My starting point in thinking about God and July 4, 1776 is 5 decades after that. In what may be the single most lovely moment, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, the two most responsible for writing and fleshing out the Declaration of Independence, died on the same day. And not just any day, but July 4. And not just any July 4, but on precisely the 50th anniversary of the Declaration. Coincidence? Serendipity? Anything divine in such a glorious parting?
What I would count as divine, or at least as the kind of thing God asks of us not just as Americans but as Christians, is the almost more astonishing fact that these two bitter rivals, with ferociously divergent views of what this very young America should be, found the way to become close friends.
They were so very different. Jefferson was a southern aristocrat, an optimist, a slave owner, a scientist. Adams was a northerner, middle class, never wealthy, an overachiever. The bitter breach between them involved public insults and spats. Their competing visions made them figureheads of two political movements that became our first parties, as we now take parties for granted.
Unexpectedly, in July of 1813, the 78 year old Adams wrote a letter to the 70 year old Jefferson which included the famous line, “You and I ought not to die, before we have explained ourselves to each other.” Jefferson replied. At first, a few letters flew back and forth between Quincy and Monticello, then a great flood. In 1813, they both only had 13 years left. How do you know when you have only 13 years left? Or at such ages, 13 months or weeks? When is it too late, or not yet too late?
I start with Adams and Jefferson because I believe the brutal divisions in our country are killing us all; these ex-enemies, and Christ, show me we can do better, or that God can work a miracle in us. Much in the Bible is about how to see other people, and how to listen. Paul spoke repeatedly of reconciliation being the Christian’s #1 business. Because of what Christ has done in reconciling us lost sinners to himself, “We regard no one from a worldly point of view. God has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” Jesus wasn’t kidding about “Love your enemies.” We surrender our judgmental habits. We see the beauty in others; we know others, like us, are wounded and fearful. We befriend, not because it’s fun or cool, but because God invites us to do so, and we never know true joy until we do.
Not just interpersonally, but in political life. I greatly admire Republican Senator John Danforth who wrote “If Christianity is supposed to be a ministry of reconciliation, but has become, instead, a divisive force in American political life, something is terribly wrong and we should correct it. I want political people to stop using religion to divide Americans, but I want religious people to become more engaged in fixing politics that is currently broken.”
And so we begin. We start small. Adams initiated things. Why? He’d long dreamed of becoming a clergyman. He was poorer – and so maybe humbler? Someone begins. One message, then another. One relationship, then another, then maybe the country and world. Maybe.
Back to July 1826. Both men were frail. Adams had lost his teeth, his eyesight was poor, and he could barely walk. Jefferson couldn’t hear and suffered chronic pain. By early July, he was in and out of consciousness, but when lucid declared he was desperate to live until the Fourth. He made it until noon. 500 miles away, Adams made it through the afternoon, briefly stirring from sleep to say “Thomas Jefferson survives,” although he was already gone.
Before you die, to whom do you need to explain yourself, or seek to understand? Even to mend what is broken, and to be a part of the Church’s big secret that is the only hope for our country and even humanity: that ministry of reconciliation.