Freedom or Repression--Hope or Fear

Freedom or Repression--Hope or Fear
by The Rev. Preston K. Mears, Jr.
March 12, 2006

Last month we observed the birthdays of two great presidents: George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. One was a agriculturalist who managed some 1,700 acres of land and a community of people and slaves who did the work. He committed himself to the long years of the revolutionary war and the winning of political freedom. Part of that freedom was hammered out in a constitution insisting on a separation of church and state. The purpose of that separation, born out of the bitter experience of the long religious wars in England and Europe, was to insure that religion and community might flourish in peace.

The freedom that was won, however, was flawed by the Constitution’s perpetuation of slavery. Four score and seven years later, the other great president, Abraham Lincoln led the Nation in correcting the constitution by eliminating slavery. Religious freedom and constitutional freedom for all were established at the price of a horrific civil war. And even at that, there were unsolved issues regarding women’s rights! And nearly five score years later, the Voters Rights Act of 1964 was passed assuring the right to vote and, with the vote, Constitution’s promise of Freedom.

The work is not done yet; indeed, the current play on fear justifies repression. Freedom and the Constitution’s promise are at risk. Freedom is diminished when hope wanes and we retreat into our own social and psychological enclaves. Conversely, there is so much to discover for ourselves and to offer to our children and grand children.

A year ago I preached a sermon here that called for a commitment to defend the constitution. I quoted from Justice Louis Brandeis: "Those who won our independence knew that fear breeds repression and that courage is the secret of liberty." I suspect you might agree that events since then have underscored the need for vigilance in defense of the Constitution.

Our Minister John Crestwell recently stated that we may be subject to undue scrutiny for speaking truth to power. He had spoken publicly in support of gay marriage. What is the problem? What happens? When some people view their particular views as right, by God, then the organs of power are to be pressed into service against those who disagree. Conclusion? If you are not for us, you are against us and must be dealt with accordingly.

Do the repressors believe that the universe will come unglued if they do not have their way? What is the agenda? Talking to fears of terrorism is preferable to recognizing the incompetence of responding to the reality of Katrina. Talking to fears and asserting military muscle is easier than the hard work of understanding what it takes to build peace, To be very clear, looking at ourselves and the realities of our existence honestly and speaking truthfully among ourselves are what are necessary for freedom, not a play on fears.

A historical perspective: Some of us recently read and discussed a book entitled, Lost Christianities. It is a serious, scholarly book about the many variations of early Christianity that were suppressed and their writings mostly destroyed after Constantine became a Christian and decided his empire should be Christian as well. Clearly, the well being of the State was henceforth tied to correct belief. It was necessary to the stability and well being of the political order and most certainly those in power. Interestingly, we saw that some variations of early Christianity seemed almost Unitarian! However, normative Christianity with a highly defined doctrine of the Trinity was to be the last word. The empire demanded a singular faith in order to be safe and hope for all divine blessings.

My point, however, is not to offer either apology for or critique of the Trinity in a Unitarian Church. It had its necessary points in its time in a polytheistic world. My point is to simply state that the current push for “correct” belief and “family values” (code talk for correct religious posture on such matters as taxes, abortion, sexuality and death) is not new. Some of the early church fathers scored points by viciously describing opponents. Sufficiently debased opponents are no longer fully human and are expendable. The framers of the Constitution debated and debated on how to break that diabolical tie between power, religion and political control that had come to define, horrendously, 100’s of years of Western history. Remember the cycle of dates of the wars and the treaties you needed to memorize to pass High School World History--the prism through which most of us have been taught to view our history! Think about that. Consider what that says about how we mostly are taught and understand our history!

Have we made progress? Look at us today. Surely our constitution is under assault when there is the attitude that considers torture under some circumstances to be necessary, that due process must cease in order to win the war, that truth telling is only useful when it is expedient, and power, in the name of protecting us, is the province only of the people holding the power. To borrow from Lincoln: “Government for, by and of the people” is forsaken.

Pay attention to today’s language. Since 9/11 we have been in a war against “Terror.” The term is used again and again and we hear very little about who is involved, where do they come from, what motivates them It is not politically advantageous for us to come to understand seriously who is our enemy. We are told that it is enough for us to know that they are “bad” and “evil.” In order for terror to be terror, the evil must be faceless and we must be filled with fear. Filled with fear our courage is gone and we can but obey. Are there other truths for us?

Let me ask you if the families of victims of the bombing of the federal building in Tulsa Oklahoma did not have something to be afraid of? Did the families of La Plata, Maryland not have something to be afraid of? Did not the victims of the Gulf Coast and New Orleans have something to be afraid off? Did I not have something to be afraid of when I was diagnosed with cancer? And what about the things that you have in your lives to be afraid of? Indeed, there are fearful things that have already happened in our lives. We need courage to deal with the hard realities not the promise of security.

I believe it essential that we focus on ourselves in understanding our context. I want us to focus on how we, within ourselves and in support of each other, need to encourage hope and embrace freedom. We need to do that for ourselves, each other and most certainly for our children.

We know that mortality, sickness, accidents are not new to the human condition. Part of us understands that lightening can hit where it will and any of us can be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I chose the Macbeth passage this morning for a reading because it is familiar, at least to my generation. It lays out clearly a tragic view of human reality.

Shakespeare’s towering characters are human characters who fall from high places moved by greed, pride, lust for power and then fear. Macbeth’s wife has died and we heard his words of despair and isolation. King Lear goes mad not trusting his daughter’s love, Hamlet fears he will fail his father’s ghost, Othello fears trusting his wife. When we are afraid, we are at risk of committing destructive and self-destructive acts; we are vulnerable to being manipulated and conned. Shakespeare surely understood human nature very well.

We don’t have to be great, tragic figures to be fearful and then isolated from others in our fear and then despairing and without hope. Without having to be tragic figures, we can know feeling isolated and, increasingly, small and vulnerable, and afraid. We often prefer to deny fears than admit to them. Laurie asks me after I describe something that is disturbing to me if I am afraid, “No,” I say, “Just apprehensive.” What I do, when I am afraid and I refuse to recognize it, is to get angry and afraid perhaps like you. Like Hamlet, like Othello, we act out of our fears, though hopefully, not murderously! When I am angry I feel strong, not weak, not afraid. And when the anger has exhausted itself, I feel isolated.

Isolation is fearful. Isolation haunts. Isolation is terrible. There is an answer for isolation. For me there is love in my life and I am fortunate in that. Love restores, heals and makes whole. Can we find that kind of love in others? Can we give it? Can we touch the well springs of our own being? Will we appreciate it in another? Do we have a sense of a divine love that is part of creation? Can we immerse ourselves in the writings and teachings, in the songs and poetry? Can we listen to each other for in each there is poetry and a life story?

Some of what I learned I found in the New Testament; some I found in Shakespeare, especially some of his sonnets. A side note, years ago I tried to write a sonnet to Laurie but, well, it wasn’t Shakespeare. Maybe I should listen to more of Hiram’s poetry and try again. My point, we all have love in us and we can feel awkward about expressing it. We need to express it to give it and ask for it when we need it. Love does overcome isolation and the hurts and the fears that cause it.

Allow me to focus on this business of “Freedom or Repression--Hope or Fear” with a personal metaphor. When I was a kid, I had to take the garbage out. The garbage can was in the garage which, while attached to the house, you had to go outside of the house to get to it. The light switch was out of my reach and in the Winter time with short days it was dark black in that garage. Who knows what was in the corner? What might be in the garbage can that could bite me? Who knows who what was under the car? It was a 1936 Chevy; cars were high off the ground then and something pretty big could be under there. I was scared, so scared that I was terrified. The only thing worse was my brother’s scorn if I didn’t do it. I would creep into the garage, throw the garbage into the can and run the heck out of there.

Well, I have grown up some since then. I have become “seasoned” as some would say. I love the dark and quiet of the night where I live. All of my senses are alive to the smells and sounds of the house and to the land outside with its critters and breezes in the branches. I am not constrained by a horizon that I can’t see and am embraced by the air, its scents and the sounds surround me. I am not afraid or lonely even though there are fearful and frightening things in the world. The kid that was me is still me but he isn’t afraid of the dark; he is alive to what can’t be seen.

Maybe to grow up is to outgrow our fear? To become alive and alert to what is possible is to let go of our fear? What happens if we make gates in our fences and I invite you into my yard and you into mine? Do we have to see each other’s yards as fearful unknown places that we creep into ever so carefully and then run out of just as quick as we can? Are we seasoned enough to hope and to trust our senses, our intuitions, that there are gardens and flowers in your yard as there are in mine?

To be sure there may be some tangled, weedy places in your garden as there are in mine but look at what we may discover: unique, varied and rich gardens of colors and scents that play with all our senses. We may find we each gain insight and appreciation of our own garden and maybe some encouragement to get after some of our remaining weedy, tangled places. Inspired, enlivened, encouraged, it would seem the only thing we have to give up is our fear. Well, maybe not all of it at first, but enough that we hold onto our hope and accept the invitation to walk through the gate. I into your garden, you into mine.

Here we are about the work of choosing hope over fear and embracing freedom over oppression. Our goal to welcome all of us--us being all sorts and conditions of folk--into being a congregation of hopeful, free people. We need to be that for each other, we need to offer it to our children. In these times, the world would isolate us in our enclaves, have us be fearful people and manipulate us to serve the interests of a few. We are better than that and our children need us to be better than that.

A number of us have been engaged in the ADORE conversations, “A Dialogue on Race and Ethnicity.” We find ourselves being able to talk openly about things that have happened to us, the perceptions we have of ourselves and of others. We find ourselves becoming unafraid to speak and to listen to each other. We find that we can trust each other, learn from each other and leave less afraid.

Some fear that if we are integrating we are assimilating and becoming all alike. Many of us have immigrant ancestors who felt or found it necessary to be assimilated into the larger culture; I have a great-grandfather who did a name change. Sometimes people discarded the culture they came from fearful of the persecution they had fled, fearful of the persecution they might yet endure. However, we are not about integration in the sense of assimilation.

We will not assimilate. Our deal, our goal, the purpose of our coming together in hope is to learn and grow from each other and give up absolutely nothing of who we are--except our fear. There is nothing of any importance to who we are that we are to give up except our fear.

The beginnings of this for me crystallized for me in my Episcopal seminary days as we struggled to understand a Gospel of Freedom. We said then and I say it now, “We do not have to be oppressed or oppressing, we can embrace life and each other and not be afraid of each other even if there are those in the world who hate us or murder us. The world murdered a classmate, Jonathan Daniels. And we said then to each other, “We will be defined by hope and not fear.” Laurie and I are in this church because the joy and the hope are here. The message is here.

I started this morning speaking in a political framework, referencing two great Presidents with both the promise of the Constitution and the failure of its complete realization. I spoke also of the assault on the constitution both from those corrupted by their egotistical mania for power and a narrow religion that depends on blind obedience. They tell us that we should be afraid and then feed on our fear. As I did a year ago, I take direction from Justice Brandeis: Without hope, we lose courage and “Courage,” said Brandeis, “is the secret of liberty.” The work of freedom is not finished; it goes on and it is ours to do for ourselves, each other, and our children.

I don’t want to be a victim of manipulation, fearful because I am told that I should be afraid. I am influenced by what is happening around me, but I do not want my sense of self and life defined by either the cynical or fearful. I do not want that for you. My wisdom, such as it is, “seasoned” as it is, affirms that we can help each other cope with our losses by caring, over-shadow fear with hope, learn more about who we are by seeing ourselves through the eyes of others, by choosing courage and learning trust, overcoming fear and being free people.

In two weeks we are going to have a workshop weekend. Its called a “Jubilee.” Sounds Protestant and evangelical. A Jubilee Year is an Old Testament idea of a year in which debt is forgiven. Can we let go of the debt of fear and guilt? After the talk about what is happening in the large scheme of things, can we let go of fear? After talking about how fear operates for us as we live with the losses that we have endured and as we face losses that will come at us in our own personal lives, can we let go of our fear? The Biblical refrain does get it right, “Perfect love does cast out fear.” To say it Unitarian like, “Let us love enough that there be light enough for all of us to be unafraid.”

At a very basic human level, casting out fear is the challenge of our Jubilee Weekend. I hope you will sign up for it if you haven’t already, even if events and children, etc. have us too busy. But whether you can come or not, celebrate today and tomorrow and the days after, that we are about the work of choosing hope over fear and freedom over repression! Amen, Amen, Amen.