A Partiot’s Dream

July 4, 2004

Rev. Gretchen Woods

 

 

READING

from The American Creed by Forrest Church

 

When the Founders gathered one wiltingly hot July in Philadelphia to hammer out their dreams into a single, ringing declaration, they were fashioning precepts as sacred as they were secular. As a group, they were not notably religious men. But they were united, almost miraculously, in forging a union that transcended, even as it encompassed, the historical particularity of the present crisis. Fired with ardor and apprehension – the prospect of a long war, its outcome uncertain – America’s first citizens performed an almost perfect act of alchemy. In their crucible were transfigured the elements that would reflect America’s promise and set the measure for its fulfillment. This new nation was, as the founders knew, an experiment. Like all experiments, it started with a precept, a "given" – in this case a set of truths so rock-ribbed and essential that they were deemed "self-evident." Truth cast in language that, in turn, spells out the truth for succeeding generations deserves to be called a creed. So it was with Thomas Jefferson’s preamble to the Declaration of Independence. The faith of a nation is captured in its words, words that distill a mission while investing future citizens with a scared charge.

 

"Creed" sounds forbidding and ecclesiastical. The American Creed is neither, but it is monumental. Creeds have to be monumental, struck in metal that, when refined in the furnace of history and burnished by developing thought, can endure the trials of time. They have to be steadfast enough to redeem history itself, reawakening tired minds, rekindling passion in hearts grown weary. Creeds are spiritual touchstones. They are finished in fire, yet cool to the touch when passed from hand to hand one generation to the next.

 

Capturing the essence of the American experiment, the American Creed affirms those truths our founders held self-evident: justice for all, because we are all created equal; and, liberty for all, because we are all endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights. America’s fidelity to this creed is judged by history. Living up to it remains a constant challenge. But it invests our nation with spiritual purpose and – if we honor its precepts – a moral destiny. (pp. xi – xii.)

 

SERMON:

"A Patriot’s Dream"

 

On the first Fourth of July that I remember, my extended family (mother, father, little brother and baby sister, and one set of grand parents) had a picnic together, then went out to a place on a hill to watch fireworks. I believe I was about four. I remember happily sitting and playing on the hill with the family until the fireworks started. Then I became terrified. I hid under a blanket – completely under the blanket, shivering – until one of my grand parents picked me up and took me back to the car while the rest of the family enjoyed the end of the fireworks. It took me at least two days to get over my fear of the noise and perceived violence, which likely says more about me than about the fireworks.

 

The second Fourth of July I remember, I marched with my Girl Scout Troop in a parade. I remember being fascinated by the drums and the rhythmic cadence they set up. I was thrilled, chilled, and fell forever in love with marching bands. All the years of "pah-pahing" on French horn has yet to destroy that love.

 

But that day was also deeply affecting for me as I absorbed the patriotic speeches about the wonder of our country and its values. I quickly became convinced that freedom was worth fighting for and that liberty and justice really mean something in this world. Of this I continue convinced unashamed as well.

 

Now, I realize that some – perhaps, many – of you, do not want to hear what you perceive to be political ideas when you come to church. You come to be soothed and settled after the stress of your week. I would, however, like you to consider, that our Unitarian Universalist Principles are at the heart of our American Creed and are worth standing up for.

 

So this Fourth of July, I invite us into a reflection on our American Creed, the dangers to it, and the vision that spurs me to work for the continuation of the values I hold most dear. First, let us remember exactly what the values were that charged our nation’s founders, many of whom were Unitarian or Universalist. As Forrest Church asserts, the first is freedom. Earl Morse Wilbur, founder of Thomas Starr King School for Religious Leadership, believed that freedom is one of three main Unitarian values as well.

 

American freedom includes responsibility for one’s acts and to one’s community, but is not constrained by religious professionals. As Church notes, historically, "Governance rested in the hands of elected congregants, not those of their ministerial leaders. The Mayflower Compact was drawn up wholly without benefit of clergy, the Pilgrim’s pastor, John Robinson, having stayed behind in Leiden to tend to the majority of his flock. (p.10.) Thus, congregational polity, with the understanding that authority lies in the body of the people, is at the heart of Unitarian and Universalist governance. It foreshadows the American charter, our Constitution.

 

We also call this freedom "liberty." The word, "liberty" is loosely related to liberal. Did you know that the Liberty Bell actually did not toll on that first Fourth of July? The bell that did was in the nearby Christ Church. It did ring for liberty on September 17, 1787 when ". . . Congress met in Philadelphia to adopt the federal Constitution." (Church, p. 19.)

 

When they chose the wording to be engraved in a band encircling the bell’s circumference, the Pennsylvania legislators – at the recommendation of a Quaker delegate – selected these words from Leviticus: "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." By so doing, they pledged themselves to as expansive a mission as any people could possibly undertake: the establishment of a society based on liberty for all. (Church, p. 20.)

 

This liberty that does not deny any person certain inalienable rights: "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This was not, of course, license, for each person was understood to be living in the context of community and in response to the divine, as that person understood it.

 

This naturally leads us to the inclusiveness of the American Creed. No one is left out. Certainly this is a Universalist value of the highest order. As Church states: "Natural rights belong to all; if they could be abridged in any way, a revolution based upon their exercise would lose much of its moral justification." (Church, p. 32.) Unlike our country’s founders, Church assumes that women are included in the generic men. Unitarian Universalists also assume that race, color, creed, gender orientation, age, and physical ability are not acceptable exclusions from the basic understanding that all deserve equal treatment and rights, and all are accepted. This is certainly our Unitarian Universalist assumption.

 

Thus we understand that justice as essential to the fulfillment of the American Creed:

 

For Jefferson, the hand maiden of equality was justice. In his First Inaugural Address, he listed justice first among government’s obligations, calling for "equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political." The abiding irony of America is how often the claims of equity have been abridged in practice. Original constitutional guarantees covered neither race nor gender, and for this reason, throughout the nation’s history, claims of justice haunt the founders’ boasts of liberty and equality. No one knew this better than Jefferson himself. Reflecting on slavery (where his personal witness is, at best, hypocritical) he wrote, "Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever." (Church, p. 32.)

 

Jefferson, who called himself a Unitarian, struggled with this paradox throughout his life.

My research affirms that, after the death of his beloved wife, he became intimate with her lovely half-sister, a half-black servant on his plantation, and had several children with her. He freed those children and assured that the woman would be cared for the rest of her life, but was unable to stand up for her against the terrible racial prejudice that wracks our country’s history. Justice cannot be done when we decide any group is less than equal, whatever that group may be.

So, on this Fourth of July, I challenge each of us to consider the similarities between our UU Purposes and Principles, our core values, and the American Creed. While we are indeed creedless in the sense that every person is invited to freely associate and judge for one’s self what is right and true, we are also asked, not only to stand, but, to act, upon those values. Is this still the land of the free and the home of the brave, as Francis Scott Key asked so many years ago?

 

Russell Peterson, a scientist, citizen activist, former executive with the Du Pont Company, Republican Governor of Delaware, Assistant to Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller, head of Environmental Quality under Presidents Nixon and Ford, head of the Office of Technology Assessment reporting to six Republican and six Democratic members of Congress, President of the National Audubon Society, internationally acclaimed environmental leader, United Nations Goodwill Ambassador, . . . and since 1996 a Democrat, raises some serious concerns about our current willingness to stand up for the very values that we, as Unitarian Universalists, espouse, and which represent the core of American values. He offers:

 

A Call to Action

Russell W. Peterson

 

Fellow Patriots, Stand Up!

 

Stand up to honor the great nation we have inherited and the many generations who have built it.

Stand up for our American way of life with its freedom, justice under law, enviable standard of living and opportunity to choose our own leaders.

Stand up for the heroes who have led America, fought for her, died for her, conquered her enemies for within and without – colonization, slavery, Fascism and Communism – and won the respect and admiration of the peoples of the world.

Stand up for the basic foundation of our way of life – the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution with its Bill of Rights and the Charter of the United Nations.

And listen as well, for America is crying for us to save her hard-earned way of life – to save it from her current extremist leaders who . . . are rapidly propelling us down a foreboding and alien path, using any means to reach their own personal goals, selling out the baby boomers and their children and bullying our people with continuous warnings of impending terrorist attacks.

On their side is the most powerful office in the world, the presidency of the United States of America, the most powerful war machine in history, and many of our nation’s wealthiest individuals, including some potent captains of industry.

On our side, there is an ever more powerful force, the ballot. We must use it wisely to save our American way of life, one that:

  1. supports freedom of enterprise

We don’t need to transform America . . . We need to return to the well proven path of our American way of life, solve our current problems and provide for the future. It is our solemn duty to take back America. We patriots can do that if we stand up, stand together and put our democracy to work. Now is the time to give patriotism its true meaning. (Peterson, Russell W. Patriots, Stand Up! This Land Is Our Land; Fight to Take It Back. pp. 75-76.)

 

Peterson inspires me with his words. This is thoughtful response that reflects our UU Principles and understands that being a "sunshine liberal" is not enough in the world in which we now live.

So my patriot’s dream is that we will not only speak our Unitarian Universalist values as voiced in the American Creed, we will also stand up and work for them; that we will not only register voters, we will ensure that they vote, that we will work for the preservation of our environment by inundating our elected representatives with letters requesting better laws and resisting the sun-setting of current laws; that we will be vocal in our support of universal health care; that we will put our bodies where our mouths are, and stop whining about how things are. Remember Margaret Meade’s famous words, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world: Indeed it’s the only thing that ever has."

 

May we, each one of us. be such citizens with respect, responsibility, and relish for the process.

 

So Be It! Blessed Be!