 As a lot of you know, I spent four years before coming here working as the executive director of the Unitarian Universalist Partner Church Council. During those years, in the year before, in which I served as a part-time church governance consultant, I did not have a regular pulpit. I was invited every now and then to preach at congregations that had international partnerships, but of course I was pretty limited in what I could talk about. I'd talk about international partnerships. I didn't anticipate missing doing regular sermons, it is kind of a grind, and honestly at first I did not miss the regular preaching. But then I started to, and that's part of why I made a decision to leave the Partner Church Council and become an interim minister for this last chapter of my ministry. Fortunately, given how this year is panned out, it is not the live audience that I missed most about preaching, though that is something I did miss and of course have missed this year. What I missed most actually was the chance to explore topics that feel important and to figure out where I stand on them. As I shared with you previously, Donald Trump descended that golden escalator at the Trump Tower in New York and announced his candidacy for the presidency two days after my last sermon in Appleton. That announcement speech was full of racist vitriol that perfectly foreshadowed the nature of his campaign and his presidency. That campaign and his time in office gave me lots to think and wonder about, but I had no opportunity to process what I was thinking and wondering about in sermons. The other big development during my time without a pulpit was the taking flight of the Black Lives Matter movement and the related struggle in our Unitarian Universalist Association with the ongoing legacy of white supremacy culture. These two things gave me a lot to wonder about during my hiatus from the pulpit and one of the things I wondered about was my previous embrace of a sense of American exceptionalism. I preached that American exceptionalism gospel many times in Appleton. Now my embrace of American exceptionalism was nuanced. I understood that genocide, persecution, and enslavement of blacks and indigenous people were deep consequential flaws in the experiment that is the United States of America. I would acknowledge these flaws in people like Thomas Jefferson, but then lift up the better angels of their nature and how they embodied those better angels in much of the founding documents and philosophy of this country. The problem, I believed, was some bad apples among the founders and early leaders of our country and some folks like Jefferson who had deep flaws. Bottom line though is I believed in the premise that the United States is the most exceptional country in the history of the world. I believed that if you take away these flaws our democracy offers the most enlightened progressive blueprint for a nation. To use language that goes back to the Puritan settlers I embraced the notion of the United States as the bright city on the hill despite the flaws. Well these past five years have deeply challenged my embrace of American exceptionalism and I've wanted to wade into these tricky waters and July 4th being a Sunday this year just was too good of an opportunity to pass up. So the last week's sermon was framed as a farewell I just couldn't resist doing the sermon this morning. So this morning I joined in the tradition of Frederick Douglass and Ralph Waldo Emerson and others in doing a critique of our nation. I believe that critiquing our nation is patriotic. Through the lens of what I've learned these past several years I now believe that we really can't parse out flaws like genocide and slavery and Jim Crow segregation. They are part and parcel what our nation has been and done in the world and I've come to question the idea of American exceptionalism that I embraced for so many years. There are three big problems with American exceptionalism. The first is that this idea of American exceptionalism has fueled some awful actions. As you know because I've mentioned it a lot this year I keep coming back and thinking about American imperialism in the Pacific in the late 1800s and early 1900s. An enterprise embraced by liberals including Unitarians and Universalists. Many of our UU ancestors were motivated by a desire to share what they thought was the best and the brightest mode of governance with which had ever been seen on the face of the earth with countries that had more primitive models of governance. They saw our democracy as the best great hope of the world. Who wouldn't want to have it? They seemed to think. If others didn't seem to want to have it then that's just because they were kind of ignorant and we need to teach them. This led our liberal ancestors, many of them, toward a slippery slope of imposing our American system on others including if necessary by force. And this helped fuel our conquest and annexation of Hawaii, the Philippines and other places in the Pacific. Our face collective embrace of American exceptionalism is why Unitarians and Universalists had an outsized role in that imperialist endeavor. My colleague Reverend Fred Muir found a reproduction of a painting from the Philippines exhibit in the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis. A painting that perfectly captures this sentiment that animated Unitarian and Universalist imperialists. Before showing it let me share some background on the 1904 World's Fair. It took place six years after the U.S. seized control of the Philippines though President Roosevelt declared the war over and won, mission accomplished in 1902, insurgents still battled U.S. forces in the Philippines as the World's Fair got underway in 1904. The Philippines exhibit was the most popular attraction in the fair. It was estimated that 99 out of 100 people who went to the fair went to that exhibit. The exhibit was called and this is interesting the Philippines Reservation. A thousand Filipinos, many clad and loincloths were part of the exhibit. They were among 10,000 natives imported from developing nations to be part of what the scholar Walter Jensen calls the largest human zoo in world history. Now this painting from the Philippines exhibit captures the liberal idealism that animated the 1904 World's Fair and American imperialism in the Pacific. It's a little hard to see this painting. Here's what's happening. Filipinos some naked are worshiping a white tall big American surrounded by old glory. The American figure is bountiously sharing the riches of our American system. An angel watches approvingly from above signaling that the source of these gifts for the Philippines is divine. This painting depicts how Unitarian and Universalist imperialists framed their work. They were God's agent in sharing the divine gifts of America with the poor, the downtrodden, the ignorant across the world. The second problem with American exceptionalism or that these last years have exposed is that it's not true. I embrace the belief that our constitution is so strong and perfect as amended that it can survive any and all attacks from within our country. I could not imagine an authoritarian ruler taking control of our nation. I could not fathom large-scale attempts to throw out election results. I believed that our courts and our constitution and the underlying goodwill and commitment to democratic ideals of all people would prevent our nation from falling under the spell of an authoritarian ruler. I know better now. I see how naive I was. And this leads me to the third problem with American exceptionalism. If we believe that our government is impervious to being taken over by an authoritarian, we make takeover by an authoritarian ruler more likely. I was slow to recognize and work against the threat to our democracy because I thought our democracy was stronger than it turns out it is. And I believe that American democracy survived these last years by a very thin margin. Our democracy continues to be sick, a wash and dark money, voter suppression, and deeper efforts to undermine elections. Indeed, I believe that our democracy is in more danger today than it was last November or even on January 6th. One of our two political parties is working very hard to suppress votes, particularly votes that come from black, indigenous, and other people of color. One of our two political parties is working hard to make it easier for state legislatures and Congress to overturn legitimate election results that it doesn't like. In the face of this, thinking that our democracy somehow is impervious to authoritarian assault is dangerous. Our country, like all countries, is susceptible to authoritarian takeover. American exceptionalism is a dangerous view. Now I continue to believe that there is some promise in our nation's heritage and system, as well as deep flaws that reflect the truth that we as Americans are flawed human beings. I believe that the United States, like other countries, is not divinely sanctioned but is and always has been embodied through flawed human beings. The extent to which the United States brings to life the good is in the hands of the American people, we the people. It's always been up to us. Will we be a country where freedom and opportunity exist for all, or will we be a country characterized by bigotry and oppression? Which America are we going to be? We have always had that choice facing us. One of our country's greatest poets, Langston Hughes, wrote a poem called Let America Be America Again in 1955. His visionary, raw, compelling words continue to speak truth. These words are given life anew in this rendition by Abinah Coombson-Davis, the musical director of the Resistance Revival Chorus. And so I will give Langston Hughes and Abinah Coombson-Davis the last word today. America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be. Let it be the pioneer on the plane seeking a home where he himself is free. America never was America to me. Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed. Let it be that great strong land of love where never kings connive nor tyrant scheme that any man be crushed by one above. It never was America to me. Oh let my land be a land where liberty is crowned with no false patriotic grief but opportunity is real and life is free. Equality is in the air we breathe. There's never been equality for me nor freedom in this homeland of the free. Say who are you who mumbles in the dark and who are you that draws your veil across the stars. I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart. I am the negro bearing slavery scars. I am the red man driven from the land. I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek and finding only the same old stupid plan of dog eat dog of mighty crush the weak. I am the young man full of strength and hope tangled in that ancient endless chain of profit power gain of grab the land of grab the gold of grab the ways of satisfying need of work the men of take the pay of owning everything for one's own greed. I am the farmer bondsman to the soil. I am the worker sold to the machine. I am the negro serving to you all. I am the people humble hungry mean hungry yet today despite the dream beaten yet today oh pioneers I'm the man who never got ahead the poorest worker barter through the years yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream in the old world while still a surf of kings that dreamt a dream so strong so brave so true that even now it's mighty daring sings in every furrow turn in every brick and stone that's made America the land it has become for I'm the one who sailed those early seas in search of what I meant to be my home. I'm the one who left dark Ireland shore and England's grassy lay and Poland's plain and torn from black Africa strand I came to build a homeland of the free the free who said the free not me surely not me the millions on relief today the millions shot down when we strike the millions who have nothing for our pay for all the dreams we've dreamed and all the stars we have millions who have nothing for our pay except the dream that's almost dead today oh let America be America again the dream that never has been yet and yet must be the dream where every man is free the land that's mine the poor man's Indians Negroes me who made America who's sweat and blood whose faith and pain whose hand at the foundry whose plow in the rain must bring back our mighty dream again sure call me any ugly name you choose the steel of freedom does not stain from those who live like leeches on the people's lives we must bring back our land again America oh yes I say it plain America never was America to me and yet I swear this oath America will be out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death the rape and rotten graft of stealth and lies we the people must redeem the land the plants the mines the rivers the mountains the endless plain all all stretch of these great green states and make America again thanks in news