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The Sunday before Memorial Day 2005
Rev. Dr. Eugene C. Buie, Jr., Pastor
Antioch Christian Church
Vienna, Virginia
Matthew 7:21-29
Psalm 46
This weekend we honor the men and women who served our nation and gave their lives to protect the American way. Whether in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, the Gulf, or Afghanistan and Iraq, Americans have fought and died because they cherished freedom, not only for themselves and their loved ones but for others as well.
This freedom, this unique way of life that is American, is and has been a gift of a religious heritage upheld and affirmed by the blood of patriots. In 1774, Thomas Jefferson wrote, "The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time." In the nineteenth century, the French historian, Tocqueville, wrote, "In America, Christians and Jews believe that God created men to be free, and that the world of politics is a sphere intended by the Creator for the free play of intelligence." He continued, "Freedom sees religion as the companion of its struggles and triumphs, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its rights. Religion is considered as the guardian of mores, and mores are regarded as the guarantee of the laws and pledge for the maintenance of freedom itself." The religion and mores of which Tocqueville spoke were those of the Judeo-Christian faith traditions and cultures, the biblical heritage and beliefs that underlie the American way of life.
On this Memorial Day weekend, we are reminded that Thomas Jefferson also said, "The tree of liberty must constantly be refreshed by the blood of patriots and tyrants." Indeed, our freedoms have been established and preserved with the shed blood of America’s sons and daughters. Generations of Americans have championed the freedom of a people in order that we may continue to determine our own course, our own way of life, rather than have it dictated to us by a few people of power or by ruling elite who surpass the will of the citizen majority. Therefore, we must be ever vigilant to preserve these same freedoms for those who follow us, freedoms that are based not on some political or social theory, but on a specific religious heritage given to us by a just and loving God.
In this generation, the Judeo-Christian heritage, from whence American liberty sprung, is being deconstructed by a social secularism that subverts the freedoms we may take for granted. Most recently, some of our nation’s courts are beginning to challenge these freedoms and potentially alter our way of life. In the name of "rights-based individualism," activist judges have begun to systematically revise the American culture that has defined community standards and responsibilities from our founding. The "Greatest Generation" did not fight and die for this new tyranny recently conjured up in our courts, a tyranny of selfish individualism that inverts our traditional understanding of majority rule and liberty for all. We speak today of diversity and welcome all people to a way of life defined by liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Regardless of whether or not that happiness is achieved, we revel in its pursuit and in the freedom of choice we have in our lives, including the freedom of worship as we please.
However, this freedom does not include the right of a person of privilege and power to unilaterally alter our way of life or change the Judeo-Christian culture that underlies this way of life. Please listen carefully to the next point. Christians do not believe everyone must worship and acknowledge the Judeo-Christian God, whom we believe created and sustains heaven and earth. We lift up this Supreme Being as the author and redeemer of life, but it is this same one true God who gives to all humankind the choice to accept or reject Him. As the Hebrew Scriptures testify, God sets before us life and death and urges us to choose life. But the choice is ours to make. The Founders of this nation chose life, and in that life was the God-given gift of freedom.
Listen to the words John Adams wrote to his friend, F. A. Vanderkemp, in 1809. "I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations. If I were an atheist of the other sect, who believe or pretend to believe that all is ordered by chance, I should believe that chance had ordered the Jews to preserve and propagate to all mankind the doctrine of a supreme, intelligent, wise, almighty sovereign of the universe, which I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization." In the first century of the current era, the first Christians referred to this "essential principle" as "The Way."
The Way is a particular culture, a way of being in life, a philosophy of life that has its roots in the First Testament of the Bible and its fulfillment in the Second Testament. As used in the First Testament, the Way was an idea that one’s goals and purposes are revealed by the road taken. Generally, it refers to a person’s moral conduct and guiding principles. The Way is described by the ancient psalmist in Psalm 119:1-8 (read). In the Gospel of Matthew, it is expressed in terms of contrasting ways (read Matthew 7:13-14, 21-27).
Jesus proclaims himself as God’s Way, meaning the way for God’s creation to be in life, guided by the teachings and traditions presented by him as the Word of God, the Christ, the chosen and anointed of God (read John 14:5-7). As followers of Jesus Christ, we understand that a just and moral God made the world to work in a particular way. We observe the natural laws that govern our world. We sense in our hearts the moral principles that guide human relationships. We believe there is nothing in the universe that is random or operates by chance. The freedom we enjoy, therefore, is not an accident or an arbitrary social construct. It is an intentional gift from God who, by the way, will hold us accountable for the use we make of it.
This divine way of freedom is both religious and philosophical, both a way of the spirit and a way of reason that recognizes the wisdom of the world’s Creator. Those who have faith in Jesus Christ, who trust in and rely on him, are redeemed from sin and saved from a spiritual death; consequently, they accept as a reasonable reality the way Christ commands his disciples to live. Know also, however, that others, who have not chosen to put their faith in Jesus Christ, but nevertheless intentionally or unintentionally follow the way of life he has prescribed, may not be saved but are blessed by the benefits of living their lives according to the way God made the world to work. As an example, we all have known "good" people who are not necessarily religious. Where will they stand on judgment day? I don’t know. It may be that God, in His infinite goodness, will bring them by the Spirit of Christ to salvation.
Jesus tells us in our gospel text this morning, "everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on a rock." I do not think we can assume this advice is exclusively for Christians. The words of Christ are reasonable and available to all people. Everyone and anyone can chose to follow the way of Christ, living their lives according to His words. We must remember that the culture of this nation was formed according to the biblical code….our laws, our moral standards, our principles, our communities where love and mutual respect guide our relationships. Of course, there are exceptions in a sinful world, but evil does not negate the existence of the good. There have been times when we, as a nation, lost our way. The evil practice of slavery was one of those times. But in a free nation people hold one another accountable, and the principles of freedom prevail, if slowly. Now, in the last thirty years, we seem to be losing our way again, but in a different direction.
In the founding of this nation, Christians and non-Christians alike accepted the words of God and put that divine wisdom into practice, creating the American way, a free and democratic republic. Thus, we have been blessed with a unique and successful way of life, a culture and a form of governance previously unknown in the history of humankind. The question for us today is this: "Are we, as a people and as Christian Americans, going to permit a few people of privilege and power to move this nation’s house from the rock of freedom, on which it was built, to a sandbar of secularism, where it will surely be destroyed?
There are godless voices in our society today who are claiming the standards and practices of the Judeo-Christian way of life no longer belong in the public arena. They are attempting to rewrite history in order to delete the role religion has played in the formation of our nation, and they are enjoying a disturbing amount of success, particularly in our educational institutions. They are insisting on, not only the separation of church and state, but the end of religion’s influence in society and the elimination of a Christian culture as we have known it.
Let us be clear, with ourselves and with everyone else. The majority of Christians in America has never called for a national religion requiring that every person confess Jesus Christ as Savior and be baptized into the church. To the contrary, most Christians easily acknowledge the God-given right of every person to choose whom or what they will worship. However, what we should not be willing to give up is the quality of life and the freedom that is characteristic of a people who follow the way prescribed by the Creator and Redeemer of the world. We must never give up or compromise the philosophy of life that is our Judeo-Christian heritage.
Grave things are amiss in our culture. Right now they involve unelected judges who, instead of interpreting existing laws as ordained by our Constitution, are rewriting laws and making decisions that are threatening the very core of the American way of life. Under their judicial activism, America is becoming what some are calling a "culture of death." Approximately a million unborn children a year are being sacrificed through abortion to the god of selfish irresponsibility and personal convenience. Doctors are approved to kill partially born and fully formed children, human beings who are unable to defend or speak themselves. Children are being counseled in our public school systems to have sex without accountability. Proponents of same-sex marriage are attempting to redefine the American family as something other than that which comes from the union between a man and a woman. Pornography has been approved as an expression of free speech. And these are only a few examples of the new pathway our nation is following today.
As Christians, we know there is a "way" that leads to salvation. Also, we know this same "way" coincidentally structures a life of freedom, as intended by the same God who saves. This "way" is the narrow road that leads to wholeness and a meaningful life. Since its founding, the American way has followed this way of life. Now, more than in any time in our brief history as a nation, there are some who would take us down another way to death and destruction. If we do not rise up and turn aside from the wider pathway of death, we surely will lose the freedom that has been our heritage. Through Jesus Christ, God has shown us the way to a life of freedom. It will require the sustained efforts of every Christian to keep our nation on this narrow road, which is the American way, our heritage for which countless men and women have given their lives to protect and sustain. We owe them, ourselves, and our children nothing less.
Quotations are taken from On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding (ExpandedEdition), by Michael Novak, (San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002).