June 30, 2024

Free Indeed

It’s that time again – the Fourth of July week.  So, this seems like a particularly meaningful time to be reflecting on the blessings of liberty.  I want to look at Some of our cherished words as Americans, examine them under the spotlight of Biblical concepts of freedom and of justice, and talk about what it has meant for us to be a nation of free people – a nation which we proudly proclaim as “one . . . under God, with liberty and justice for all.”  And I want to reflect also on the implications of those biblical concepts of freedom and justice for a church like ours – a church that is going through a rather stressful time of weighing the treasures of our endowed past against the promises of an unknown future.

It is a remarkable system we’ve developed here in America.  It’s based on an almost sacred list of freedoms.  They are: freedom of religion, freedom of speech and assembly, freedom of the press, freedom to petition for grievances, freedom to bear arms, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, freedom from arbitrary, capricious or secret prosecution or civil complaint, freedom from cruel and unusual punishment.  These freedoms are so dear to us that the words we use to describe them are burned into our hearts from an early age, and their recital can almost bring tears to our eyes.  Those tears of gratitude for our freedoms come easily when hearing, as I did just the other evening on the PBS NewsHour, that a woman in Russia was imprisoned for treason for sending fifty one dollars to Ukraine.

But what has become of our cherished American freedom?  Increasingly, it has become the freedom of multi-billionaires to shelter their assets from taxes while single mothers are unable to care for their children and put a roof over their heads.  Increasingly, it has become the freedom for America to behave in any manner it chooses because we are the most powerful nation on the planet and therefore able to make up the rules as we go along.  Increasingly, it has become the freedom of powerful corporations to dictate government policy and profit from legislative and administrative influence.

And here’s the larger question: what has become of the simple biblical notion of justice?  It’s a principle that we are supposed to hold as dear as that of freedom – after all, the familiar phrase is “liberty and justice for all.”  The Apostle Paul spoke to the Christians in Corinth about justice.  He said, “it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance.  As it is written, ‘The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little.’”  Wouldn’t it be a wondrous world indeed if “The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little?”

The problem is, you can’t entirely legislate that kind of justice.  The Soviets tried it, and it was a resounding failure.  One of the common assumptions in modern American politics is that the United States won the cold war and defeated Communism because we had a “superior ideology.”  Well, that’s partly true.  We won the cold war because we crushed the Soviet Union economically by pushing the arms and space race all the way to “Star Wars” so that they would have to choose whether to become a second class military power or spend until they broke the bank.  Either way, we win.  Now, the argument can be made that we were able to defeat the U.S.S.R. economically because our system worked better than theirs, which proves that our ideology is superior.  Well, that’s also true.  Communism can’t work because you can’t legislate absolute justice without crushing people’s hopes and trampling on their freedoms.  Sooner or later they will rise up and wrest their liberty away from you.  There is a passion for freedom that beats within the human breast, and it cannot be stifled.  So, we must be ever vigilant to maintain our separation of powers and our precious democracy.

The problem lies in what the Apostle Paul spoke to the Corinthians about.  When he urged them to offer assistance to those in need as a matter of justice, he said, “I do not say this as a command, but I am testing the genuineness of your love against the earnestness of others.”  It is the genuineness of our love that is the issue.  It is the earnestness of our compassion – a compassion that we as a people demonstrate, not the compassion we talk about – that determines whether “liberty and justice for all” is a real possibility or simply a pipe dream.  Because in a world of self-interest and greed, greater freedom only leads to greater injustice.  In a world that easily turns its eyes away from the plight of the working single mother or the kid growing up on a hopeless ghetto street, the tax sheltering of billions in assets is heralded as wise money management.

So what does all this have to do with you and me?  Just this: America is and will be what we make of it.  And it will be built up, brick by brick, from the individual beliefs, acts, and decisions of every one of us.  I must admit, I long for the days when we were regarded by great numbers of nations as the model for heroic generosity and good will.  I truly do yearn for a time when, as Doctor King said, “all of God’s children will be able to say . . . we’re free at last” – free from the chains of ignorance, free from the prison of injustice, free from the clutches of poverty.

One of the tools that has been used to try to promote justice in our land is the highly debated practice of “affirmative action.”  One year ago the Supreme Court of the United States decided a landmark case, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, holding race-conscious college admissions processes to be unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.  A lot of folks are afraid that affirmative action will take away their own opportunities in order to advance the opportunities of others.  But you know something?  I’m the beneficiary of “affirmative action,” and I’ll bet that just about everyone in this room is in some way or another.  I never called it that.  I never even thought of it that way, but it’s true.  When I was a young college student, I nearly flunked out of my freshman year at the Illinois Institute of Technology.  I spent my time chasing girls and playing handball.  Studying just didn’t fit into the equation.  By the end of the year, I was sharing a small apartment with a roommate and the few worldly possessions that I called my own.  I had hardly any money for food, and I had no prospects because I wasn’t going to be allowed back for another year of architectural studies.  In other words, I was at the bottom of the barrel.  At the time, my father was in an executive position with the American Baptist Churches in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.  He made some phone calls, and arrangements, then came to Chicago to pick me up and get me to Ottawa, Kansas, where he had arranged for my admission into the American Baptist related university there.  My grades did not qualify me for admission; my record offered no reason for the school to have confidence in me; my father’s influence got me into that school.  And if I hadn’t gotten in there, who knows what would have become of me?  I don’t like to think about it.  That’s affirmative action if ever there was such a thing.  What we need to foster is simply a broader appreciation of the concept of “family” and a deeper sense of who might be “worthy” of a little help.  That’s what justice means.  It’s nothing less than compassion.  In the apostle Paul’s words, it’s “genuineness of love.”

Freedom carries with it the burden of responsibility.  If we are to be a freedom-loving people, we must raise the torch of justice or else our freedom will devour us.  If we are to stand for the noble vision of our forebears, we must embody the kind of generosity and vigilance that will keep that dream from turning into a nightmare.  Every time you enter into a conversation or tell a joke, you are helping to shape the face of America.  Every time you step into the voting booth, or pull out your check book, or sign a petition, you are casting the force of your being behind one possible future or another.

And as those who stand in what’s called the “free church” tradition, we are participants in one of the greatest counter-cultural movements for freedom and justice in the world.  This church strives to be a model for the kind of community that’s envisioned in the New Testament. Our commitment is to live in the kind of freedom that Christ spoke of when he said that “you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free,” and that “if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”  I take that freedom to mean that we are not bound to common beliefs, but to the very right and responsibility to hold divergent beliefs, and in our disagreement, to commit ourselves in love to one another and to Christ’s church.  That’s the justice side of the equation.  Disagreement or dispute without love is like freedom without justice; it just doesn’t work in the long run.  We have an uncertain future here at Memorial Congregational.  These are the times that test, as Paul said, “the genuineness of our love.”  There is, perhaps a larger question before us than whether we will be able to hire a pastor.  The larger question is whether we are truly and deeply committed to the counter-cultural model of love that binds us together in the freedom of our diversity or whether we’re just foolin’ around.

On this coming Fourth of July, I urge you to celebrate freedom as never before.  I invite you to lift high the worthy ideal that is America.  And I encourage you to rededicate yourself to the cause of justice, and to compassion, and genuine love, and to celebrate that if Christ “. . . makes you free, you will be free indeed.”