233 years after declaring our independence, America is still not free from racism, sexism, class systems and social hierarchies. Yet our citizens have basic human rights, which are denied - here in America and around the globe - to all those who are suffering in modern-day slavery. As I celebrate my freedom today, I do so knowing that there are people in my very neighborhood who are not free. All around the world, and even in this country, there are millions of people who still aren't free to marry as they'd like, provide for their families, educate themselves, eat. There are millions living under constant fear of violence. Millions miserable, starving, enslaved, beaten, sick, dying. I'm one person; I can't spare millions. But I can do what is available to me, using the freedoms I have been miraculously granted. I can pray, speak, vote, donate, contribute, educate. This is what we were created for and commanded to do: defy the darkness of this world with the gospel message of freedom in Christ.
"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then light will rise in the darkness,
and night will become like noonday."Isaiah 58
