What Vision for America

Our new president cast a Vision for America.  It was of "America first."  Of America protecting its people, its jobs, its prosperity - trade - deals, individually, with other nations.

The greatness of any country is its vision of itself.  In its sense of who it is.  Of what it is called to be.  Of the reason for its existence.

Its most enduring sense is from above.  The sense of being led by a heavenly hand.  A sense of God's purpose for a nation's life.  The sense of a gift given by God to be lived out for His people, and through them, for all people.

I come from a little band of Englishmen who felt compelled to live a life free from the restraints of the State Church and the State government.  They thought of themselves as "God's free people."  People made free by God's hand and Spirit to follow Jesus into fashioning a new community committed to living Jesus' life on earth - a life marked by love for each other and love for all people.

They crossed a forbidding ocean in a small ship - Mayflower, to make land on a shore they called Plimoth, intending to be people of light as Jesus said they should be ("You are the light of the world. Don't hide your light."). John Winthrop who followed them to Boston, quoted scripture, saying, "We are as a city set upon a hill, with the eyes of the world upon us."

They saw themselves as journeyers, pilgrims, shining for others as servants of the world - a nation serving all people by offering freedom to follow Christ alone, in a redemptive fellowship of healing and restoring and helping all who came to them to be whole - no longer broken, persecuted, or threatened.  They would be a new community on earth.