2/19/50

Scripture: Luke 17: 20-33.

Text: Luke 17: 21b; "The kingdom of God is in the midst of you."

February is a month for special attention to the attitudes by which people may live side by side in neighborly respect and brotherhood. The birthdays of two of America’s great men furnish the occasion for this expression. Abraham Lincoln’s birthday is the inspiration for an emphasis on improved race relations in our country. What personality could be more fittingly remembered in this connection than that of the Great Emancipator?

George Washington’s birthday is the inspiration for American Brotherhood week wherein attention is focused on the necessity of neighborly understanding and dignified tolerance between adherents of the leading religious faiths of our country’s people.

Neither of these men were by any means perfect. Lincoln was so earthy as to be occasionally offensive to some. And despite his sense of humor he was, at times, deeply and dangerously melancholy. Though deeply religious, it is doubtful that he ever became a communicant member of a church. But his integrity was like a firm city, his good purposes unshakable, and his abilities superior.

Washington lacked the brilliance of some other men of his time. He was an aristocrat of sorts and a slave-owner. But he was a man of steady dependability, devoted to the tested virtues of living - the kind of person in whom others place great trust.

Thomas Paine wrote, "The character of George Washington puts all men called ‘kings’ to shame. While they are receiving from sweat and labor of mankind a prodigality of pay, to which neither their abilities nor their services entitle them, he is rendering every service in his power, and refusing every pecuniary reward. He accepted no pay as commander-in-chief."

Mr. Washington was a man of comfortable means. He had seen his own resources increased by his marriage to a well-to-do woman. I should think the urge to insure, hold and protect his possessions would have been very strong in him. He could have taken the comparative ease which is possible for one who had laid up much goods for many years. It is something more than ordinary behavior to find him in history tramping the snows and misery of Valley Forge. He transcends the levels of commonplace living.

Any man in that bitter experience could have cursed his spiteful fortune that made him responsible for so hopeless a cause as the revolt of the crown colonies. Trusted officers had given up the cause and returned home or gone over to the enemy. Some of the members of Congress thought more of prestige and patrimony than of the cause of liberty. His men were miserable and his supplies wretched. It must have seemed foolhardy to engage Great Britain, the world’s most formidable empire. His ally, France, was 3000 miles away, and sailing vessels were slow. Hunger reduced the willingness of his little army.

But children of righteousness are born out of the travail of hardship and suffering. A wretched log cabin yields up an Emancipator, and a Valley Forge the father and family of a nation. Washington wagered his wealth and health, perhaps his very life, on the gospel of freedom. He made great alliances that assured victory for his countrymen and their lasting tribute for himself.

1) Washington allied himself with a great need; a cause that had to have a champion. This will do wonders for the talents of a man. People of frail physique, and even ill of body, have frequently been the powerhouse of some great cause. A man who may be a stripling may call up strength he never suspected he had when fired by emergency or angered by some outrage on another. It is said that one fellow who became a prominent and successful boxer had always been shy, even cowardly in avoiding trouble, discovered his strength quite accidentally one time when confronted by ruffians molesting a defenseless girl.

Moses, hiding in the bushes of the desert away from the wrath of Egypt argued with himself: "Who am I that I should go to the rescue of Israelite slaves?" But he could not escape the cries of their misery, the frightfulness of the Egyptian tyranny, nor the call of God to do something about it. Forsaking any alliance with the royal house of Pharaoh, and allying himself with the weakness of slaves, he became a powerful prince of liberty. Had he stuck to the royal household in which he was reared, his earthly remains might be viewed today in some museum in a royal mummy case. Instead, he is deeply venerated by every devout member of the Hebrew household he once liberated, and profoundly respected by each devoted follower of the Savior he so distantly preceded.

Washington allied himself with the cause of freedom from political tyranny. Lincoln allied himself with the cause of national unity and of freedom from chattel slavery. Jane Addams allied herself with the underprivileged; Mohandas Gandhi with the innumerable outcasts of his country; Damien with the lepers of Molokai.

There came one named Jesus, the Christ, who "for your sakes became poor," received sinners, espoused the cause of mankind’s need, and accepted a vengeful cross. He who was friend of the poor, the sick, the outcast, has become Savior to unnumbered millions. The world remembers most gratefully those who ally themselves with great need.

2) Washington allied himself also with an eternal ideal - that of "liberty and justice for all." He took hold of this ideal whose time had come, and it made him from a country squire to a country’s father. The immortals are those whose lives are leagued with a truth that is rising to live.

As we observed earlier, Washington was not a superman nor by any means perfect. Jefferson wrote of him: "His mind was great, but not of the very first order; his penetration was strong, though not as acute as that of Newton, Bacon, or Locke. No judgment was ever sounder but was slow in operation, being little aided by investigation or imagination." By some standards, he was a common man. But he made uncommon alliances with great need and great ideals.

3) It should be observed also that, in breaking with an outward king, he allied himself to the kingly within. He was loyal to that which was royal in his own heart. His soul stood up and the opposing armies finally stood aside. None of us has exhausted the possibilities or resources of his own soul. It was a philosopher of wisdom who admonished, "Know thyself," hoping that some of his hearers might discover and use that which is a full match for the world’s powers.

To have found that which makes one trust his best self when the world doubts him, wait without tiring when necessary; meet triumph humbly and disaster unbroken; build up life’s broken things, if need be with worn out tools; start again after losing, without thought or bitterness of loss; that comes from alliance with the kingly within. Washington may have been a rebel in British eyes, but he was loyal to his own royal self.

It is this quality which I think bears particularly on the observance of Brotherhood week. What is needed in a nation such as ours, and in the world at large, is a quality of life that stands for convictions but is willing to live and let live with others of like mind. The three major religious expressions of our country, Jewish, Protestant and Catholic faiths; all have:

1) a common belief in God.

2) the Old Testament, including the Commandments as a guide to morality -- poetic interpretation of psalms and other Old Testament literature -- ethical insights of the prophets -- regard of the triumphs of man with God and the downfall of man when he forgets God.

These we of these faiths all have in common. In many other things we differ.

Jews respect Jesus as a prophet.

Christians regard Jesus as a Savior

Roman Catholics -- have high regard for mystery concerning origin, birth, death and resurrection ofJesus. Emphasis on miraculous.

Protestants of the contemporary thought stress the life of Jesus as teacher, ethical leader, redeemerthe reasonableness and understandibility of his teaching and the requirements of his ethics.

Jews respect the authority of ancient tradition.

Roman Catholics respect the authority of ecclesiastical tradition and of the hierarchy.

Protestants respect the authority of the Bible, reasonably studied, understood, and interpreted.

We ought to stand up for these things as the Protestant contribution to contemporary religious understanding.

[After last national election, Republican party leaders held a "post mortem" in Omaha. Majority agreed - defeated by a "me too" philosophy. Omaha editorial: "God Hates a Coward."]

If true in politics, also true in religion.

Protestant reason for being is not to ape the Roman Catholic nor to turn Hebrew. Gains of Protestantism:

Jesus as child of humble Hebrew parents

Normal boy -- inquisitive -- at twelve in the temple.

Free to follow his interests when younger brothers and sisters came of age.

Went to be baptized of John the Baptist

Began his own ministry with the proclamation that "The Kingdom of God is at hand; repent ye and believe the gospel." (When asked) "The kingdom of God is within you" or "in the midst of you." Not only a future heaven but a present reality.

We Protestants should make more of the baptism of Jesus. Traditionally, do not emphasize it - as unnecessary.

At the beginning of this Lent (40 days of Jesus’ temptation)

Emphasize Jesus life and teachings (These are underemphasized in "The Greatest Story Ever Told" -- by a Roman Catholic, ran in papers. I did not endorse and do not endorse.

Lenten sermons of Wisconsin Rapids Protestant ministers to emphasize Jesus’ life and teachings.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, February 19, 1950.