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It would seem as if the Sacred Scriptures proclaimed today were specific not just to this week in the liturgical year, but perhaps intended for the celebration of a national holiday. Though the latter is purely accidental, this Fourth of July might be a good time to reflect on the Gospel mandate for us who gratefully celebrate the blessings of life in a democracy.Though the Lord’s promise in the passage from Isaiah is made to the chosen people and often appropriated by the Christian community, it can surely, by extension, be adopted by any of God’s people regardless of their national or religious allegiance. The image Isaiah offers of Jerusalem is even extended to God. Just as Jerusalem embraces her people as a mother nurses her children, so too does God. This deeply intimate, feminine image is one of the most powerful in Scripture and inspires both gratitude and pride.As we celebrate a national holiday that focuses on our unique blessings, we should not hesitate to embrace that image and our common bond under God with all the peoples of the world. We are all God’s children and as God’s family we all share in God’s blessings. It should be our prayer that all nations would be able to see themselves loved by God as a loving mother cares for her children. As the Psalm Response proclaims, “Let all the earth cry out to God with joy!”St. Paul seems to echo that sentiment as he professes his response to God’s love shown to him through the death and resurrection of the Christ. His joy and gratitude in being so favored make him totally disinterested in anything but professing himself “a new creation,” which he claims demands a response of “peace and mercy.” That can and should be our response to the blessings God has bestowed on us. As people who know the source of those blessings, our gratitude should be expressed more in acts of peace and mercy than picnics and fireworks. Nothing wrong with the latter, if they represent the deeper sense of gratitude witnessed by St. Paul.But it is today’s Gospel that should most inspire us as we celebrate our nation’s blessings. Our response, our mission, especially as followers of Christ, should be that of the seventy-two. We, too, are charged to be missionaries of peace. We cannot force that peace. We must offer it, as Jesus demands, with deep sincerity, with simplicity, with humility, bringing a healing, comforting presence into the world, and in that way proclaim the reign of God is at hand. The same power conferred on those disciples is within our grasp if we live out the message and mission of Jesus in our day. We are asked to be the healing presence of Christ in the world. You and I are sent from the table of communion to bring that peace to the world. We do that by healing the sick, the broken, the lonely, the alienated, as did the seventy-two in today’s Gospel. Jesus promises:Behold, I have given you the power to 'tread upon serpents' and scorpions and upon the full force of the enemy and nothing will harm you.Some might contend that issues like health care, capital punishment and immigration are too complex or controversial to make their way into the active role of Christian disciples. Yet those may well be the very "serpents and scorpions" that Jesus is talking about in the Gospel. When it comes to being a healing presence to the sick, the broken, the lonely and the alienated, our greatest blessing is the power of our discipleship.Since the Scriptures this Fourth of July could easily be seen as inviting our patriotism to find expression through our discipleship, perhaps we should also challenge our image of that discipleship in the way Isaiah challenged his people to understand the blessings God had bestowed on them—with the image of a nourishing and nurturing mother. If our God blesses US with a mother’s love, perhaps our response should mirror the blessing.