Fourth of July

Africans love celebrations. Part of this love comes from a need to find cause to celebrate.  In a nation where only 6 percent of rural folks have access to electricity and 46% of the population lives below the poverty line, where the average annual income per person is  $760 (yes, that calculates to about $2 a day) you might ask what cause there is to celebrate.  But there is – births and family and graduations and first loves and marriages and freedom.  Freedom – the right to discuss politics freely, to vote and to pursue life, not as directed by a colonial government or dictator – is most highly valued here.  As a young African friend shared with me this morning, “Without freedom, pastor, how could we truly pursue the will of God for our lives and our nation?”

His words find special meaning for me today, this my nation’s Independence Day; they offer me the valued “so what?” so often lost.   Without freedom how could we pursue the will of God? Yet, how often do we? How often do we as a people get it right and view our independence, our freedom, not as an end in itself but as a means – a means to pursue the will of God for our lives and our nation?

So today, this Independence Day, thirteen of us (rather symbolic hey?), will gather with a few of our African friends in the backyard after a day of ministry to roast a goat, eat some American-style potato salad, my favorite African beans and have a toast to freedom. Without it after all, how could we pursue the will of God?

by Jim Wood, Senior Pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Norfolk, Virginia.