6/28/64

Scripture: Galatians 5: 1, 13-25.

Text: Galatians 5: 1; "For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery."

There is a holiday coming! Next Saturday, July 4th, is the 188th anniversary of the signing, in the Continental Congress, of the document which we call the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America. It was an occasion of supreme importance --- not only to the people of 13 colonies then represented in the Congress, but to freedom-loving people all over the world. Particularly in the 19th century, people everywhere who felt oppressed looked with admiration and longing and hopefulness toward the two opening paragraphs of this American Declaration. It skillfully embodied the convictions of countless people, all over the world, as to what proper liberty is for responsible and freedom-loving people.

In a sense, the Declaration of Independence had been made in the Congress some days before the signing of this historic document. This was the statement which the men of the Congress felt impelled to make for the understanding of all people everywhere, at home and abroad, as to the reasons, and reasoning, which underlay the determination to throw off a British yoke. The yoke had become unreasonable, severe, unjust. And so the Congress declared itself.

On, or before, next Saturday, many of us will stop working at our usual pursuits, will relax at home, or go away on vacation. We will enjoy the benefits of the holiday. We may think of its significance, or we may think of many other matters to the exclusion of that meaning. But the clear purpose of the holiday is that we may have the opportunity, and possibly the purpose, to deepen our appreciation and understanding of the liberty we enjoy in this land; and of the price that has been paid for it; and the cost of its continuance.

Something like 56 men, representing the 13 states in the Continental Congress, signed the Declaration of Independence. They solemnly pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. Had the revolution failed, they might very well have forfeited all. Their lives might have been judged treasonable and so subject to execution. Their fortunes would probably have been confiscated. And their honor would have been made to appear degradation in the sight of the king’s government.

Of course it took a war of revolution to assure the independence they had declared. Hosts of men suffered. Many of them died. Families were deprived. All of this, too, was the price paid for liberty. And the price in succeeding generations of life in these United States has continued high. For freedom is dearly bought and costly to maintain. And so let not the anniversary of our nation’s Declaration of Independence pass without the understanding, appreciation and dedication of the sons and daughters of this country.

Some years ago, our city was visited by a replica of the famous Liberty Bell. There came a time when my family and I, traveling in the eastern part of the United States in the early summer of 1957, had opportunity to see the original Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. We know what many of you know, that it is one of the symbols of our freedom. The bell had been ordered by the Pennsylvania provincial council for the celebration of the golden (50th) anniversary of Penn’s Charter of Privileges of 1701. On its arrival, it was cracked. It was recast in 1753, and put into use again. On July 8, 1776, this bell was rung to proclaim news of the July 4th signing of the Declaration of Independence. Hence its name: "Liberty Bell." It carries an inscription from Leviticus 25: 10: "Proclaim Liberty throughout the world, unto all the inhabitants thereof."

Many years later, when it was rung on Washington’s birthday, 1846, it was cracked so badly that it has been silenced since, except for a very light tapping on a couple of occasions of great national significance. The thing that the bell is recognized for, as a national symbol, is the occasion when it was used to proclaim the arrival of news in Philadelphia. A Declaration of Independence had been signed. This nation is, and of right ought to be, a free and independent people. Let us stand fast in our freedom.

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Paul was not talking about any people in an American land when he wrote to the Christian people of Galatia. He didn’t even know that there was such a land across the wide ocean. But he was talking to those Galatians about freedom. Freedom is essentially a spiritual gift. It is sought, and maintained, in attitude. Paul was trying to re-impress the Galatian Christians that they were free from the bondage of the Hebrew law and religious regulation. They were free by the grace of Christ. In this freedom they were not bound to observe the religious law of circumcision and other regulations. He exhorted his readers to remember, and cherish, their Christian freedom.

Their freedom was not the freedom of obedience to Hebrew law and custom -- though there is a certain freedom to be found in wise regulation. Their freedom was the liberty of truth. The Christian faith makes people free because it is based and rooted in truth. John [8: 31-32] remembered Jesus as saying, "If ye continue in my word, ... ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

Probably no word in our language needs more underscoring than the word "truth." We are stock-piled with half-truths, false witness and lies. Only the clear truth can make us free. Where truth is sought, known, proclaimed, and lived by --- there is freedom. The scientist will labor in his laboratory long hours, days, weeks, months, even years in his reverence and enthusiasm for truth in the natural world. He finds freedom in the discovery of even a tiny bit of truth. Concern for truth in the field of education brings us on toward freedom from the bondage of ignorance, provincialism and small-mindedness. Mental health stems from the power of truth -- about God, our world, and ourselves.

No successful solution of the problem of peace in the world can be worked out on the basis of deceit, falsehood, intrigue or false nationalism. Only the full truth can set the world’s people free from warring and misery. "My country right or wrong" is not the truth. National integrity and international justice are the truth, because they square with the moral law of the universe.

Paul evidently had much of this in mind when he exhorted the Galatians to stand fast in the liberty that was rightfully theirs in Christ. "For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery."

We Christian who live in this land are doubly blessed -- if we are observant enough to recognize our blessings. We are adherents to a religious faith that proclaims freedom and exalts truth. We are citizens of a land wherein liberty is proclaimed. We are not to take our liberty in either realm for granted. It is under constant attack from without and is subject to constant erosion within. It must be recognized, treasured, maintained.

Many of you have stood in the Black Hills of South Dakota as I have at a proper point of vantage from which to see the faces of four great men of our nation carved in stone on Mount Rushmore. As you gaze at the strong faces of Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Lincoln, your mind plays over the history which you have learned wherein events and policies were shaped by these men. It was one of these four men, Roosevelt, whose words are rightly remembered at this point. He said: "We, here in America, hold in our hands the hope of the world, the fate of the coming years; and shame and disgrace will be ours if in our eyes the light of high resolve is dimmed, if we trail in the dust the golden hopes of men."

Is there something unique, or different, about the way we live in the United States? It is unique in that it is American. But "how," or "what makes it that way?" is not easily put into words. Our land is bountiful, rich in its yields, good in its bounty. Its crops bring us more than enough food. Its natural resources supply much of our needs. Our country’s resources beget in us a conviction that there is a good life possible for all of God’s children who live here. We are even provided with the means to help others in various parts of the world. Along with this conviction that the good life is possible goes the recognition that it does not just happen, and we must be the instruments for helping to make it happen to a lot of people even in our own maladjusted land.

Our country is full of beauty and majesty. We are blind and insensitive if we do not think of it with wonder and awe. Our rivers are not just so many tons of moving water. They are beautiful to behold. The seashore is more than sand washed by salty water. From it we can scan far horizons and lose ourselves in wonder, love and praise. Last evening’s lingering sunset; the gift of each new day in our land, can be ignored or can bring us a glory if we will accept it. We need not leave these things to poets, though we may make use of the language of the poet.

My native country, thee,

Land of the noble free,

Thy name I love.

I love thy rocks and rills,

Thy woods and templed hills,

My heart with rapture thrills like that above.

Ours is a land of memorable shrines. A good number of our Boy Scouts will soon be leaving for Valley Forge in Pennsylvania. There they will camp in the national Boy Scout Jamboree. They will meet other Scouts from all over our country --- and perhaps even some from abroad. They may be reminded of part of our national heritage in the knowledge that their campsite is where the determined patriots of the American Revolution endured the bitter winter that preceded their eventual victory in the cause for freedom.

Not too far from Valley Forge, there is, in Morristown, New Jersey, a building made memorable as the headquarters of General George Washington, where he spent more time than at any other location during the Revolutionary War. The capital city of Washington, in the District of Columbia, is the scene of the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and uncounted other shrines important to our nation. Out in the Black Hills of South Dakota is the Mount Rushmore shrine. From New England to Hawaii, they can be found!

Ours is a land where some people --- many people --- care. There is brotherhood, there is friendship, there is care of people for each other. Of course there are the opposites, which constantly challenge the best in us. But now and then it is well to remind ourselves of the goodness to be found in such full measure. Ours is a land wherein all people may worship as they feel impelled to do, each one pointing his or her own life toward God in temple, in meeting house, in cloistered chapel, or under open sky. It is the land where we love to sing:

O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain;

For purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain.

It has beauty, rich goodness, marvelous opportunity, preserved for its people -- for you and me and other citizens -- in the liberty bought and defended so dearly; and which we must cherish and share.

We are reminded of the testing exploit of a Madison, Wisconsin, newspaper reporter who went on the streets of the city a few years ago with a copy of these opening phrases of the Declaration of Independence. He tried interviewing passer-by as to what they though of these statements. He sought the signatures of people who would endorse the views of these statements in the Declaration:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it ....."

Now we are aware that this was a kind of stump procedure; that one needs to be on guard against trick propositions; that we have to keep our guard up against deception; that it is unsafe to sign one’s name to any document or statement without careful and thorough perusal of the same unless we are asked to do so by someone whom we know thoroughly and trust implicitly. Nonetheless this man’s report is interesting. He is said to have approached 112 people. Of these 112, only one would sign his name on this basic document that spells out our rights as a people. Most of the people interviewed gave it a hasty glance (as probably you or I would), concluded that it was "too radical." Some thought it was communist propaganda, and a few accused the reporter of being a communist sympathizer.

Frank Kostyu, recalling this incident, raises some questions for us to ponder.

1) Do we shy away from the doctrine in this Declaration of Independence because many Americans have stopped believing in its essential truth?

2) Are we getting to the place where we no longer believe that we have a right to free speech and free assembly? Do we disapprove some kinds of assembly so much that we are willing to have a peaceful march for freedom stifled with fire hoses, vicious dogs, clubs or other deterrents?

3) What do we really believe about free press and free speech? Shall we read only what many believe is good for us to know? Shall all facets of truth about our affairs in Cuba or southeast Asia be known to us?

4) Do we "shelter" our high ideals with a fear that those who speak against them may contaminate us? Are we afraid that we may be swayed? Are we unsure of ourselves?

5) What about our liberty to move freely at home and abroad? Is it right that our people be prevented by our government from visiting other lands now restricted to us? Or does this tend in the direction of "gates" and walls" and "curtains"?

There are a host of freedoms that lie in jeopardy by our apathy, indifference, ignorance or carelessness. Where is our realization that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are privileges with which go certain responsibilities for ourselves, our children and their children.

Part of Katherine Lee Bates’ inspiring poem is:

O beautiful for patriot dream that sees beyond the years...

beyond the present, into the future, past our own time. The spirit that brought our free land into being was that of a bright, burning hope for happier things to come --- a belief in the rights won, and now possessed; to be preserved and transmitted more brightly to each new generation.

Liberty, freedom, political and economic rights make up a highway of hope for the government and the governed. It is for rich and poor, the literate and the illiterate; the people of any and every race and creed. The liberty in which Paul admonished the Galatians to stand fast does not just happen. It comes by discipline and devotion, by precept and example. Only by these responsible expressions can it inspire hope, now and in years to come.

Our national liberties were not established by mere quirk of circumstance. They were the result of effort and suffering and determination. They were also the result of what we may call the hand of providence. The first draft of the Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson under unusual conditions. It had been proposed, by Richard Henry Lee, that the Continental Congress should adopt a resolution affirming that "the united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states." Probably Lee would have been the logical choice to write the draft of such declaration. But he was called home by illness in the family. A committee was appointed to do the drafting. This group included Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Robert Livingston and Thomas Jefferson. Richard Lee might have been its chairman had he not been called away. Adams and Franklin were overburdened with other duties in the Congress. So to Jefferson, the youngest member of the committee, fell the duty to bring in a first draft. He wrote; Adams and Franklin made minor changes; then it was approved by the Congress.

Another interesting circumstance is that Jefferson had only recently been appointed to the Congress to fill a vacancy caused by a resignation. He remained a member for only a few months. The hand of a Providence, beyond the calculations of men, appears in these circumstances that issued in this declaration in its final form. Most of those men believed in God as giver to them of intellectual and spiritual wisdom. Some of them might be unconventional in matters of church membership; but the key persons took their belief in God with great seriousness. Franklin was one of these. It was he who, in the last year of his office wrote: "I believe in one God, creator of the Universe. That He governs it by His providence. That He ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render Him is doing good to His other children. That the soul of man is immortal."

It was George Washington who put it this way: "I am sure that there was never a people who had more reason to acknowledge a divine interposition in their affairs than those of the United States." The history of our nation is so replete with evidences of a divine providence, working through the dangers, the hardships, even the perversities of our national life, that we can rightly sing:

God of our fathers, whose almighty hand

Lead forth in beauty all the starry band

Of shining worlds ............

From war’s alarms, from deadly pestilence

Be thy strong arm our ever sure defense.

Those who believe that some kind of tyranny is better government than democratic freedom may well try to do away with the idea of God. But a people such as we are or may be, whose motto and belief is "In God We Trust" are surely constrained to praise Him for His leading; heed Him for his admonitions; walk in His righteousness with dedication.

The Psalmist writes for us and all ages when he bursts forth with the exclamation:

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, and the people whom he has chosen as his heritage. [Psalm 33: 12].

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, June 28, 1964.