[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 192 (Tuesday, December 5, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2285-E2286]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 A BETTER COUNTRY--THANKSGIVING SERMON

                                 ______


                            HON. RAY LaHOOD

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, December 5, 1995

  Mr. LaHOOD. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to insert into the extension of 
remarks of the Congressional Record a sermon that my constituent, Dr. 
Randall Lee Saxon, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Peoria, IL, 
made to his congregation on November 19, 1995, in preparation for 
Thanksgiving.
  Mr. Speaker, I read the sermon and was so moved by Dr. Saxon's words 
and insightful thought that I wanted to insert it in the Congressional 
Record for the benefit of all my colleagues. At a time when Congress, 
and the country, is wrestling with devolution of a Federal Government 
and personal responsibility, Dr. Saxon's words leapt from the pages as 
I read them.

                A Better Country--A Thanksgiving Sermon

                    (By Rev. Dr. Randall Lee Saxon)


                          hebrews 11: 8, 12-16

       By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a 
     place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set 
     out, not knowing where he was going.
       Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, 
     descendants were born, ``as many as the stars of heaven and 
     as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore''.
       All of these died in faith without having received the 
     promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They 
     confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the 
     earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that 
     they are seeking a homeland.
       If they had been thinking of the land that they had left 
     behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it 
     is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. 
     Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, 
     he has prepared a city for them.


                            a better country

       Christians are always in search of a better country. Those 
     who take their faith seriously endeavor to move beyond a 
     feel-good religion to a follow-Jesus faith. Such a faith 
     demands that we continue on our journey of discovery, to 
     build upon the good that was present before us, to bring down 
     the walls that divide us, to bridge chasms--real or 
     imagined--that separate us. Christians are always in search 
     of a better country.
       As with the people of the early Christian Church and as 
     with the people who followed the patriarchs of early Judaism, 
     the way of the Christian is the way of the Pilgrim.
       Those who have the good fortune to visit the Old Town of 
     Rotterdam, in The Netherlands, may visit still the Pilgrim 
     Fathers' Church--as it is yet called--in which the Scrooby 
     Pilgrims and the Leyden Pilgrims held their last service 
     prior to entering on their incredible journey to discover a 
     better country. Those staunch and visionary forebears of ours 
     worshipped together, then made their way down to the water 
     where they boarded the Speedwell to begin their westward 
     journey. Written bold upon a plaque secured to a warehouse on 
     that Rotterdam waterfront is a commemoration to the departure 
     of the Pilgrims.
       From The Netherlands, the little ship bearing the Pilgrim 
     band sailed to Plymouth, England. In the English port, after 
     a period of time, the pilgrims boarded a larger ship, the 
     Mayflower, and set sail for the brave new world awaiting them 
     across the dark and brooding Atlantic waters. As in 
     Rotterdam, so in Plymouth one may today read of this bold 
     departure of the Pilgrims, commemorating in words writ upon 
     the grand Mayflower Monument the extraordinary event of the 
     journey to discover a better country and thus a better life.
       We can imagine that these pious people reflected on the 
     words of Hebrews 11 in the Holy Scripture: People who speak 
     in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 
     If they had been thinking of the land that they had left 
     behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But, as it 
     is, they desired a better country . . .
       We know that many factors figured in the Pilgrims' decision 
     to leave home and cross the great sea in search of a new 
     land, a better country. As children in public and private 
     schools across America, we are given 

[[Page E 2286]]
     opportunity to re-examine the religious and political persecutions and 
     deep yearning of the human spirit which emboldened the 
     Pilgrims to set sail for America. They sought an opportunity 
     to worship as they thought fitting, to engage themselves in 
     self-determination and the utilization of individual gifts 
     for the common purpose of building community. They yearned 
     for a government which would be best described by an American 
     president 243 years after they sailed from Plymouth, a 
     government in which the common people were involved; a 
     government of the people, for the people, and by the people.
       Yet, strange-seeming upon first consideration, these same 
     Pilgrims who were willing to leave hearth and homeland for a 
     wild and distant country viewed themselves as strangers and 
     foreigners on the earth. As people of God, they sought with 
     great diligence to live as people of faith in an often 
     faithless world. These Pilgrims held values which transcended 
     the simple ``be a good person, be nice to your neighbor'' 
     values in human relationships. These values demanded much 
     more of the individual and of society than simply ``being 
     nice''; these values demanded one''s life commitment to the 
     upbuilding of the kingdom of God. It is no wonder historians 
     who trace the Euro-American pilgrimage from its inception to 
     the present day call the experiment of the Pilgrims by the 
     name ``Zion in the Wilderness''. There was purpose and 
     commitment in what the Pilgrims set out to accomplish. 
     Their journey was to a better country!
       The Church today is called to remember it is still on that 
     same journey that set sail the Pilgrims so long ago.
       The Church exists today as resident aliens, an adventurous 
     colony in a society of unbelief. As a society of unbelief, 
     Western culture is devoid of a sense of journey, of 
     adventure, because it lacks belief in much more than the 
     cultivation of an ever-shrinking horizon of self-preservation 
     and self-expression.
       The ancient Hebrew patriarchs, the disciples of Jesus of 
     Nazareth, the Pilgrims of the seventeenth century, the 
     visionaries who held ``these Truths to be self-evident, that 
     all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their 
     Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are 
     Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness'', the founders 
     of this visionary congregation--First Presbyterian Church of 
     Peoria, IL--160 years ago, all were traveling the road to a 
     better country. They had, as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King 
     has said, ``a dream.''
       To tell the truth, that dream, those visions, have taken on 
     the fearful characteristics of a nightmare. The nation--the 
     better country--the Pilgrim people sought to discover and 
     build upon has drifted loose from it moral moorings into a 
     sea of self-centeredness, a Devil's Triangle of you-do-your-
     thing-and-I'll-do-mine-and-that's-all-that-matters-anyway 
     boorishness that shakes the very foundation of our society.
       The home of the brave and land of the free in the 1990s--
     fifteen generations after the Pilgrims landed on the 
     Massachusetts shore--has become the home of the fearful and 
     the land of the imprisoned. America today has more citizens 
     in prison, per capita, than any other nation in the free 
     world. The experience of being ``free'' is what many do not 
     experience!
       We have winked at the discord in our nation. We have turned 
     away from taking personal responsibility to become change 
     agents involved in the creation of a better country. We have 
     come to blame the three branches of our federal government 
     for our troubles, making scapegoats of the very people we 
     have elected to lead us. It is hard to hear and harder again 
     to admit, but many of us do not experience freedom as the 
     Pilgrims sought to create to. We are fearful instead. Our 
     everyday lives point to this truth.
       Consider our overstocked medicine cabinets, burglar alarms, 
     vast ghettos, and drug culture. Eighteen-hundred New Yorkers 
     are murdered every year by their fellow citizens in a city 
     whose police department is larger than the standing army of 
     many nations.
       We have become fearful of one another. We seem to have lost 
     our way on that journey to a better country. Where is the 
     vision of the Pilgrim people? Why do we cower in fear and 
     confusion, choosing to attempt to outrun the darkness rather 
     than turn and say with conviction, ``Enough!''. Those people 
     of varied races and religious tradition and ages who have 
     taken such a stand against corruption in their individual 
     communities have made a difference, they have shined a light 
     into the darkness and recaptured a vision of a better 
     country. May God bless them, and our native land!
       The time has come again for the people of God to become a 
     Pilgrim people! The time has come again for the people of God 
     to say what they believe, and to set sail on a journey that 
     will lead us all to a better country. What am I saying? Leave 
     America for another place?
       Not at all! Despite her flaws, America is yet the greatest 
     nation on earth, for people still risk their lives to make 
     this land their home. Hear me now! I am calling us to 
     recapture the vision of a better country. And to lift up that 
     vision. I am calling us to work together, beginning right 
     here in our own community, to shape a better country so that 
     the little children around us can grow up in a better world. 
     I am calling us to be done with the idiocy of self-centered 
     pettiness that only desecrates, divides, and denigrates the 
     World of God. I am calling us to catch the vision of a better 
     country, and to lift it high in the name of our blessed Lord, 
     Jesus Christ, who has already journeyed ahead of us, calling. 
     ``Follow me!''.
       How do we do this? How do we answer this call? We begin by 
     doing away with the habit of blaming others for our troubles. 
     We become more proactive and less reactive. I say this to you 
     in response to the challenge before us:
       1. Pray without ceasing that God will use you and this 
     congregation to build a better country. Every great change in 
     the nation began in the minds and hearts and spirits of the 
     people who helped make this country great. Change may be 
     facilitated ``out there'', but it must begin in here, in the 
     mind and heart and spirit of the individual. And in the home 
     towns of America.
       2. Pray to forgive those who divide and deride; counsel 
     them to repent and turn to the Lord, so their vision may be 
     outward and upward rather than inward and downward. Remember 
     John Kennedy's words: ``Ask not what your country can do for 
     you, ask what you can do for your country!''. Then do it.
       3. Open your eyes and your mind to see where your unique, 
     personal gifts can be used to help make life better. For 
     example, offer to ring a bell at a Salvation Army kettle, 
     join hands with others at work in one of our city soup 
     kitchens or other missions, assist as a hospital volunteer, 
     give blood: one pint of that vital fluid may save a life, 
     sign on the line on the back of your driver's license and 
     commit yourself to becoming an organ donor (hundred of 
     thousands of lives could be saved annually if more of us 
     would do this), visit the hospitalized, run an errand for one 
     who is ill, comfort the afflicted, challenge the comfortable, 
     teach in our Sunday School. You get the idea. The need is 
     great; open your eyes and minds and respond.
       4. Contact our elected representatives and urge them to 
     remember and act on the words of our sixteenth president, 
     that our government may be of, by and for the people. Rather 
     than deride the people you elected to represent you, work 
     with them to shape a brighter, better future for all who call 
     America home.
       5. Live each day as if it were your last, devoting energy 
     to those profoundly simple acts of discipleship we discover 
     by lifting up faith, hope and love. And, in that instant, 
     make a difference for good and to God's glory in the life of 
     someone else. Do you begin to realize what a radical 
     difference you can initiate simply by lifting up the values 
     and mores which helped build this country, those aspects of 
     national character which begin on our hearths and in our 
     hearts as we teach our children about God and goodness and 
     grace?
       Yes, Christians are always in search of a better country. 
     Those who take their faith seriously endeavor to move beyond 
     a feel-good religion to a follow-Jesus faith. The choice, 
     really, is up to you. You can sit morosely by, captured by a 
     culture of complaint and compliance, or you can let the 
     living God fill your sails with the wind of His Spirit, 
     empowering you to move forward on that journey to a better 
     country.
       The America of tomorrow awaits your decision to act. Decide 
     wisely, pilgrim, for you touch the trembling, fragile future 
     with your individual hands and hearts. May God bless America. 
     May God bless you. Amen.

                          ____________________