Sermons

Nations Walking in Light

John Wilkinson                                 Third Presbyterian Church  May 16, 2004                                   Revelation 21:22-27

A somber train processional carried Abraham Lincoln’s body from Washington D.C. to its final resting place in Springfield, Illinois. Mary Todd Lincoln desired her husband to be buried in Chicago. Illinois politicians convinced her that the final resting place would be in the state capital.

To visit the Lincoln Memorial in Washington is a powerful experience. To visit Lincoln’s tomb in Springfield may be even more so. There you realize not only the greatness of the man, but also the tragic nature of his life and his death, as well as the life of his family.

The crowds do not gather there in the same manner that they do in the nation’s capital – one has all the time one needs to contemplate what was and what might have been. In Springfield as well, one can easily follow Lincoln’s early footsteps. His law practice. His early legislative career.

And though the church has long since been refurbished – the sanctuary now appears very modern – one can visit the church Lincoln attended, and even sit in the Lincoln pew. In fact, a pulpit predecessor here at Third Church, William Hudnut, served as minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Springfield before coming to Rochester.

Lincoln never joined First Presbyterian Church. He attended regularly. He never joined any church, actually. He was not particularly sure about church membership in general – the doubts he carried included ones about his own theological orthodoxy as well as about organized religion itself. When he went to Washington, he began a similar pattern, attending, but never joining, the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church.

Lincoln deeply appreciated religious debate, philosophy, biblical reasoning and the like. He was unsure about the experience of religion. As a witness to various revivalist experiences sweeping across what was then the west, he knew that such experiences were not for him. But he was intrigued by them.

During his life, but even more so after his death, Lincoln’s faith has been a topic of great interest. Like many great figures, scholars and followers have sought to attribute meaning to his spiritual practice. Some have insisted that he was a heretic precisely because he never joined a church or publicly affirmed any theological tenets. Others will read his speeches and writings, with their frequent references to “providence” and “the Creator,” and insist that Lincoln was indeed the most religious of all the presidents, at least until recently.

In a fine new biography called Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President, Allen Guelzo writes that few “ever penetrated to the real heart of Lincoln’s personal religious anguish, the deep sense of helplessness before a distant and implacable Judge who revealed himself only through crisis and death, whom Lincoln would have wanted to love if only the Judge had given him the grace to do the loving…Lincoln could neither believe or be comfortable in his unbelief.” (Page 446)

Guelzo’s work asks other sets of penetrating questions, one of which may be the entry point for our conversation this morning. Apart from his personal practices and beliefs, did Lincoln’s religion have any impact on his politics, and particularly on the engagement and execution of the Civil War? And from there, how do we, as pilgrims in the land once governed by Lincoln and as children of the same God who caused Lincoln so much angst, how do we make our own way, in a time nearly so much different than that, but nearly so similar as well.

I visited the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington last fall. I saw the Lincoln pew. This is the church, you may remember, whose pastor in the 1950’s, George Docherty, alive yet today, proposed adding the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance. A half-century ago, the words “under God” reflected a more homogenous political and religious reality. They are now the subjects of controversy, at least in the eyes of the Supreme Court and one parent who is arguing that his daughter’s recital of those words is tantamount to a state supported religion, and therefore a violation of the separation of church and state as provided for in the United States Constitution.

The issues these days are complex, though perhaps the question itself is no more complex than it was during the Civil War. There is a kind of pivot point to it, and we who seek to live both as people of faith and citizens of this democracy live somewhere in the murkiness of that pivot point. How do our religious values play themselves out in the political world, in the cultural world? How does religion matter? How do we live out our faith? How do we embrace sets of values that are at once so crucial and perhaps competitive?

This is, to be sure, about issues of church and state, about governmentally endorsed religion. But even then, there is a dynamic to be explored. Is it more so about protecting any who would seek to practice their religion in freedom and not be coerced into one religious form or another? Or, is it about protecting the government, civic and public life, from inappropriate and undue religious influence. What needs protecting from whom, or vice versa – religion or the state? This conversation is about that, and more than that.

Lincoln is not the first American president whose religious beliefs and practices have been used to make all kinds of arguments. We assert theological intent to writings and activities of the founders, Washington and Jefferson, Franklin and Adams. For a while, it seemed that we Presbyterians had a corner on the White House. Woodrow Wilson is a prime example. Then the issue lost steam, but it has reappeared. Jimmy Carter was our first “born again” president, though he was rejected by evangelical Christianity. Ronald Reagan used biblical imagery extensively – remember the “city on the hill” from the prophet Isaiah? George H. W. Bush fussed with his own Episcopal communion on issues of war and peace. Bill Clinton sang in the Baptist church choir and carried his Bible to church, even when it was Mrs. Clinton’s, now Senator Clinton’s, Methodist church.

And now we are facing a renewed set of issues. Forty-four years ago, the nation was worried that John F. Kennedy would be unduly influenced by the Vatican in is presidential duties. Now, some are worried that John F. Kerry will not be influenced enough by Roman Catholic teaching. Will the Eucharist be withheld from him if he does not support, as a political candidate, Vatican theological teaching on certain controversial issues.

And on the other side of the aisle, President Bush’s clearly identified evangelical perspective on things has some rejoicing, so to speak, and some very worried. When asked by reporter Robert Woodward if he had consulted with his father on issues of war in Iraq, it was reported that he replied that he consults regularly with a “higher Father.”

One could turn both of these issues, the Senator’s Catholicism and the President’s evangelicalism, into interesting parlor conversations and leave them at that. This is, however, not simply about theory. It is about real life. Religion and politics is not a concept only.

We have marked several anniversaries recently. All of them have theological implications. All of them involve deep questions of faith. Roe v. Wade and matters of abortion and choice, one of the few issues that Presbyterians have held a consistent position on over recent decades, what I describe as “reluctantly pro-choice,” based on the theological affirmation from the Westminster standards that “God alone is Lord of the conscience.” Or Columbine. Or Oklahoma City. Or the appearance of the Ten Commandments in an Alabama courtroom. Or the brewing battle over same-sex marriage, about which this congregation’s More Light history should have something to say. Or the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of education. Or the war in Afghanistan or the war in Iraq or any war, for that matter.

This month we are exploring the Book of Revelation. The context of Revelation seems to hang amidst a variety of interpretations these days, but all of them live in the neighborhood of this conversation. Dietrich Bonhoeffer called the church to be a “community of the Apocalypse,” a community of Revelation, precisely because this vision called the church to be prophetic and to challenge the world’s powers that be. (See Christopher Rowland, The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, page 511.)

Was the Revelation most concerned with the state’s oppression of the church, the Roman Empire’s efforts to quell religious practice? Or was the Revelation concerned with the church’s too-cozy adaptation of Roman practices, a kind of cultural accommodation that rounded the church’s prophetic edge. Either way, issues of church and state, religion and politics, are central, from Revelation to the present moment, including this morning’s language about the "nations walking in light.”

This conversation has been a central one in our tradition. John Calvin and the City Council in Geneva. John Knox and his battles with Queen Mary. John Witherspoon’s signing of the Declaration of Independence, the lone minister to do so. This is in our DNA, and our invitation today is to re-claim that heritage, that tradition, for such a time as this.

This is not about Republicans and Democrats. One can find articles that identify American Presbyterianism as clearly aligned with both parties, so go figure. This conversation takes us beyond political parties, beyond political ideology, beyond even national boundaries. We assume that every governmental system is inherently flawed because fallen humans operate them. Yet we also believe that politics can somehow be an instrument for good because in point of fact we believe so fervently in the sovereignty and providence of God. God somehow works through our politics in spite of the politicians. We believe that boldly. Bur we also believe it humbly.

We are no longer a theocracy, not sixteenth century Geneva or the United States of 1776 of 1861 or even 1954. Pluralism is a political fact and a religious reality, and even so we must consider such pluralism, which makes things ever so more complex, as part of God’s mysterious, sovereign activity.

What that means for us is that we take our citizenship seriously – our citizenship in the world, our citizenship in the United States, our citizenship in Rochester and Monroe Country, and also our citizenship in this church, in the community of faith. What it means is that we seek light, boldly, humbly, seek light that moves beyond partisan politics and works for the vision of Revelation, where every tear will be wiped away, where death will be no more, where crying and pain will be no more. It means that we will never be satisfied with simple answers or slogans, from whatever side of the political aisle we sit. It means that we look to our faith not for positions, but for a deep and provocative and candid engagement of the issues.

Our sin these days is at least the sin of being numbed to this kind of engagement. Our faith will not allow us to be passive or silent. We are called to walk in light rather than darkness, and to follow wherever that light leads us. That means that service may lead to activism. Tutoring in School 6 or 35 may lead us to activism on the issue of public schools. Volunteering in the Dining Room Ministry may lead us to advocate on hunger issues. An overnight with Interfaith Hospitality Network may suggest to us that something is dreadfully wrong with a system that allows for homelessness, that does not meet the very fundamental requirements of shelter and food and clothing for every citizen, for every child of God.

To read Revelation is to read a vision of faith fully engaged with the world. We can do no less. It is to receive the mantle of leadership passed down by prophets and saints before us, with names like King and Anthony and Day and Bonhoeffer, perhaps even Abraham Lincoln, and with names remembered only in the book of life. It is a word to those who are received today in our commissioning class. It is a word to all of us.

Our tradition and our heritage insist that we do not separate the world into little compartments, school and work, church and politics. Rather, to be a person of faith, even to be baptized, means that we are citizens of the world in all its messiness and complexity, and that our faith gives us a vision to live in the world with hope, seeking justice, seeking light. We do so boldly. We do so humbly. But there is no question that we do it.

“And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light.” Let us seek to be citizens of that city, even the city of light. Amen.