Sermon for January 27th, 2013

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 find 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

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. Stevens is on the right side of the slavery issue, historically and ethically speaking. He supports the 13th amendment. He supports full equality and the right to vote for colored people {film clip}. At one point in the film, Stevens and Lincoln have a conversation in the basement, and Lincoln tells him: "You know the inner compass that should direct the soul toward justice has ossified in white men and women, north and south, unto utter uselessness though tolerating the evil of slavery." Lincoln responds: "A compass, I learnt when I was surveying, it'll point you True North from where you're standing, but it's got no advice about the swamps and dessert and chasm that you'll encounter along the way. If in pursuit of your destination, you plunge ahead, heedless of obstacles, and achieve nothing more than to sink in a swamp... What's the use of knowing True North?"

As Presbyterians, we believe that the Bible is the Word of God in written form; a trustworthy guide, and the True North that we follow. But when we are dogmatic about the direction we think it is leading us--when we forge ahead without regard to those around us--we may be right, but we will still likely wind up in a swamp where we are doing no one, especially God, any good. Taking a page from both Jesus and Lincoln, it is better to be wrong in humility than to be right in arrogance.

Providence

Early in the film, Lincoln describes to his wife a dream. In the dream, he stands alone on a boat which is being propelled quickly through the water by an unseen force toward an unknown shore. Although Lincoln's wife decides it represents the quickly approaching vote on the 13th amendment, it could also represent the quickly approaching end of the war, or the quickly approaching end of Lincoln's own life. These are the three major subjects that intertwine throughout the film: The man, the amendment, and the war. And it seems to me that each one of these subjects is an example of great suffering.

Abraham Lincoln's mother died when he was nine years old. His sister (and only sibling) died when he was 19. His first great love, Ann Rutledge, died when he was 26. As a father, he endured the death of his four year-old son Eddie, and later his twelve year old son, Willie -- for whom he and his wife are still deeply grieving during the events of the film. Abraham Lincoln, as a human being, knew more suffering and loss than most of us do in this life.

The Civil War was the bloodiest battle in the history of our country, and claimed 625,000 American lives; more than World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and the War on Terror all combined. And of course, even this number is dwarfed by the 12 million estimated Africans who were taken from their homes and shipped as slaves to America, and their countless descendants through three centuries of slavery in what eventually became the United States of America.

In our lifetime, nothing--neither terrorist attacks, nor school shootings, nor recession, nor wars--nothing comes close to the depths of suffering experienced by those who lived in Abraham Lincoln's time. Surely, if anyone had the right to cry out to God, "WHY?" it was these people, and this man.

Hear the words from his second inaugural address: "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." That's a pretty bold thing to say in the face of war, slavery, and personal loss--the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. Notice Lincoln doesn't say, "God didn't mean for this to happen..." or "this is an attack from the enemy, the devil..." or any of our favorite ways of explaining away tragedy. He lays it square at God's feet: "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

We may not understand them, or be able to wrap our minds around how a loving God could allow such evil happen in the world--but that's our lack of understanding, and God doesn't need us to make excuses in order to get him off the hook. Do we really need to understand the infinite mysteries of the Universe in order to find our place within it? We are given this, and this alone: A promise that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose . . . Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor 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.

When we trust in that promise, when we let go of our suffering and our questioning and place them all in God's capable hands, there is not much left for us to do. Actually, there is one thing. With our burdens in God's hands, we are free to turn our attention to those around us and love them the way Christ has loved us. In Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address, having acknowledged that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether, this is exactly what he what he does:

"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."

In Lincoln's dream, he stands alone on a boat which is being propelled quickly through the water by an unseen force toward an unknown shore. Only, he is not alone. I believe that the boat on which he stands, and the unseen force that silently propels it, is nothing other than the steady hand of God, who leads us all through the turbulent waters to safer shores.