I’ve been thinking of American Icons. Those whose lives embodied the best of who we are. They weren’t perfect. They weren’t saints. But they often stood out to remind us of what we could be.
I think it all begin in their hearts. Which is what our scripture lessons today alluded to…
Moses said, “But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children’s children.”
Remember the commandments of God. Live them. Speak them. Make sure your children and their children know about them & our history. Don’t just keep them inside but share them from your hearts.
James wrote, “But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.”
James warns us not just to say what we believe, but it to live it out in our lives by what we do. James in his letter, like Moses before him, tells us to remember the commandments and live them.
Jesus said, “people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come…”
And Jesus takes it one step further, what defiles us is not from outside of us. But from our hearts. Do we live according to what God has asked of us, that Moses and James spoke of, or do we live just for ourselves and our fulfillment?
Thinking about the scripture before us, I watched like many of you, two funerals for American icons this week: Aretha Louise Franklin and John Sidney McCain III.
Their lives, for me, were lived from their hearts. They represented the best of America. Using their God given talents.
I can hear the Queen of Soul singing her 1967 hit R E S P E C T…
“It [The song reflected] the need of a nation, the need of the average man and woman in the street, the businessman, the mother, the fireman, the teacher—everyone wanted respect,” Franklin wrote. “It was also one of the battle cries of the civil rights movement. The song took on monumental significance.”
I can hear Senator McCain asking us to be our best selves – “We are citizens of the world’s greatest republic, a nation of ideals, not blood and soil. We are blessed and are a blessing to humanity when we uphold and advance those ideals at home and in the world… To be connected to America’s causes – liberty, equal justice, respect for the dignity of all people – brings happiness more sublime than life’s fleeting pleasures. Our identities and sense of worth are not circumscribed but enlarged by serving good causes bigger than ourselves.”
Maybe, just maybe, we are living out what Jesus asks of us, when people see us as a blessing to humanity, when we act out of the goodness of our hearts, and the values that lie within, like respect.
“She offered the musical path to respect; he embodied respect in patriotic form.” (Hank Stuever)
What do we offer with our lives? What values do we embody?
Many years ago, a great warrior abandoned his life of war and destruction and became a monk, happily living a quiet life serving his brothers and the poor and sick of the villages around the monastery.
One day, an arrogant warrior rode through the village. He terrorized the villagers with his threats and demands. He soon made his way to the monastery where he recognized the monk from their adventures years before. The reckless warrior did everything he could to provoke his old adversary into a fight: the boor threw rocks, shouted insults, smashing parts of the poor monastery. But the monk would not respond. By dusk, the warrior finally grew tired of the game; he defiantly spat on the monastery door and rode off.
Some of the villagers who had been brutalized by the warrior, asked the monk why he did not confront the intruder. “If someone offers you a gift and you do not accept it, to whom does the gift belong?” the old monk asked.
“He who offered it,” they replied.
“The same is true for anger, envy and ridicule,” the monk explained. “When they are not accepted, they forever belong to the one who holds on to them.” [Adapted from the Moral Stories website.]
In the hurts, indignities and injustices perpetrated against us, what is often worse than the act itself is what the act does to us as persons: we respond with suspicion, cynicism, self-absorption, anger, vengeance. One of the most difficult challenges of being a disciple of Jesus is not to let those things “outside” of us diminish what we are “inside” ourselves, not to let such anger or vengeance displace the things of God in the sacred place of our hearts but to let God’s presence transform the evil that we have encountered into compassion and forgiveness.
We saw that in the lives of Aretha and John through their heartfelt offerings that have helped us as a country move forward, from the battlefield of Vietnam and the battle for Civil Rights in our country, through her songs and his work in congress, they could have given into the hate and violence they experienced, but their values would not let them.
"Aretha Franklin and John McCain didn't talk about the good old days. They wanted to bring the past into the present. They were living reminders."(John Baick)
They did what Moses would have asked of them…to be living reminders to us today.
They could have retired to very comfortable private lives, but neither chose that route. The lived from their hearts, from the principles that guided them… one stayed on stage sharing her gift of bringing joy through song, and the other fought for legislation that he passionately believed in.
“Like John McCain, Aretha Franklin understood who she was, valued where she came from, and left behind the footprints of a giant. At a time when too many of us are struggling to fit into other people's boxes, we could all benefit from following in their footsteps.” (Solomon Jones)
And maybe that’s why so many came to offer their condolences, to honor their lives in Detroit, Phoenix, DC, to offer their hearts for those whose lives embodied the best of who we are. Maybe its why so many of us watched on TV too.
May God instill in our hearts the spirit of compassion and justice, enabling us to transform the world outside into God's Kingdom that begins within each of us, the place of love, hope, and respect. Amen.
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