Shall We Long Endure? #1 | “Endowed By Their Creator” | A Sermon

0:00 Typically, on the Sunday of Martin Luther King weekend, this congregation has invited an African-American preacher to grace our pulpit and bring us the word. This is a tradition I started in 2009. In recent years, as I've contacted prospective preachers, a few have, in a friendly spirit, challenged me. They've said, Scott, it doesn't always need to be a black preacher on MLK Sunday. In fact, it would be good on occasion to hear a white preacher reflect on the meaning of Dr. King's life and ministry. Challenge accepted.

0:50 And I'll return to King in short order. Today, we also begin a five-week sermon series entitled, Shall We Long Endure? The American Experiment and the Christian Faith. As you all probably know, this coming summer, on the 4th of July, the United States of America will mark its 250th birthday, our semi-quincentennial. I don't need to tell any of you that it is a tumultuous time for the USA to be marking such an auspicious birthday. In light of the fractured and conflicted state of our union, our new sermon series echoes the question President Abraham Lincoln posed at the battlefield in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in 1863.

2:01 Shall this nation, conceived in liberty, long endure? For the next five weeks, we're going to explore Lincoln's question while holding the Bible in one hand and some of America's most famous documents in the other. We will pursue this work confident that our faith possesses critically important moral perspectives for contemporary conversations about human freedom, our obligations to each other as citizens and neighbors, and our responsibility to work together in pursuit of the good. In a way, Martin Luther King Weekend is an especially fitting occasion for launching a sermon series focused on the soul of our nation.

3:06 Throughout my life, when I've worshipped at predominantly African-American churches, I've been blessed by the experience on these occasions as a preacher and a student of preaching. One thing in particular has always stood out to me. I'm speaking of the familiarity that black preachers exhibit with America's founding documents and its consequential court decisions. I've heard black preachers, in the midst of a sermon, spontaneously begin quoting from memory Lines from the Declaration of Independence, from the Preamble to the Constitution, and phrases from the Supreme Court's decision on Brown v. Board of Education.

4:08 Dr. King himself gives us a window into this fascinating and powerful aspect of black preaching. In his iconic I Have a Dream address delivered in our nation's capital in 1963, King stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial and declared to a sea of marchers that their presence challenged the government of this country to be true to its most powerful words and its highest aspirations. to its most sacred and lofty promises. This is how King phrased it. We have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

5:19 For the next three weeks, we are going to look at the promissory notes which we have all inherited. We're going to study the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. And then in weeks four and five, we're going to study two documents that reflect moments when the state of our union was deeply frayed. Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and Martin Luther King's Letter from the Birmingham Jail. In this way, King's thoughts and writings will bookend our series. His words will hold us accountable to this country's hallowed promissory notes. This morning we begin our study by considering the lofty ambitions this country set for itself at its founding.

6:20 On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was unanimously adopted, although the state of New York, keep this quiet, abstained. It was unanimously adopted by the Second Continental Congress in the great city of Philadelphia. In the words of historian Joseph Ellis, the declaration contains the most potent and consequential words in American history. Alongside these consequential words, we will consider an equally potent text from the Good Book. Our reading for this morning comes from the book of Genesis, chapter 1, beginning with the 24th verse. The translation I'm using today comes from Eugene Peterson's The Message.

7:20 Listen now for God's word to you. God spoke. Earth, generate life. every sort and kind, cattle and reptiles and wild animals, all kinds. And there it was, wild animals of every kind, cattle of all kinds, every sort of reptile and bug. God saw that it was good. God spoke, let us make human beings in our image, making them reflect our nature so they can be responsible for the fish in the sea the birds in the air, the cattle and yes, earth itself and every animal that moves on the face of earth.

8:18 God created human beings. God created them to reflect God's nature God created them male and female this is the word of God for you the people of God thanks be to God Some describe the Declaration of Independence as a birth announcement, heralding the arrival of a new nation. Although the tone of the document is much more cranky than celebratory. The bulk of the Declaration is actually comprised of complaints directed by the American colonists toward King George III and the powerful empire of Great Britain.

9:19 As such, it makes an argument for political separation. And this means that the Declaration of Independence is basically a declaration of war, civil war. It marks the beginning of a violent season in human history. At the same time, for many, the most memorable part of the document is a famously poetic, well-reasoned, and indeed spiritually rich reflection on the goals and purposes of humankind. Unlike the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence has no legal standing in this country and yet it has inspired people in this land and around the world to fight for equality and liberty for two and a half centuries.

10:23 Abraham Lincoln called the Declaration a rebuke and stumbling block to tyranny and oppression. In his new book, historian and biographer Walter Isaacson argues that the Declaration of Independence contains the greatest sentence ever written. Isaacson is speaking of course of the documents celebrated second sentence. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.

11:20 These are lofty, swell-your-heart words. There is, in this document, many agree, one of the world's most inspirational sentences. And Martin Luther King understood this. King also understood that our commitment to these soaring words has been flawed from the moment Thomas Jefferson picked up a quill in June of 1776.

11:56 The very first word in this sentence, we hold these truths, we hold we, this simple first person plural pronoun is a remarkably challenging word. This was true in 1776 and it's true now. As Jefferson wrote these words the nature of we was very much in question. Who is we? What group of people constitutes we? Ken Burns' compelling new documentary, The American Revolution, a program that I recommend that every one of you watch at some point in this semi-quincentennial year, does an excellent job unpacking the complexity of the word we.

12:54 Did we describe all the colonists, including those who wished to stay loyal to England? Did we include slaves kidnapped from Africa and held in brutal servitude in the colonies? Did we include native peoples, indigenous tribes, some of whom fought on the side of the colonists, some of whom fought on the side of Britain, many of whom simply wanted to be left in peace, both during the war and after it was over.

13:36 Was we intended to comprise both men and women? Or did we describe those who signed the Declaration, those delegates who assembled for the Second Continental Congress, a group composed entirely of white landholding men. Some argue that the we in this document represents the Framers' desire to appeal to a higher plane, to a broad and inclusive notion of humanity, to the hope that when societies search the cosmos looking for truth, that they will inevitably come to an agreement on the things that matter. We agree on these things.

14:30 And the next phrase in the Declaration seems to nod in that direction. We hold these truths to be self-evident. This appeal to reason was inserted into the Declaration by Benjamin Franklin. With his friend, Scottish philosopher David Hume, Franklin argued that certain truths can be discerned not simply by observing the world, but through the power of human reason. There are truths, Hume claimed, that will appear self-evident to people who are forming a society and who are seeking to establish laws, laws that will protect them from a brutal world and govern their interactions with each other.

15:30 We're going to spend a moment on this claim because this is precisely the place in the declaration where the hackles of our faith, and particularly our Calvinist tradition, begin to rise. Christians are not sure, given the stain of sin, that human reason is ever pure. We're not sure that anything is self-evident. Why? Because our capacity for reason is eminently corruptible. It is always self-interested, always working in mingy, small-minded, prideful ways to dodge the deep truths that God sets before us.

16:27 To John Calvin, the teachings of the faith regarding human depravity, wave a cautionary flag here. Be careful whenever anyone asserts self-evident truths. Remember, we are all broken souls who need God's help in getting things right. I digress, but not for long. The first of the so-called self-evident truths conveyed by the founders makes my point, or I should say Calvin's point. Listen again to the declaration. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.

17:19 Here Calvin's wisdom immediately tilts our heads. And here Dr. King's brilliance shines forth. King knows that many of the founders who signed the declaration were slaveholders. King knows that there were arguments among the delegates regarding the scourge of slavery. King knows that Jefferson wrote on occasion of his belief that all people, including the enslaved, are created equal. Still, Jefferson avoided condemning the institution of slavery. He could not make the journey from self-evident truth to sacred action. Jefferson refused to cast aside one of the world's most inhuman practices because he regularly experienced its economic and personal benefits.

18:25 To put Jefferson's political bind in theological terms, the framers aspired to a truth that they could not, did not, would not embrace. Selfish sinfulness stood between these men and their sacred aspirations. So why did Dr. King refer to America's founding documents as promissory notes? He knew that these documents conveyed soaring descriptions of humanity, and he knew that our nation had failed to make good on all that is enshrined within these promises. And at the same time, Dr. King recognized that lofty promises, even if unfulfilled, even if they're articulated by flawed individuals, still hum with power.

19:36 They can point each new generation of Americans to the essential struggle articulated by the framers. They urge people to work for freedom and equality that can truly be embraced by all.

19:56 Back in 1776, Abigail Adams leaned into this calling. In letter after letter, she admonished her husband to remember the ladies. Both Abigail and John Adams knew that when the Declaration said all men, it was not intended as an on-ramp that would welcome women into full citizenship, to full voting participation in the new nation. Still, suffrage movements would make appeal to the promise implied in the Declaration of Independence until the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920. Of course, it's not to our nation's credit that it took 144 years to make good on that promissory note.

20:55 Nonetheless, we should note the latent power in these words. Given the many, many divisions that separate human beings from each other in this world, In terms of gender, culture, race, sexuality, economic status, language, physical challenges, neurological divergence, the words, all men are created equal, remain a radical statement. Revolutionary. They are words that today's politicians would do well to consider. I say this because Hume was, in a way, correct.

21:53 Equality is not an observable characteristic. You cannot look at the world and conclude all people are in fact equal. You cannot get there through observation. Nor can you get there, Calvin asserts, through pure reason. Because reason is, again, never pure. But you can get there through faith. Through an appeal to a higher power. An engagement with a tradition that speaks of God's hopes for humankind. And this is the component that John Adams brought to the world's greatest sentence. It came, says Walter Isaacson, out of Adam's faith. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator.

22:56 This famous sentence begins with an appeal to human reason, but it pivots halfway through, thanks to Adams, to a posture of faith. And you can actually see, this is like the coolest document here. This is the draft that Thomas Jefferson wrote and then shared with Franklin and Adams, and Franklin and Adams wrote their edits into it. So you can actually see here, if you kind of squint a little where it gets to, we hold these truths and then there's where Franklin wrote in self-evident and then in the next line you can see where Adams crossed out Jefferson's mushy from creation they derive rights and added, endowed by their creator. Where do we get our moral principles, our highest aspirations, our North Star, our compass setting goals?

23:59 They come from our creator. The Declaration of Independence directs our attention to the author of existence. And so of course does today's text from Genesis. In this seminal story, our faith describes God whistling in creation's garden, peacefully, joyfully stirring life into being, reaching into the divine imagination. God pours water into the seas and summons hummingbirds into being. God dances through all of this beauty and calls it good, very good. In the Hebrew, Matt Rausch knows this. It's tov, very tov.

24:47 And then we get to the place that John Adams evoked when editing the Declaration. God created human beings. God created them to reflect God's nature. God created the male and female. Here our ancient tradition foreshadows the inclusivity that Abigail Adams wisely called for in 1776, and there's more. All humanity, Genesis asserts, all humanity is created in the image of God. Or as the message puts it, we've all been created to reflect God's nature.

25:36 Talk about a promissory note that we've yet to fulfill. My friends, there's so much more that can be said about the Declaration, but I want to end with two fairly brief observations. The first has to do with a comment made about a week ago by President Donald Trump. When asked in a wide-ranging interview with four New York Times reporters if there were any limits on his global powers. Mr. Trump replied, yeah, there is one thing, my own morality, my own mind. It's the only thing that can stop me. As a Christian clergy person, I appreciate the president's candor. I also believe that this statement deserves special scrutiny, coming as it does from an incredibly powerful person and claiming as it does that the visage the president sees in the bathroom mirror provides the moral foundation for his every decision.

26:58 What does it mean when a person, any person, contends that their moral compass lies not with the law of the land or within the contours of a rich religious or even philosophical tradition but entirely within their own mind? Here again Calvin shakes his head. The consequences of rampant and indeed sinful egoism on the part of the powerful are usually calamitous. This truth can be witnessed in the considerable pain that every tin pot dictator in human history has inflicted on the world. A leader's capacity for self-deceit, for failing to acknowledge mistakes, and for enshrining personal prejudice in governmental practice inevitably tramples on the very things the Declaration holds sacred.

28:06 Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. In this, both Genesis and the Declaration of Independence hold wisdom for our time. We are not created to be isolated monads, to be people whose morality is defined by whatever serves our individual purposes best. We are created in the image of God. We are endowed by our creator with a hunger for liberty, or to put it in starkly Christian terms, we are called by Jesus Christ to be accountable to each other in community, to devote our fleeting lives to acts of love, kindness, and unselfish justice. this touchstone and not the image that we see in the mirror is our north star with this in mind I want to close today in the spirit and with the words of Dr. King who famously ended his I have a dream sermon with hope with an aspirational vision you remember his words there will come a day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning.

29:32 My country, tis of thee. Sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride. From every mountainside, let freedom ring. And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that, let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi, from every mountainside.

30:31 And today, I would add, let freedom ring from the frozen streets of St. Paul and the snow-covered lakes of Minneapolis. In making this request from a peaceful but persistent place, in asking that America hold true to its most sacred promises, King points a way forward for people of faith. and then of course to conclude his remarks the good preacher famously sketched a heavenly vision a vision for where this work and God our creator is taking us when we allow freedom to ring when we let it ring from every town and every hamlet from every state and every city we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black, white, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro.