Independence.

As I write this, I’m watching the sun rise over the ocean while my vacationing family sleeps.  We are at the beach celebrating our 20^th wedding anniversary.  As July approaches, and I’m asked to reflect on independence, my first thought, after 20 years of marriage is, it’s overrated.  Relationships are very quickly about interdependence, in my experience, or they don’t last very long.  I remember counseling a newly married person, and being asked, “Do you mean I have to just give up being RIGHT?” Her quarrel with her husband was about something tiny, like when he put the dishes away, he didn’t stack the bowls in the manner that she wanted. “Oh, baby girl,” I wanted to say, “this good man here loves you and wants God’s best for you, and you are screaming at him over bowls?”  Of course you have to give up “being right” all the time if you want to have a happy marriage.  There are more important things than being “independent.”

Our life with God is certainly about freedom from bondage. Our God is the God of the Exodus, and the God of Christian freedom.  God certainly has strong opinions about worshipping stuff that isn’t God.  In our baptisms, we promise to use the freedom and power God gives us to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.  But all of the freedom we have is a gift that is designed to help us choose God.  We raise up our kids in the church so that when they become independent, and can make their own choice, they may be led to “accept God’s grace for themselves, profess their faith openly and lead a Christian life.” (Baptismal Covenant).

Independence exists so that we can have the chance to choose be dependent on the right things, and so that we can choose to love God and each other.  What if we shot off fireworks at baptisms?  OK, too scary for the babies.  What if we played the 1812 Overture at clergy retirement parties?  There should be sparklers at every church meeting where folks choose Jesus over being right, where they listen and disagree and love one another anyway.  Let’s have a parade down Main Street because people who are hungry are being fed and the oppressed are being set free.  

May God bless us all so that we love Jesus and each other, and all our neighbors, more than just “independence."