity could flow forth and know no bounds in life he'd always been a tongue-tied mousy nobody in death his wit and wisdom just rolled off his tongue He is the center of every party, the arbiter of every dispute. So that his wildest dreams, his fondest hopes, his most impossible schemes came true in hell.

And that's the rub. For the novelty soon wore off. And slowly the realization dawned that all those dreams, all those hopes, all those goals, so long pursued, now grasped, were pointless.

The things that he'd thought so excellent were meaningless. And he was condemned to spend eternity amid the trivia of his own wish fulfillment. The question is, what do you wish for?

What do you hope for? What are your goals? Martin Luther King said that he who hasn't found something worth dying for isn't fit to live.

Have you found something worth dying for? Are you just accumulating more things? It seems to me that when we look to our circumstances, to our homes, to our jobs, to our families, to our positions, to our bank account, when we look to these things for meaning and joy and satisfaction and fulfillment and purpose, we are inevitably finally going to be sorely disappointed.

Because God never intended that any of these things finally satisfy. The book of Hebrews puts it this way. Abraham journeyed in faith toward the land of promise.

For he looked forward to the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. He journeyed toward a physical historical place, a land of promise. But his real goal was a city whose builder and maker is God.

Then in the next paragraph it says, All of these died in faith, not having received what was promised, but having seen and greeted it from afar, having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.

But as it is, they desire a better country. That is, a heavenly one. They looked for a land flowing with milk and honey, a land of promise.

And when finally they entered it, they enjoyed it and praised God for it. But they looked beyond it. That the ultimate goal of their lives was a better city.

Whose builder and maker is God. Do you understand that the Christian has a dual citizenship? A dual citizenship.

That we're placed in families and in localities. We're placed as members of nations. And we need to thank God for the blessings that come to us through those families and nations.

We need to seek to make them places in which His will is done here on earth as in heaven. But finally, our real citizenship is in a better country. And if we look to the nation in which we live here on earth, for our ultimate satisfaction we will have utterly missed the point.

I could put it another way by suggesting that there are two equal and opposite errors that I think you could make on any such great national festival as Independence Day. And the one would be to look back at our nation and see only its glory. Absolutely overlook its shortcomings.

Make it, in other words, equivalent to the kingdom of God. Wrap the gospel in the American flag, put Jesus in a general's uniform, and tell everybody to salute rather than bow before him. A lot of people who make that mistake.

This is God's country in some unique and exclusive way. The other mistake would be equally disastrous. To become so hardened to things, to look at our country and see only its shortcomings, only its failure, only its sin, and not be able to see the grandeur and the nobility.

The balance, it seems to me, is to be thankful for what God has done and is doing. And to strive with every energy that we have to be part of that. Without becoming oblivious to the need for repentance.

And ultimately to the fact that our citizenship is in heaven. C.S. Lewis caught this balance.

He said, creatures aren't born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger. Well, there is such a thing as food.

A duckling wants to swim. Well, there is such a thing as water. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, that doesn't prove that the universe is a fraud.

Probably, earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise or be unthankful for those earthly blessings, but on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy or echo or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find until after death.

I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside. I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same. Two equal and opposite mistakes.

One, wrapping up the gospel in the American flag and becoming oblivious to the faults that need correction. Or two, becoming so critical of our nation's shortcomings that we miss all that's noble and great within it. It seems to me that the Christian response to the celebration of Independence Day or Thanksgiving or any of our other great holidays would be to praise God for the heritage that is ours and yet at the same time look above it and beyond it, Acknowledging that all that is noblest and best here is but a reflection of the kingdom of Christ.

And to strive to make this world more like that one. Founding fathers did not proclaim life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as an expression of their own idealism. They appealed to the supreme judge of the world.

and confessed a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence. Where is America in this great cycle? I really don't know.

But I do know that faith and trust and confidence in God and commitment to Christ is the root from which the fruits of life and liberty and happiness have sprung here in this country. And if we destroy the root, it is only a matter of time before we lose the fruit. And God would call us back to himself.

And he would call our nation to himself. And he would call especially Christians to reaffirm their dual citizenship for his great namesake. I ask you to pray with me this morning for our country let's turn to page 821 of our prayer books Let's just be quiet for a moment and allow God to sift us.

Ask ourselves to what are we looking for satisfaction, for joy, for meaning. Where's our trust? Where's our confidence?

look at our nation as a whole are we a people trusting in God are there things that this nation needs to do to correct its errors pray for those entrusted with the responsibilities of leadership in this hour especially for our president pray that as America pauses to observe its birthday this weekend that we would strike that balance of celebration and rejoicing and all the blessings that have been ours these 200 years. And still perhaps the need to reaffirm our commitment as a people to the very Lord who has bestowed these blessings upon us. ask God to send his spirit across this land to call men and women families and peoples back to himself oh Lord our governor bless the leaders of our land May be a people at peace among ourselves.

And a blessing to other nations of the earth. Lord Jesus, name you, Lord. To the President and members of the Cabinet.

To Governors of States. Mayors of cities. And to all in administrative authority.

Grant wisdom and grace in the exercise of their duties. Give grace to your servants, Lord. To senators and representatives and those who make our laws in states, cities, and towns, give courage, wisdom, and foresight to provide for the needs of all our people and to fulfill our obligations in the community of nations.

We praise you, sir, and so on.