Just now, I have found myself unexpectedly working on a Sunday service. Our minister is stuck on the other side of the Atlantic, so several of us have been ‘tapped’ to help lead the service.
It’s Patriots Day weekend here in Middlesex County — and though lots of folks in the Commonwealth think of Monday as “Marathon Monday” — a term that rankles — to us it’s truly Patriots Day. A great day for America, commemorating the start of the American Revolution as the Patriots battled the British Regulars for freedom, with the battle occuring down the street from us in the center of Lexington.
The Sunday sermon draft focuses on the balance that the early settlers of this country had to engage in — defending personal freedom, striving for independence — and yet supporting the common good that would ensure the vitality of the somewhat fragile communities struggling to grow and thrive in the new land.
As I continue to reel from the Goldman Sachs charges that have hit the news (Am I suprised? no. Disgusted and dismayed? Oh, yes), and the tales of increasing divides between those who have lots and those who don’t have much at all, I realize how important it is for us to hold on to those early lessons learned by the Puritans and early settlers. Back when these New England communities were forming, as now, it remains true: for all of us to do a little better or just get along, we might have to share what we have. And when we shove someone in the proverbial ditch so that we can get ahead, there’s the chance that the act hurts not one person, but society at large.
Long ago John Winthrop is reported to have said, while on board a ship bound for these lands, “The care of the public must oversway all private respects. . . . We have entered a covenant with [God] for this work. For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.”
They are still on us. On Patriots Day, and other days as well. The common good, of the community and of our society, must inform our teachings and our lives. And we ignore that fact at our peril.
Morning Stars Rising 