Difference between revisions of "Sermon for January 27th, 2013"

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Psalm 19:7-14 (KJV)

7 The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. 8 The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. 9 The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. 10 More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. 11 Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward. 12 Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults. 13 Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. 14 Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.

Romans 8:28-39

28 We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. 29For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. 30And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified. 31 What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? 33Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. 35Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’ 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Lincoln

Three Minute Film Summary

I found the film Lincoln about as difficult to summarize as the towering figure of Lincoln himself. Fortunately, the film mainly focuses in on the events of January, 1865. Lincoln has just been elected to a second term as president, and end of the civil war is in sight. Lincoln has signed the emancipation proclamation, so the end of slavery is in sight, too. But therein lies the problem: Neither the war nor slavery is quite over...yet. The emancipation proclamation was signed as a war measure, and Lincoln is afraid that when the war is over, the proclamation will no longer be considered valid. He needs to pass the 13th Amendment to the constitution, which prohibits slavery once and for all. It has been passed earlier by the Senate, but is 20 votes short of passing the house. {film clip}

Most people in the North support the amendment, but many only support it because they think that (like the emancipation proclamation) abolishing slavery will help to end the war more quickly. Lincoln wisely perceives that once the war is over, support for such a "radical" measure as abolishing slavery would be weakened. In congress, conservative Republicans won't vote for the amendment unless Lincoln agrees to begin negotiations for peace with the Confederate States. But many congressmen, if they learn that peace negotiations are in progress, will simply wait to see how they go and not vote for the amendment. It's a lose/lose situation. If he takes action to win the war, he loses the battle to end slavery. If he takes action to end slavery, the war drags on and more people lose their lives. Ultimately, Lincoln sends for confederate peace negotiators, but stalls them as much as he can while seeking the votes he needs. A great deal of the film is devoted to this struggle to gain votes by any means necessary, but along the way, we also witness Lincoln's private struggles as a husband and father, and the struggles of a nation in the midst of a bitter and violent war.

Eventually, the 13th amendment passes the house of representatives, the Confederate army surrenders, and as we all know, Lincoln falls to an assassins bullet in Ford's theater on Good Friday, 1865. The closing scene of the movie is a flashback to just one month earlier, as Lincoln delivers stirring words from his second inaugural address, quoting from both the gospel of Matthew and from Psalm 19 (one of our scripture texts today).

Lincoln & Jesus

Abraham Lincoln is a towering figure in American history and culture. At a height of 6'4" he was actually a towering figure in every sense of the expression. It is now 148 years since his death, and, remarkably, he is still growing. Listen to the following historical quotes about Lincoln taken from the opening pages of Doris Kearns Goodwin's book "Team of Rivals," upon which the film is loosely based.

The first quote is from the New York Herald in May of 1860, shortly after Lincoln was nominated for President by the Republican Party: "The conduct of the republican party in this nomination is a remarkable indication of small intellect, growing smaller. They pass over statesmen and able men, and they take up a fourth rate lecturer, who cannot speak good grammar."

Then from the American Poet Walt Whitman, fourteen years after Lincoln's assassination: "Why if the old Greeks had had this man, what trilogies of plays--what epics--would have been made out of him! How the rhapsodes would have recited him! How quickly that quaint tall form would have enter'd into the region where men vitalize gods, and gods divinify men! But Lincoln, his times, his death--great as any, any age--belong altogether to our own."

And from Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, four decades after Lincoln's death: "The greatness of Napoleon, Caesar or Washington is only moonlight by the sun of Lincoln. His example is universal and will last thousands of years. He was bigger than his country--bigger than all the Presidents together, and as a great character he will live as long as the world lives."

Immortality. Divinity. There is a God-like, Messiah-like aspect to the Abraham Lincoln of our films, our history books, and our cultural memory. Much of it was have created around him. But there are some interesting similarities between Lincoln and Jesus. Many times in the film, Lincoln responds to a challenging question or situation by stopping, and telling a seemingly unrelated story. When he is finished, his cabinet members and advisers are left scratching their heads saying "I don't get it." That should sound familiar to anyone who has studied the parables of Jesus and the cluelessness of his disciples (and thanks to Dick Murray for pointing that out to me!). It is also interesting to think of Lincoln as someone who sacrificed his life to cleanse the land and the people of their great sin--in this case, slavery.

=Dogmatism

Many more comparisons that could be drawn, and much more could be said about Lincoln, had we world enough and time. But now I'd like to turn our attention to two subjects raised by this film that are highly relevant to us today. The first is dogmatism. The unshakable belief that you are 100% right, and everyone else is 100% wrong. Dogmatism is usually accompanied by a complete inability to compromise or carry on any kind of meaningful dialogue without shouting at one another. We've seen just a little bit of that at work in our own congress over the past few months. If you've seen the movie Lincoln, you know that it was alive and well in the 1850s, too.

There are two kinds of dogmatism: Those who, at the end of the day, are dogmatically right, and those who (also at the end of the day) are dogmatically wrong. In the film, the dogmatically wrong are, of course, those who passionately and obstinately defend slavery and inequality. "Congress must never declare equal those whom God created unequal!" says one congressman in an impassioned speech. Make no mistake--as intelligent, Bible reading Christians, the people of the confederacy believed that scripture supported slavery and their position. Lincoln acknowledges this in his second inaugural speech when he says, "Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other." I suspect there are many people today who use the Bible to dogmatically support the wrong position. I'll bet you can think of a few right now. Are you thinking of someone? Ok...when you were thinking of someone who dogmatically supports a position that is wrong...how many of you considered yourselves in that category? It's always someone else, isn't it? It rarely occurs to us that we might be the ones who are wrong. Lincoln continues, "It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes."

There is only one thing more dangerous than someone who is dogmatically wrong, and that is someone who is dogmatically right. In our film, Congressman Thaddeus Stevens is a textbook example. He is on the right side of the slavery issue, historically and ethically speaking. Not only is he a life-long, passionate advocate for the abolishment of slavery, he is radical enough to believe that people of color should be equal in ALL respects, including the right to vote and own property.

Early in the film, Abraham Lincoln describing to his wife a dream where he stands alone on a boat, which is being propelled quickly through the water toward an unknown shore. And, of course, this quickly approaching shore could be interpreted as the quickly approaching end of the war, the quickly approaching vote on the 13th amendment, or quickly approaching end of Lincoln's own life.

We tend to think of the Civil War and the end of slavery as going hand in hand, but this film, in an interesting twist, pits them against one another.

I could write shorter sermons but when I get started I'm too lazy to stop.

{last lines from second inaugural speech} Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.