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Sunday, July 04, 2010
Endowed by Their Creator with Certain Unalienable Rights
By Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz
We have been working together on the five promises people make when they identify with Christ and with a United Methodist Church. The topic for today was to be our promise of Service but I had a new experience last night as Judy and I watched the repeat of two episodes of the John Adams special on HBO. (You can check it out of your local library.)
And because it is so rare that July 4 falls on a Sunday—once every seven years or so, and because of the unique relationship in the United States between church and state, religion and government, I chose to write a new sermon at nine last night—edited it at five this morning.
I was first of all moved last night to see some of the initial scenes in that film—scenes of what occurred in 1775 at Concord and Lexington Massachusetts in the first battle between British troops and American colonists. Judy and I have been there at that site on the reconstructed bridge. We have also been in Philadelphia in Constitution Hall and in Boston’s Old South Meeting House (Church) where some of the initial meetings and speeches were held that preceded the writing of the Declaration of Independence. (It was from that church that the early patriots walked to the Boston Harbor to toss the tea into the harbor if my memory serves me correctly.)
I want to tell you about how we felt about those historic sites. We have had the privilege of traveling in some sacred places in the world. We have been in Athens on the Acropolis, as well as, on Mars Hill where Paul spoke to the Athenians and on the nearby site where the Greeks first gathered to vote 2500 years ago—the birthplace of Western Democracy.
We have been to Galilee to the town where Jesus grew up and to the places where he would have taught and healed and preached to people—to Jerusalem to the site where the temple was and to the places of his crucifixion and resurrection.
We were just in England a couple of months ago in church buildings built by John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement and in the Anglican church, St Paul’s church, where Wesley himself was a worshiper on the very day he had his heartwarming experience later that evening on Aldersgate street.
But being in Boston in Old South Church and in Philadelphia at Independence Hall and standing by Ben Franklin’s grave site—those were holy places for us as well—sacred sites of the birthplace of our country.
And when we stood in those sites and on the Lexington and Concord Bridge we prayed, and we remembered the cost and the sacrifice that persons have made to help us be who we are still becoming as Americans and we were grateful—the same gratitude we feel when we pray over the names placed in our prayer bowl on the altar table—names of persons in our military branches who are serving our country and sacrificing for the cause of freedom.
Words like sacrifice and costliness are not comfortable for us—remembering Christ’s call to be servants is not popular or convenient for us—but we cannot begin to think about really celebrating Independence Day today without lifting up the necessity of sacrifice and of costly living for God and for others.
The second thing I thought of again last night in watching John Adams is that those founding fathers gathered there in Independence Hall did not know what the outcome of their bold sacrifice would be. One of the characters said, “We are taking a leap into the dark.”
Only about one third of the colonists supported taking the step of a violent revolution against the king of the most powerful country in the world in 1776! Only one third of the people who lived here then—the others were opposed or neutral. The signing of that declaration may have very well meant that all those men would hang separately if the king’s armies prevailed as Franklin promised them.
They were risking their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor, and they did not know how it would end. It was a step of enormous faith. We misuse that word—that deeply spiritual word “faith”. It is not giving our assent to some ideas or propositions. It is trusting God and taking a step into the unknown. You have done that at times. Our congregation is doing that as we make space available for the people God is sending to us and who need to be here.
We have some information and some passion and a vision when we take a step of faith, but we cannot know the outcome until we act—just as those first very human and fearful and very faithful American leaders did not know what God was leading them into—they did feel very strongly that what they signed onto in 1776 was what God was leading them into—it was not just their own idea.
And they were willing to sacrifice and risk their security and their lives and the security and lives of their families to see it through. We can take a moment of silence to remember that act of faith.
SILENT TIME
The third insight I had again last night has to do with the purpose of government. The founding fathers had a vision of a system that would protect the God given, unalienable rights:
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but it took them many years—still is taking that—to figure out how a government needs to function so that those rights and other rights are preserved and insured and guarded. They had to go through the experiment of the Articles of Confederation which turned out not to work so well; they were too weak. They had to meet for a long time to draw up our Constitution and then to add some amendments so that there could be checks and balances that took into account a very theological and spiritual insight—that all of us are sinners and will, if given a chance, use power just for our own well being and not for the common good or for the equal wellbeing of others.
That is why the Constitutional Convention established three different branches of government so that one executive would not be able to grab all the power and so that the legislative bodies could not violate the Constitution. The assumption behind that structure is a theological one—that we need to put limits on power because absolute power can corrupt absolutely.
We are in an intense national dialogue/debate about some of those same 200 year old issues: what is the purpose of government, particularly the federal government? Is it best for there to be a very small federal government or does the federal government need to be large enough to meet some of the obvious needs like mounting military forces to keep us safe, supporting health and safety standards and regulations through appropriate agencies—and the most controversial topic, what is our role together in caring for and undergirding the most vulnerable?
Do we still believe—a majority did a few years ago—believe with Lincoln that one of the purposes of government is to care for persons who cannot care for themselves—military veterans who are seriously injured, those with disabilities…
Rick Steves in his new book contrasts two theories of governmental purposes using philosophers Jean Jacques Rosseau and John Locke—government that creates a social contract among its citizens to work together to care for each other (to fairly pay taxes and not look out just for oneself but for the common good) OR, government that is based on rugged individualism so that it is every person for themselves and a “Don’t fence me in—don’t tell me what to do approach.”
(Travel as a Political Act, 117-119)
It will be important for us to have that discussion and have it be an informed discussion based on facts and not just emotion and misinformation. We will not get there if people carry signs advocating for small government but wanting to keep their Medicare and Social Security just the way they are, in my opinion!
One final idea from my late night sermon rewrite: our American experiment, as one historian calls it, is based in the very distinctive notion of a government that does not establish a state sponsored religion or does not interfere with the constitutional exercise of religion. I have just cited some words in the first amendment—the first of the Bill of Rights guaranteeing a free, watchdog press—very important—and the non establishment of religion.
There has been a very complex relationship in our history between church and state, religion and politics, that deserves a whole series of sermons and book groups (one of the best books is by historian Jon Meacham), but Jefferson and others were right in maintaining what he called a wall of separation between church and state—not giving preference to one faith tradition over another (Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists, January 1, 1802)
We are still working out that complex relationship over the past 221 years, but the founders were right in not favoring or establishing one religion.
This does not mean they were not by and large, persons with deep personal faith.
“We are separating from the king,” Jefferson wrote, because we believe God had given us the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—God has given those, not King George.
And the founders were clear that on this day in 1776 that they were looking to, depending upon, in dire need of, Divine Providence and guidance as they began to live what this revolutionary document had in writing!! We need that Divine Providence and Divine Guidance as well today!
There is one more phrase that informs today’s celebration of Independence Day. It was inserted in our pledge of allegiance under President Eisenhower. “One nation UNDER GOD” it says that God is sovereign—not any government, not any one leader, that God is the one who has the right to our ultimate loyalty, that God is the source of the images and principles of justice and equality and compassion that we are called by God to live by—a discussion that deserves another whole sermon.
GOD IS THE ONE WHO IS THE SOURCE OF OUR STANDARDS OF JUSTICE AND COMPASSION AND EQUALITY AND FREEDOM. GOD IS THE GIVER OF OUR RIGHTS AND OUR SACRED VISION. GOD IS THE ONE WHO HOLDS US ACCOUNTABLE TO THOSE HIGH STANDARDS AND THAT SACRED VISION.
At the end of the Constitutional Convention in 1789, Dr. Franklin (one of my favorite founders) was being carried down the stairs from Constitution Hall. A woman in the crowd yelled to him, “Dr. Franklin, what have you done?”
Ben Franklin said, “You have a republic now madam—if you can keep it”.
If you can keep it—not just by being passionate but also by being informed, by keeping up, by knowing/learning the facts and not the rumors and gossip, by listening to leaders who do not mislead for their own political advantage.
We have a republic—thanks to the vision and passion and sacrifice of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine and Abigail Adams and John and Sam Adams—we have a republic—if we can keep it. May God help us to be informed and involved enough to keep it! Amen