Today, I hope you’ve noticed, is July 4^th, the secular holiday on which we celebrate the blessings of our nation’s independence. But it’s also Sunday, the Lord’s Day. And this liturgical celebration trumps all others.

On the Lord’s Day, we celebrate just how much we need one another – that we are interdependent upon one another – in what our namesake St. Paul calls the Body of Christ. And, we celebrate our utter dependence upon the Lord our Maker.

Today’s lections support this very point. Although they are not the official lections for Independence Day (which really can be found in the Prayer Book lectionary), but the regular lections appointed for this Sunday. And here we find the prophet Isaiah extolling God’s sovereignty.

This is from the final chapter of the great prophet. Up to this point we’ve seen Isaiah calling the people to task -- as individuals and a nation -- for not following God’s ways. For trampling the poor and vulnerable. For being too eager to settle for military solutions. Isaiah thus interprets the Babylonian exile and the ensuing chaos as the just desserts for the injustice they’ve allowed. Now, he concludes, it all comes down to putting one’s ultimate allegiance to God as Cosmic King.

Yet even here Isaiah calls to mind the tenderness with which we are held as God’s dependents. Just look at that wonderful image of how God nurses us with consolation. But wait, there’s more – Isaiah says that God is like a mother comforting a child. We know there are plenty of images of God as a Father, but here’s one of many descriptions of God as Mother.

And what an image it is. I hope we’ve all had the joy of dandling a young child – as a parent or grandparent or doting aunt or uncle – on our knees. That’s how much sheer delight God takes in us!

But we don’t have to wait until July 4^th to celebrate all this. We can see it for ourselves every time we walk into this beautiful place.

What’s over here? The American flag. It reminds us not only of the blessings of living in this great independent nation, but the responsibilities too. That responsible civic involvement and informed voting are forms of stewardship. Let us not take them for granted.

And over here? There’s the flag of the Episcopal Church, the expression of the Body of Christ into which we’ve been called. Right behind it is our lovely parish banner, recently repaired by June Lape. It reminds us that God has planted us in this particular place to love one another. Both represent our need for each other, our interdependence upon one another.

And up here -- front and center and on a higher level? There’s the cross of Christ we humbly follow. There’s the altar, the holy table, from which we are nursed with the food and drink of Jesus Christ. There are the symbols of the Alpha and the Omega – the beginning and end, the reign of the God of the Cosmos.

Thanks be to God for the independence of our nation.

Thanks be to God for our interdependence upon one another.

Most especially, thanks be to God for our profound dependence upon the Lord Most High.