Let Justice Roll down Like Waters
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Beth Henricks
July 2, 2023
Good morning, friends. I am speaking to you today because Bob and his family are on a much-needed summer vacation, and we are stepping in to provide the messages during these few weeks. We heard a powerful message from Eric last week and I am grateful he shared some of his personal story as well as encouraging and challenging us in this beautiful tapestry of community.
Our scripture reading this morning is from Galatians 5:13-15 (Message Version)
“It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?”
We are about to celebrate the 4th of July. I am sure we all have great memories of traditions in our childhood that we cherish. Maybe an annual parade in our towns. Or a traditional cookout at a dear relative or friend’s home. My memory growing up was an annual visit to a private lake that a friend had access to for holidays. My dad and brothers would head over there early to fish all morning. My mom would cook all morning and make fried chicken, potato salad, deviled eggs, pickled cucumbers , fresh fruit, and brownies. My mom and I would pack up the car with the food and head to the lake around noon. We had this delicious picnic and then I would get in the boat with my dad to catch some catfish (my brothers were serious fish folks looking for bluegill early in the morning) and sat in lawn chairs and just enjoyed being together. We usually came home in time to head downtown for a magnificent display of fireworks on the Detroit River in the evening. It was always a great day, and the memories are sweet for me now.
We all learned in early grade school the 4th of July is the day we celebrate our independence from England. We know the courage and fortitude these brave men at the time entered into, willing to risk their lives to create this independent country and its great experiment with democracy. So many history books and biographies to read about this period of time. Anyone that has been to a live performance or watched the movie Hamilton experienced a more visceral understanding of the tremendous risk and commitment these founding fathers took to break away from England. While we sometimes in our current culture want to judge these early leaders of our country by today’s standards and mores, we can’t do this to anyone in history. These flawed men were brave, visionary, and inspired to establish a country that would break boundaries and help create a place where anyone could flourish. One of the founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton, was a perfect example of this when you look at his background as a bastard child, growing up as an orphan in the West Indies, having no money and coming to America to be one of our greatest early leaders.
The vision these men put into our Declaration of Independence was astounding and far reaching to a hopeful future. These men could not live up to the vision personally but had the vision of the future and what it could be. This was the world they hoped for even though they could not step away from the culture and context of their time.
We celebrate the establishment of this country this week. It is breathtaking to think about the values this country was founded on. The potential for opportunity regardless of your family history was significant. The idea that we were all created equal and had a right to pursue liberty and a level of contentment and joy was astonishing.
We celebrate these actions and values this Tuesday and remember the sacrifice of so many to move towards these goals. We do have much to celebrate in our history.
It took many years for our country to gradually move towards these idealized values and we are still far from this vision our founding fathers projected. We began our history with slaves and much that was developed in this country became a reality because of free labor. We almost broke ourselves apart because of the slavery and free labor issue during the Civil War. We held together but still deal with the remnants of slavery and live today in a United States where people of color are treated differently in many circumstances (particularly when it comes to institutions) even while many individual folks of color have succeeded in significant ways. This is part of our evolution.
Women had no rights in our early years although the vision for them in our Declaration of Independence was seeing all as equal citizens. This did not happen until the early 1900’s but women’s rights have continued to evolve over the last 100 years. We are not where we want to be, but women have made great strides.
Our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters worked for so many years to be accepted as individuals and many came out of the closet to show America that they are normal, come in all colors and experiences, and should not be feared. It took a long time for them to claim the values of the Declaration of Independence, but this acceptance culminated in the passage of a same sex marriage amendment in 2015.
There are so many examples of how we keep evolving to become a more perfect union. These are signs of a healthy country. We have a great history, but we also have a dark past in many ways and we cannot push this aside and gloss over it in telling our story. During most decades we can identify activities, systemic oppressions, and injustices that surely some folks living during those periods believed as the worst of times and so dark that it could destroy us. And yet over the last 250 years we have been evolving and slowly moving towards the ideals in our constitution. This is another aspect of America that I appreciate. We have known our weaknesses within our souls and part of the grace of this country is that we have traditionally allowed debate, we don’t block out dissent or kill those that disagree with. Part of our greatness is that we have traditionally over time named our mistakes and weaknesses. Our power in our history has been perfected in our weakness and an amazing grace has occurred when this happens. God’s power is always perfected in weakness. The moral arc does point toward justice. My prayer for our country now is that we don’t lose these characteristics that have allowed us to prosper and continue to evolve.
I know it seems like this recognition and naming our complicated history is coming under attack in the last number of months. It seems like the issues we face, and the divisions of our country are imminent based on the hardened positions of all sides, And I know we feel like this is an existential crisis in our time. And climate change will destroy every country in our world if we do not make changes in so many aspects of our lives. Yet we have experienced many life changing “existential challenges” in our history. I interviewed long time member Helen Davenport a few years before she passed away, and she gave me a significant perspective on what our generation born before 1925 can share with us. How many times in our past have we thought “this is the worst time ever in our history”. Some of the examples include the wars during our early years, when we were a fledgling country, could have destroyed us. The civil war could have annihilated us as a country of states. World War I and World War II might have destroyed the world. If we had not embraced our brothers and sisters of color, our LGBTQ+ community, the women and all that are the backbone of our society, we would not keep advancing as the most powerful nation in the world.
I believe with all my being that God is pushing us to make changes in this country that we love. Jesus commanded us to create a kingdom of heaven on earth. I am thankful I was born in the United States and participate actively in trying to create this beloved community.
My son Greg traveled to Medellin Colombia last week for 9 days to visit his wife’s homeland as she had not been there for 4 years to visit her family. Greg fell in love with Colombia during his 9 day stay there. The culture is great, the food is amazing, the scenery is stunning, people are truly friendly and helpful. A sense of extended family is one of the most important values to Colombians. Fernanda’s family embraced Greg with open arms and as a young man with limited family still alive here, Greg’s heart was filled with joy and love. Midway through the trip Greg texted me that he thought he could live in Colombia as his home. He saw this country through fresh new eyes and was so taken with some of the differences between Colombia and the US. As the trip went on, he also became more aware of the opportunities that the US offers those that come within its borders that are not as available in other countries. While the cost of things is very low in pesos in Colombia, the wages are extremely low. As much as Fernanda’s family loves their homeland (and have great pride in it) all of them want to move to the US. They know the opportunities that they could have here to make an even better life for their families. The last day of the trip, Fernanda’s brother told Greg “you do not want to live here but please visit regularly.”
Part of the beauty and struggle of this country is that it has always been a country of immigrants. The beauty is the beautiful tapestry that has been created as Eric shared so wonderfully last week. We are a richer and more diverse country with new voices each generation that help us to continue to evolve and change. But always, the established power will resist this. The US discriminated against Germans, Jews, the Irish and Polish natives early on and did not have a very welcoming heart to these immigrants. And yet even with the discrimination they would face, these immigrants wanted to come to the US and it has been important to our country as they gradually became part of our threads in our tapestry. The same thing is true today. For many immigrants, we do not have open arms to embrace them and yet they still want to be here as they recognize a potential for opportunity for their families.
I appreciate the book by historian Jon Meacham, The Soul of America: the Battle for our Better Angels. He says “extremism, racism, nativism and isolationism, driven by fear of the unknown, tend to spike in periods of economic and social stress- a period like our own…. For many, the fact that we have arrived at a place in the life of a nation, where a grand wizard of the KKK (David Duke) can claim, all too plausibly, that he is at one with the will of the former President of the US seems an unprecedented moment. History, however, shows us that we are frequently vulnerable to fear, bitterness and strife. The good news is that we have come through such darkness before.”
Abraham Lincoln said in his first inaugural address, in 1861, “We are not enemies but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will, by the better angels of our nature.”
This is my prayer today. We must think of ourselves, with all our differences as friends. God calls us to this as we read in Galatians 5 – don’t use your freedom for your personal gain – freedom grows when we serve each other in love.
Before we enter our unprogrammed worship, I want to remind all of us of the words of the Declaration of Independence, our value statement of why we exist as a nation.
In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable 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, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.
We now enter a time of unprogrammed worship where we quiet ourselves and listen for God’s voice.
I am not offering queries today but ask that we all sit in silence thinking about our history and our future and what is our role that God calls us to this future.