Higher Ground

As we pass another landmark milestone for this republic, many are sincerely wondering, where are we heading?  What is left of worth?  What is our duty as citizens in the present moment?

No, the Forneys are not going to Canada, though having ancestors from that wonderful maple leaf land, we are now eligible for citizenship.  No, we’re staying put.  The work to be done is here.

So, what might we celebrate this Fourth?  My mind goes to the natural beauty of the land.

When in college two friends and I would head to Yosemite as soon as summer began.  One of us, Bill, would usually have a job lined up at the lodge washing dishes.  The deal with his supervisor, if the other two of us pitched in, Bill could get released early by midmorning.

John Muir in his nature writings has a marvelous piece on how to spend one day in Yosemite, if all you have is only one day.  Yes, head for the Vernal Falls.[1]  Give yourself an hour there to take it all in.

We’d soon be hitting the trail to Vernal Falls and beyond.  One summer we went rock climbing up the Thumb of Mount Hoffman.  Bill was the expert and had all the equipment – ropes, carabiners, pitons – the whole kit.

Earlier the day before, we newcomers to the sport, Ron and I practiced rappelling down some steep cliff faces.  We learned the correct way to tighten our harnesses, hook in the rope so we could gently lower ourselves down a 150-foot cliff.  I soon got the hang of it, or thought I had until we got to the real thing the next day.

The Thumb is the highest rock spire on the peak of that mountain.  It offers spectacular views in all 360 directions.   And it is only accessible by circling around from the path leading to it to the 1500-foot cliff on the other side.  Yes, it was a long, long, very long way straight down.  Vertigo was a real possibility. 

We pounded pitons into the cracks of that sheer face, hooked in our carabiners and our ropes with loops tied in for our feet to begin the climb straight up.  No, don’t look down.  Definitely, don’t look down.

Well, I finally made it to the top with Bill giving me some extra pull at the end of the ordeal – he was the belay man.  And, yes, the view was spectacular.  To celebrate, we had taken a flask of Wild Turkey whiskey.  Just a few sips – we wanted to be stone-cold sober for the climb down.  I made it down okay, which was quite a bit easier, made it safely down.  I’m still here, am I not? 

That venture was definitely to “higher ground.”  And spiritually, it was.  The majesty filled the soul.

That is the grandeur I celebrate this Fourth, as other memories come flooding back – Grand Canyon at sunrise, the Aurora Borealis at night in the wilds of Alaska, that immense golden eagle soaring only a couple feet over my head when on a float trip down one of Alaska’s wild rivers.

I will celebrate the grandeur of our heritage through the words and legacy of those who are part of the warp and woof of the fabric of this republic.  I am brought to those like Frederick Douglass and Sandra Cisneros[2] who through adversity and persistent witness kept the hope of America alive.  I celebrate those who speak to our generous spirit.  Those abolitionists and suffragists like my great ancestor Julia Ward Howe.  Yes, she made it onto the cover of this July issue of the Atlantic magazine – “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

The Spirit moving through countless witness to our common humanity is derivative from the one same Spirit flowing through our lessons for this morning.

Hear the Spirit speaking in Matthew’s Gospel:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven.  For he makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and unjust.  For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?  Do not even the tax collectors do the same?”

From time to time this generosity has erupted forth from us, even for our former enemies.  Having learned the disastrous lesson of the punitive Treaty of Versailles, (signed on June 28, 1919), we rebuilt West Germany, Italy and Japan.  The Marshal Plan even went further to rebuild much of Europe.

After the Cold War, in many ways we bent over backward to assist Russia in recovering from the economic disaster left by the downfall of Communism.

Through USAID and the Peace Corps we have sent emissaries of good will through the world, sometimes in the most dangerous and neglected places with food aid, economic assistance, medicines for HIV and common childhood diseases.  That is until the current administration had totally destroyed this signature humanitarian work leaving already over 500,000 children to die.  The American spirit enshrined in those past years of benevolent aid.  Yes, not always completely altruistic, but then what of our human motives are completely pure?  Search your conscience on this.

The nonprofits in America have also reflected the same Spirit.  Rotary, begun in America in February 23, 1905 by the businessman Paul Harris, has through its world-wide campaign against polio, virtually wiped out that dreaded disease.  Their workers are often the only outsiders accepted in places often unaccepting of westerners – Afghanistan, Pakistan, Myanmar.  This campaign of Rotary International has led to a historic, global campaign to eradicate polio since 1985.

As a founding core partner of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), Rotary’s PolioPlus program has helped immunize over 3 billion children and contributed more than $2.9 billion toward global eradication.  It has led through international partners to a 99.9% reduction of cases for this dread disease.

This is the America I celebrate this Fourth.  An expansive version of Rotary’s motto: “Service beyond self.”  This is the volunteerism that Alexis de Tocqueville celebrated in his book, Democracy in America, in 1835.  Higher ground indeed!  For such I will toss back a cold one this Fourth.

This Fourth I celebrate those liberties and rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights, the first amendments to our Constitution – the right to peaceable assemble in protest especially.

With this current mendacious and corrupt administration, we have not only the right but the duty to be the Gospel Resistance to the evil they do.  Yes, we do ask our blessing every Sunday on “those we must resist,” but resist we must with all the soul force at our command.

Resistance is Higher Ground.  In the streets, in the editorial pages of our papers, in our daily prayers and charitable and political contributions.

Just as we will join in the effort to assist in Venezuela after this horrendous earthquake.  Much of Caracas looks like Gaza after the Israeli genocidal war there.  We at St. Francis will play our part.  Check out Episcopal Relief and Development or the denominational agencies of your own church.  Most denominational agencies get well over 90% of your money to the targeted need.  Higher Ground!

For us Episcopalians, the site is www.episcoaplrelief.org.   Once you’re there, an immediate popup will direct you to: Earthquake Relief for Venezuela.[3]  BTW, I tried it out and found that it works easily.  Your receipt will say, directed to International Disaster Fund, the international agency through which we are working for earthquake relief there.

The very same Spirit manifested in your gift is to be found in Torah Righteousness – pure Grace.  Hear this witness from our Torah heritage:

“For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes.  He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.  And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.”  Higher Ground.

The plan of those who would rule over us, Project 2025, continues to roll over our laws, the Constitution and common human decency.  Rolling on, reducing voting rights, cutting off food stamps to 700,000 children as of last week.  Throwing folks off their health care.  Their toadies on the Supreme Court in rejecting the protection given to Hattians and Syrian migrants opens the door for some 400,000 to be immediately deported to the worst hell-hole places on the planet.  Deportations to war-torn places, gang-infested countries.  Certain death for many.  Resist we must.  America is better than this.

We have much Higher ground to celebrate this Fourth.  The fact that we can be out in the streets that day, loud and proud, proclaiming with our bodies that America means ALL – gay and straight, black, brown, white and all the other colors of our mélange of this big disparate assemblage we label “e pluribus unum.”  A street party welcoming the “huddled masses” still yearning to be free. 

That’s a beauty the greedy grifters can’t deny.  It will be “Youuuuugggge” as Senator Bernie Sanders would bellow.  My prayer that day is for over ten millin in the streets all across this great nation.  Yes, our marching feet are our prayers.   And those marching feet are the greatness of America we celebrate that day.

I close with the admonition from one whose feet were often weary, that tireless suffragist, Susan B. Anthony

“It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.  And we formed it not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people – women as well as men.”[4]

Yes, All means All on this Higher Ground.  And we’re still struggling to make it a reality for the whole of this republic.  Onward to Higher Ground.  Can I get an Amen here?

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[1] John Muir, Selected Writings (New York: Everyman’s Library, 2017) 461 ff.

[2] Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street (New York: Knopf, 1984).

[3] ERD mailing address is: P.O. Box 5121, Boone, IA, 50950-0121.  Make checks out to Episcopal Relief and Development and in the memo line put Venezuela Earthquake Relief.

[4] Susan B. Anthony, from a speech at New York 1873.  From The Patriot’s Bible: A Bicentennial Anthology of Love and Justice, John Eagleson and Philip Scharper, eds. (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1975), 76-77.

July 5, 2026 – Pentecost 5
Independence Day Propers
“Higher Ground”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney

Deuteronomy 10:17-21; Psalm 145:1-9;

A Reading from Baldwin; Gospel:  Matthew 5:43-48