Dependence Day --some thoughts on Independence

“Do not say to your neighbor: Go away!

Come another time! I will give it to you tomorrow.

If you can give it to him today.”

--Proverbs 3:28

It is the 4^th of July, and here in America we are celebrating what we like to call: Independence Day.  We broke free from England and declared ourselves an independent nation.  But in time, perhaps even from the beginning this declaration of our independence has been something of a two-edged sword; on the one side, we declared ourselves free as a nation, from the reign of a distant king who seemed to rule over his colonies with little concern for the people who lived there.  And we underwent the great experiment of self-rule, became a land ruled by laws and shaped by the consent and will of the citizens.  But the other side of this sword infected our language and our ideals with a kind of cancer also known as independence. Our national mythology became inflamed with a philosophy of self-creation & self-invention; stories of self-made men, rags to riches tales of men and women who rose from “nothing” to become mighty heroes of commerce and industry, politics and economy.  This myth of self-creation is truly a cancer.  It destroys and yet, how often do we (as a nation) conflate the national myth of independence, the ideal of inventing ourselves as a new and independent nation with a personal dream of inventing ourselves as a new and independent person?

But the truth is—we are not independent.  Not as a nation and definitely not as a people.  We were made by God to be in community, to be in communion, to be dependent.  I need you.  You need me.  We need our brothers and sisters of every race and land.  All of them.  All the time. Especially when they come to us asking for help. 

You see, in the myth of independence, they shouldn’t need us.  There is something wrong about their needing us.  Living in our 4-bedroom ranch-style houses with climate controlling AC and wifi extenders and hot-tubs and remote controlled refrigerators full of apple pie and corndogs and mayonnaise, we surely don’t need them!! What’s wrong with them?  Why can’t they grab hold of their own bootstraps and… just go away?  Can’t they see we’re busy celebrating our independence? Come another time!  Maybe, when you have something to offer.

But what if the thing they had to offer us was a truth we can’t find streaming on Netflix? Dependence.  The fact that being made in the image of God means we were made for community, and being made for community means we need each other.  And so when someone comes asking for help and we say: Go away.  Get a job!  Learn how to pay your bills and follow the rules and take care of yourself!  Learn how to be independent! Like me.  We aren’t just being tough, or hard, or cruel, we are being fools.  We are missing out on something glorious and grand, a gift from God: dependence.  We are missing out on the opportunity to become even more dependent. To participate in the interdependence of God’s creation.

Think about this: when you help someone, when you feed the hungry, visit the sick, clothe the naked, you do something for their body, and often they are very grateful, but at the end of the day who lays down feeling more blessed?   Let us greet those who need our help as  not a burden to be avoided, or borne with (though with bitter resentment), but as an opportunity to become more fully who we were made to be. Your need is a gift to me, just as my insufficiency, my brokenness, my need for help, for community, is a gift to you. On this beautiful Fourth of July morning, I ask you to consider taking a moment to celebrate Dependence Day.

Happy Dependence Day. 

All I have is what I need -some thoughts against Independence

“All I have is what I need…”  --Audrey Assad

I’ve been doing a bit of driving this summer; not to Waxahachie or beautiful downtown Wichita Falls or anything touristy like that –but to HEB, the mall, and appointments, and even once to Miller Outdoor Theater. And as I drive around Houston the CD I have been listening to the most in the car is a Christian pop CD called “Heart” by Audrey Assad.  I think it is quite possibly one of the great pop CDs of all time.  The melodies and rhythms are wonderfully catchy and sometimes quite thrilling, but the songs –the lyrics and the way she sings them—are often so strangely beautiful that they seem transcendent.  Though there doesn’t seem to be a narrative “concept” to the album, the songs do feel organically united and create a beautiful cohesive whole.  It is truly an album to enjoy again and again.

                But there is one phrase that shows up in at least a couple of the songs that has troubled me (in a good way –of course): “all we have is what we need…”  And as I read Genesis, I keep thinking about this phrase.  How applicable it is to the story of God’s love and grace and the story of His people.  And to the story of my own life. As a kind of disclaimer, let me say this: in the context of her song, I think it is quite possible Mrs. Assad is saying something more straightforward than what I am about to describe.  I imagine she means something along the line of –God has given me everything I need, why should I long for more.  But what I hear is: all we really have, any of us, is our need.  And perhaps that is exactly how God intends it.

                Going back to my recent reading of Genesis, look at Abram –called by God to become a blessing to the world—he is lead to a foreign land, separated from his family and home, called to dwell in a place where he lacks the security of all he has known and where he will find himself constantly in need of shelter and food and even a place to lay his head. And then there is Jacob, who seems so clever and wily, yet who –in the end—must submit himself first to the brother he has abused and tricked, then because of a famine to the will of some Egyptian power-broker (who it turns out is the beloved son that he lost so many years before).  Again and again we see in the stories of the people of God that all we really have is our need.  We are called time and again to place not our burnt offerings and incense upon the altar –but to offer God our brokenness and our contrition. We are called time and again to recognize our complete dependence on God; our need for His grace.  That is our greatest gift. And –on some level it is the only thing we have that is truly ours: Our need.  And so we are called to share it with the world. We are called to place our need upon the altar, to offer it to all and to become a blessing to the world.    

It is interesting to me that I am writing this on the 4^th of July: Independence Day. We –as a culture—do not value “need.” We have a little bit of disdain for it. Because need makes you dependent. And that is anathema in the land of independence!  A land where we can define and redefine ourselves any way we like, because we don’t need anybody or anyone’s approval.  We are autonomous and independent and that’s how we like it. And yet is that what God intended? Is that what Christ meant when He said:

Anyone who finds his life will lose it and anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it
–Matthew 10:39

What does it mean to take up your cross and follow Christ? What does it look like? Does it mean Independence? Does it look like self-sufficiency? Or is that the call of God asking us to come and share our brokenness with the world?   Perhaps all I really have is what I need –and that need is a door to salvation –not just for me—but for you as well. We tend to think of a need as a lack or an emptiness, but what if –like the song says—it isn’t a lacking, it is the thing we actually have been given to share with the world. All I have is what I need  --here, I hold it out to you. It is all I have –and I offer it to you.

Thank you, Audrey Assad. Happy “dependence” day to all…