One Nation, Under God
Sermon
Holidays Are Holy Days
Sermons For Special Sundays
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
These are the words of our Pledge of Allegiance. Probably most of us have recited it hundreds of times. But do we know when and why these words were written -- and when and how they came to be amended? On this Veterans' Day weekend, when our attention often is focused on things patriotic, I'd like to give you a brief history of the Pledge of Allegiance. As you know, it's been the source of controversy lately. Let's think a bit about what the pledge says, and about what it might mean for America to call itself one nation "under God."
Francis Bellamy wrote the Pledge of Allegiance in August of 1892. He wrote it with a specific occasion in mind. Bellamy created the pledge for Massachusetts schoolchildren to use in a flag raising ceremony on the 400th anniversary of Columbus' landing, on Columbus Day, 1892. His original wording was slightly different. Most significantly, Bellamy did not mention God.
The Pledge of Allegiance was amended to read "one nation, under God" by an act of Congress, in 1954, during the Cold War, the Red Scare, and the McCarthy era. Many Americans felt we needed a litmus test to distinguish ourselves from the Soviet Union, which was officially atheistic at the time. The Knights of Columbus led a nationwide campaign to add the words "under God" to the pledge. President Eisenhower signed the legislation after he heard a Presbyterian preacher, The Rev. George Dochety, proclaim that little children in Moscow could easily recite a similar pledge to their hammer-and-sickle flag. About the same time, "In God We Trust" was stamped on all our coins.
Francis Bellamy would likely have objected to the addition. Bellamy, a Baptist minister, had definite Socialist leanings. He had been pressured out of his Boston church for preaching Socialist sermons. Bellamy retired to Florida and eventually stopped attending church altogether because he was offended by the racism he found in Southern churches. His granddaughter said Bellamy would have resented adding "under God" to the pledge. He was interested in bringing people together, said his granddaughter, not dividing them over issues of class, religion, or race.
But most Americans want to keep one nation "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. This was clear when a San Francisco appeals court recently ruled the phrase was unconstitutional if used in public schools. According to the ruling, references to God in public schools violate the separation of church and state.
Some folks did not take the issue seriously. A comedian, for example, suggested the pledge would be more accurate if it said, "one nation, under Canada." Another proposed selling commercial space in the Pledge of Allegiance to the highest corporate bidder: "one nation, under Wal-Mart" or "one nation, but 24,000 Starbucks."
The majority of Americans were not amused. According to a Newsweek poll, 87 percent of Americans are in favor of keeping the Pledge as it is. Only nine percent would remove the words "under God" from it. The Senate immediately passed an angry resolution, 99 to 0, condemning the appeals court decision. The issue still remains and may eventually be resolved by the Supreme Court.
For now at least, the Pledge of Allegiance proclaims we are one nation "under God." But what might that mean? Is it just an empty phrase? Is saying it, as some contend, simply reflexive, like saying "God bless you" when somebody sneezes -- a customary saying devoid of real religious meaning? Or should it mean something for Americans to insist on calling ourselves one nation "under God"?
Perhaps there's guidance in the Hebrew Scripture passage assigned for this Sunday. A pledge of allegiance is also found in Joshua, chapter 24. Here's the setting: near the end of his life, the aged Joshua calls the people of Israel together at the hill sanctuary at Shechem. He reminds them of the many ways God has acted to save them. Then Joshua challenges the people to choose. Will they publicly pledge allegiance to God? Or will Israel chose to serve other gods?
The people glibly offer God their allegiance: "Um, okay, sure, Joshua, we will serve the Lord, for he is our God. Why not?" Joshua isn't satisfied. He presses them harder. Their promise came too easily, and he won't accept it. Joshua wants Israel to understand how serious this decision is.
He reminds them God is a holy God and a jealous God who won't take second place to anyone. He reminds them God is righteous and judges our sins. A second time the people pledge their allegiance to God. Joshua challenges them again. "You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord, to serve him." "We are witnesses against ourselves," the people proclaim (v. 22 NRSV). Joshua demands they back their pledge up with action: "Then put away your foreign gods and incline your hearts to God."
Three times the people pledge their allegiance to God. Three times Joshua challenges them. One thing I get from Joshua 24 is that it's no empty exercise to proclaim yourselves a nation under God. Pledging allegiance to God is serious business. The exchange in this passage reminds me how serious it is.
God didn't choose the ancient Israelites because they were somehow better than other people were. God didn't owe them a thing. All of God's blessings came to Israel as gifts. Couldn't we say the same thing about God's many blessings poured on the United States?
Americans have sometimes thought of ourselves as God's "chosen nation." The Plymouth colonists believed they were the New Israel entering the new promised land. The Puritans proclaimed Boston "a city set on a hill," a "beacon" to all nations. If I remember correctly, that's where the name "Beacon Street" came from. Later generations proclaimed it our "manifest destiny," God's plan that the United States should expand all the way to the Pacific. In the Civil War, both Northern and Southern soldiers were utterly convinced they were doing God's will. In fact they often held mass prayer rallies before going to battle to kill each other. Fifty years later doughboys marched off to the First World War proclaiming "God is on our side."
Does God love America? I'd have to say, "Of course." Has God blessed America richly? We'd all agree to that. But does God love America more than all other nations? Is the United States somehow God's chosen people? Are we one nation "under God" because God likes us best?
What do you think? Personally I find an answer to those questions in the words to the hymn, "This Is My Song":
This is my song, O God of all the nations,
a song of peace for lands afar, and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine....
My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,
and sunlight streams on cloverleaf and pine;
but other lands have sunlight, too, and clover,
and skies are everywhere as blue as mine....
-- Lloyd Stone, 1934
This hymn is refreshingly honest and balanced. On the one hand, it celebrates the legitimate love for America that most of us feel. On the other hand it reminds us that other people in other lands have similar feelings for their country. And that other lands are also blessed by God, and God's beloved. The God we worship is the God of all nations, and the God above all nations. All nations are "under God," and not just ours.
If we Americans have been chosen for anything, might it be for extra responsibility? At the moment we are the world's only Superpower. We still possess enough weapons of mass destruction to wipe out life on this planet. We are just 6.3 percent of the world's population, but control fifty percent of its wealth. I've read we have a bigger monopoly on the world's grain than the Arabs have on oil. We could do a lot to rid the world of hunger. American pop culture has swept around the world. Our multinational corporations have a hand in almost every land. Each of us has an impact on the environment equal to fifteen residents of India.
What would it mean for us really to live as one nation "under God"? In one nation under God, would millions of children go hungry? In one nation under God, would the gap between rich and poor continue to grow? In one nation under God, would toxic waste be dumped on land and sea, extinguishing thousands of species? In one nation under God, would racial injustice continue?
Challenging questions: but the passage from Joshua is a challenging passage. Joshua would not accept a cheap or easy pledge of allegiance. He insisted the Israelites really think about what they were saying. He didn't want them to say, "God is on our side." Rather, he wanted their humble affirmation that, to the best of their ability, as a people, they would try to side with God -- two different things.
Abraham Lincoln was not only, to my mind, America's greatest president, but also one of America's great theologians. During the Civil War, Lincoln thought long and hard about what it meant to be one nation "under God." In fact, he used a similar phrase in his Gettysburg Address.
At one point during the Civil War, Lincoln called for a national Day of Prayer and Fasting, rather like Joshua called the people together to recommit themselves to God at Shechem. Like Joshua, Lincoln first recounted God's goodness to the nation. Then he challenged America to live with a renewed faith. This is what Lincoln wrote:
We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in number, wealth and power as no other nation ever has grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand that preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these things were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace ... Those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.
Those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord. Let me suggest on this day before Veteran's Day that every time we say the Pledge of Allegiance, we renew our commitment to live as "one nation, under God." We don't say "God is on our side," but rather, "We will strive to be on God's side," until that great day comes when there is "liberty and justice for all."
Veteran's Day
The Greatest Generation
Matthew 11:16-19
"(They) came of age in the Great Depression, when economic despair hovered over the land like a plague ... They answered the call to help save the world from the two most powerful and ruthless military machines ever assembled ... They faced great odds and a late start, but they did not protest."1 So wrote NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw in his bestseller, The Greatest Generation. He was describing the American men and women who helped win the Second World War.
A series of anniversaries, like the sixtieth anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, plus popular movies, like Saving Private Ryan, have focused renewed attention to the struggles and sacrifices of "The Builders." Tom Brokaw calls them "The Builders" because they not only won the war, but also built a strong economy, and helped rebuild Western Europe and Japan. They are -- many of you are -- a truly great generation. America is grateful to you. You gave us the prosperous, free country we enjoy today.
On this Sunday before Veteran's Day, let us think a bit on what might make for greatness in any generation. For our nation continues to face challenges today. The threats may not be as clear as World War Two. But there remain nagging uncertainties about terrorism. Plus the challenges of poverty, homelessness, violence, and environmental degradation that have plagued us for decades. In 1936, Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, "This generation has a rendezvous with destiny." That was true just before the Second World War. It is equally true today. In each generation America has a "rendezvous with destiny." We might do well to explore what it might take to make us great today.
It seems to me, firstly, that greatness is connected to vision. Let's consider another "Great Generation," the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Those men -- John and Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, and Thomas Jefferson among them -- envisioned a new creation among the world's nations, where all men were created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.
Admittedly, the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were originally extended only to white, male, property owners. Women and people of color were excluded. It took decades to start to right those wrongs. Still, the signers of the Declaration of Independence had big dreams for America. Their vision for America helped make it great.
What we dream for this country in 2004 is also important. "Where there is no dream, the people perish," Proverbs warns (29:18, KJV). Will we keep dreaming "Patriot dreams" (as in "O beautiful for Patriot dream that sees beyond the years") for Amer-ica? One dream we need to dream -- and work for -- is housing for all.
Katharine Lee Bates, author of "America The Beautiful" wrote, "Thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears," after her 1904 tour of America's cities. I wonder what Bates would say if she were to visit America's cities today. Few of our present cities are either "alabaster" or "gleaming." Most, including small cities, are "dimmed" by the tears and fears of homeless men and women.
Can we envision an America where everyone has adequate food, clothing, and shelter? Can we commit ourselves to working on that problem until it starts to get solved? As Franklin D. Roosevelt put it, "The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those have too little."
Another dream we need to dream in 2004 is the dream of a clean environment. Katharine Lee Bates wrote of "spacious skies" and "amber waves of grain ... purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain." That was about 100 years ago. Our skies don't seem quite as "spacious" anymore, when three out of ten Americans breath polluted air, and our plains aren't quite as "fruited" anymore, as farmland is lost at a rate of two million acres a year.
God entrusted us with gift of this magnificent country, "from sea to shining sea." I know sometimes we act like we've forgotten how precious it is. Can we dream of, and work for, a renewed reverence for our environment? It seems to me greatness is tied to vision. Can we envision an America where human needs are met, while the environment is respected?
I think another aspect of greatness is a sense of accountability. Most members of my parents' generation are really good about this. Over and over in Brokaw's book he tells the story of men and women rising up to take responsibility: on the battlefield, on the home front, in business, in their communities, and in raising their children.
Dwight Eisenhower might be a good illustration of accountability in this generation. You perhaps remember the statement Ike made just before D-Day, when the success of the Normandy landings was very much in doubt. As Supreme Allied Commander he wrote, for publication, should the attack fail, "The troops, the Army and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty possibly could. If any blame or fault is attached to this attempt, it is mine alone." What a great statement -- greatness tied to a sense of personal accountability! Couldn't we use more accountability like Ike's in America today?
Don't recent corporate scandals seem to call for more responsibility and accountability from some executives and accountants? For example, the accounting firm Arthur Anderson was convicted of obstruction of justice in the Enron scandal. Officials at WorldCom acknowledged that they had hidden 3.8 billion dollars in expenses. Xerox admitted to overstating profits by six billion dollars. Tens of thousands of shareholders and employees got hurt. As President George Bush put it, "Corporate America has got to understand there's a higher calling than trying to fudge the numbers."
We are accountable to each other. One commentator has suggested that we don't just need a Declaration of Independence but also a Declaration of Dependence: the acknowledgment of how much we all depend on each other. We depend on each other to deal honestly and act responsibly for our nation's well-being. We depend on each other to tell the truth, even if, sometimes, the truth hurts. A sense of accountability could well be another aspect of greatness, and another characteristic we need to foster in the United States.
Another critical characteristic of national greatness is the acknowledgment that we depend not only on each other, but also, and ultimately, on God. We do this in our country by putting "God has favored our undertakings" in Latin and "In God we trust" in English on our currency and coins. Another acknowledgment of our dependence on God has been in our Pledge of Allegiance, where we declare ourselves to be "one nation under God." This is so widely accepted the earlier District Court ruling came as a shock: the ruling that ordered the removal of "under God." The outcry was so loud around the country that action on that ruling is still being debated.
Our dependence on God has been acknowledged since the early years of our country. Thomas Jefferson was probably the least conventionally religious president that America has ever had. It was Jefferson who rewrote the New Testament. He removed all miracles and all references to the supernatural from it, including Jesus' resurrection.
Even Jefferson strongly acknowledged America's dependence on God. One Sunday morning, during Jefferson's presidency, a friend stopped Jefferson when the president, carrying his prayer book, was on his way to church services. He was going, by the way, to worship on Capitol Hill. I was surprised to learn that regular Sunday services were held in the Capitol, the Treasury Building, the War Department building, and Supreme Court for many years. In fact, the first woman ever officially to speak in the Capitol was a woman preacher who delivered a Sunday sermon there.
Jefferson was on his way to worship at the Capitol when a friend stopped him. "Why are you going to worship?" his friend asked. "You don't believe all the things the preacher says?" Jefferson responded, "No nation has ever yet existed or been governed without religion. Nor can it be." He went on to explain that, as Chief Executive, he was obligated to give religion its proper place.
From our founding, America has been "one nation under God." We will continue to be "under God," whether the Pledge of Allegiance ends up saying so or not. I hope it still will. Nevertheless, our nation, and all nations, rely on God's providence and stand under God's judgment. Abraham Lincoln's warning, written in 1863, is still pertinent today. Lincoln wrote, in the midst of the Civil War:
We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation ever has grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand that preserves us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; as we have vainly imagined ... that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace; too proud to pray to the God who made us.
May that not be so for us. Rather may we acknowledge, now and always, our dependence on God.
I read somewhere that Tom Brokaw ran into a young fireman at Ground Zero in New York City after September 11. The fireman was part of the rescue efforts after the collapse of the Twin Towers. In a clear reference to Brokaw's book, the young fireman said something like, "Just watch us now, Mr. Brokaw, and see if this generation has what it takes for greatness." To me, greatness includes concern for the least among us, respect for the land God has entrusted to us, accountability to each other, and acknowledgment of our dependence on God. In the scripture lesson I read this morning, Jesus asks, "... to what will I compare this generation?" We might all compare ourselves to those standards and see if, in our time, as Jesus puts it, "... wisdom is vindicated by her deeds" (Matthew 11:16a, 19b NRSV).
____________
1.aTom Brokaw, The Greatest Generation (New York: Randon House, 1998), p. xix.
These are the words of our Pledge of Allegiance. Probably most of us have recited it hundreds of times. But do we know when and why these words were written -- and when and how they came to be amended? On this Veterans' Day weekend, when our attention often is focused on things patriotic, I'd like to give you a brief history of the Pledge of Allegiance. As you know, it's been the source of controversy lately. Let's think a bit about what the pledge says, and about what it might mean for America to call itself one nation "under God."
Francis Bellamy wrote the Pledge of Allegiance in August of 1892. He wrote it with a specific occasion in mind. Bellamy created the pledge for Massachusetts schoolchildren to use in a flag raising ceremony on the 400th anniversary of Columbus' landing, on Columbus Day, 1892. His original wording was slightly different. Most significantly, Bellamy did not mention God.
The Pledge of Allegiance was amended to read "one nation, under God" by an act of Congress, in 1954, during the Cold War, the Red Scare, and the McCarthy era. Many Americans felt we needed a litmus test to distinguish ourselves from the Soviet Union, which was officially atheistic at the time. The Knights of Columbus led a nationwide campaign to add the words "under God" to the pledge. President Eisenhower signed the legislation after he heard a Presbyterian preacher, The Rev. George Dochety, proclaim that little children in Moscow could easily recite a similar pledge to their hammer-and-sickle flag. About the same time, "In God We Trust" was stamped on all our coins.
Francis Bellamy would likely have objected to the addition. Bellamy, a Baptist minister, had definite Socialist leanings. He had been pressured out of his Boston church for preaching Socialist sermons. Bellamy retired to Florida and eventually stopped attending church altogether because he was offended by the racism he found in Southern churches. His granddaughter said Bellamy would have resented adding "under God" to the pledge. He was interested in bringing people together, said his granddaughter, not dividing them over issues of class, religion, or race.
But most Americans want to keep one nation "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. This was clear when a San Francisco appeals court recently ruled the phrase was unconstitutional if used in public schools. According to the ruling, references to God in public schools violate the separation of church and state.
Some folks did not take the issue seriously. A comedian, for example, suggested the pledge would be more accurate if it said, "one nation, under Canada." Another proposed selling commercial space in the Pledge of Allegiance to the highest corporate bidder: "one nation, under Wal-Mart" or "one nation, but 24,000 Starbucks."
The majority of Americans were not amused. According to a Newsweek poll, 87 percent of Americans are in favor of keeping the Pledge as it is. Only nine percent would remove the words "under God" from it. The Senate immediately passed an angry resolution, 99 to 0, condemning the appeals court decision. The issue still remains and may eventually be resolved by the Supreme Court.
For now at least, the Pledge of Allegiance proclaims we are one nation "under God." But what might that mean? Is it just an empty phrase? Is saying it, as some contend, simply reflexive, like saying "God bless you" when somebody sneezes -- a customary saying devoid of real religious meaning? Or should it mean something for Americans to insist on calling ourselves one nation "under God"?
Perhaps there's guidance in the Hebrew Scripture passage assigned for this Sunday. A pledge of allegiance is also found in Joshua, chapter 24. Here's the setting: near the end of his life, the aged Joshua calls the people of Israel together at the hill sanctuary at Shechem. He reminds them of the many ways God has acted to save them. Then Joshua challenges the people to choose. Will they publicly pledge allegiance to God? Or will Israel chose to serve other gods?
The people glibly offer God their allegiance: "Um, okay, sure, Joshua, we will serve the Lord, for he is our God. Why not?" Joshua isn't satisfied. He presses them harder. Their promise came too easily, and he won't accept it. Joshua wants Israel to understand how serious this decision is.
He reminds them God is a holy God and a jealous God who won't take second place to anyone. He reminds them God is righteous and judges our sins. A second time the people pledge their allegiance to God. Joshua challenges them again. "You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord, to serve him." "We are witnesses against ourselves," the people proclaim (v. 22 NRSV). Joshua demands they back their pledge up with action: "Then put away your foreign gods and incline your hearts to God."
Three times the people pledge their allegiance to God. Three times Joshua challenges them. One thing I get from Joshua 24 is that it's no empty exercise to proclaim yourselves a nation under God. Pledging allegiance to God is serious business. The exchange in this passage reminds me how serious it is.
God didn't choose the ancient Israelites because they were somehow better than other people were. God didn't owe them a thing. All of God's blessings came to Israel as gifts. Couldn't we say the same thing about God's many blessings poured on the United States?
Americans have sometimes thought of ourselves as God's "chosen nation." The Plymouth colonists believed they were the New Israel entering the new promised land. The Puritans proclaimed Boston "a city set on a hill," a "beacon" to all nations. If I remember correctly, that's where the name "Beacon Street" came from. Later generations proclaimed it our "manifest destiny," God's plan that the United States should expand all the way to the Pacific. In the Civil War, both Northern and Southern soldiers were utterly convinced they were doing God's will. In fact they often held mass prayer rallies before going to battle to kill each other. Fifty years later doughboys marched off to the First World War proclaiming "God is on our side."
Does God love America? I'd have to say, "Of course." Has God blessed America richly? We'd all agree to that. But does God love America more than all other nations? Is the United States somehow God's chosen people? Are we one nation "under God" because God likes us best?
What do you think? Personally I find an answer to those questions in the words to the hymn, "This Is My Song":
This is my song, O God of all the nations,
a song of peace for lands afar, and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine....
My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,
and sunlight streams on cloverleaf and pine;
but other lands have sunlight, too, and clover,
and skies are everywhere as blue as mine....
-- Lloyd Stone, 1934
This hymn is refreshingly honest and balanced. On the one hand, it celebrates the legitimate love for America that most of us feel. On the other hand it reminds us that other people in other lands have similar feelings for their country. And that other lands are also blessed by God, and God's beloved. The God we worship is the God of all nations, and the God above all nations. All nations are "under God," and not just ours.
If we Americans have been chosen for anything, might it be for extra responsibility? At the moment we are the world's only Superpower. We still possess enough weapons of mass destruction to wipe out life on this planet. We are just 6.3 percent of the world's population, but control fifty percent of its wealth. I've read we have a bigger monopoly on the world's grain than the Arabs have on oil. We could do a lot to rid the world of hunger. American pop culture has swept around the world. Our multinational corporations have a hand in almost every land. Each of us has an impact on the environment equal to fifteen residents of India.
What would it mean for us really to live as one nation "under God"? In one nation under God, would millions of children go hungry? In one nation under God, would the gap between rich and poor continue to grow? In one nation under God, would toxic waste be dumped on land and sea, extinguishing thousands of species? In one nation under God, would racial injustice continue?
Challenging questions: but the passage from Joshua is a challenging passage. Joshua would not accept a cheap or easy pledge of allegiance. He insisted the Israelites really think about what they were saying. He didn't want them to say, "God is on our side." Rather, he wanted their humble affirmation that, to the best of their ability, as a people, they would try to side with God -- two different things.
Abraham Lincoln was not only, to my mind, America's greatest president, but also one of America's great theologians. During the Civil War, Lincoln thought long and hard about what it meant to be one nation "under God." In fact, he used a similar phrase in his Gettysburg Address.
At one point during the Civil War, Lincoln called for a national Day of Prayer and Fasting, rather like Joshua called the people together to recommit themselves to God at Shechem. Like Joshua, Lincoln first recounted God's goodness to the nation. Then he challenged America to live with a renewed faith. This is what Lincoln wrote:
We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in number, wealth and power as no other nation ever has grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand that preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these things were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace ... Those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.
Those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord. Let me suggest on this day before Veteran's Day that every time we say the Pledge of Allegiance, we renew our commitment to live as "one nation, under God." We don't say "God is on our side," but rather, "We will strive to be on God's side," until that great day comes when there is "liberty and justice for all."
Veteran's Day
The Greatest Generation
Matthew 11:16-19
"(They) came of age in the Great Depression, when economic despair hovered over the land like a plague ... They answered the call to help save the world from the two most powerful and ruthless military machines ever assembled ... They faced great odds and a late start, but they did not protest."1 So wrote NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw in his bestseller, The Greatest Generation. He was describing the American men and women who helped win the Second World War.
A series of anniversaries, like the sixtieth anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, plus popular movies, like Saving Private Ryan, have focused renewed attention to the struggles and sacrifices of "The Builders." Tom Brokaw calls them "The Builders" because they not only won the war, but also built a strong economy, and helped rebuild Western Europe and Japan. They are -- many of you are -- a truly great generation. America is grateful to you. You gave us the prosperous, free country we enjoy today.
On this Sunday before Veteran's Day, let us think a bit on what might make for greatness in any generation. For our nation continues to face challenges today. The threats may not be as clear as World War Two. But there remain nagging uncertainties about terrorism. Plus the challenges of poverty, homelessness, violence, and environmental degradation that have plagued us for decades. In 1936, Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, "This generation has a rendezvous with destiny." That was true just before the Second World War. It is equally true today. In each generation America has a "rendezvous with destiny." We might do well to explore what it might take to make us great today.
It seems to me, firstly, that greatness is connected to vision. Let's consider another "Great Generation," the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Those men -- John and Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, and Thomas Jefferson among them -- envisioned a new creation among the world's nations, where all men were created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.
Admittedly, the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were originally extended only to white, male, property owners. Women and people of color were excluded. It took decades to start to right those wrongs. Still, the signers of the Declaration of Independence had big dreams for America. Their vision for America helped make it great.
What we dream for this country in 2004 is also important. "Where there is no dream, the people perish," Proverbs warns (29:18, KJV). Will we keep dreaming "Patriot dreams" (as in "O beautiful for Patriot dream that sees beyond the years") for Amer-ica? One dream we need to dream -- and work for -- is housing for all.
Katharine Lee Bates, author of "America The Beautiful" wrote, "Thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears," after her 1904 tour of America's cities. I wonder what Bates would say if she were to visit America's cities today. Few of our present cities are either "alabaster" or "gleaming." Most, including small cities, are "dimmed" by the tears and fears of homeless men and women.
Can we envision an America where everyone has adequate food, clothing, and shelter? Can we commit ourselves to working on that problem until it starts to get solved? As Franklin D. Roosevelt put it, "The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those have too little."
Another dream we need to dream in 2004 is the dream of a clean environment. Katharine Lee Bates wrote of "spacious skies" and "amber waves of grain ... purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain." That was about 100 years ago. Our skies don't seem quite as "spacious" anymore, when three out of ten Americans breath polluted air, and our plains aren't quite as "fruited" anymore, as farmland is lost at a rate of two million acres a year.
God entrusted us with gift of this magnificent country, "from sea to shining sea." I know sometimes we act like we've forgotten how precious it is. Can we dream of, and work for, a renewed reverence for our environment? It seems to me greatness is tied to vision. Can we envision an America where human needs are met, while the environment is respected?
I think another aspect of greatness is a sense of accountability. Most members of my parents' generation are really good about this. Over and over in Brokaw's book he tells the story of men and women rising up to take responsibility: on the battlefield, on the home front, in business, in their communities, and in raising their children.
Dwight Eisenhower might be a good illustration of accountability in this generation. You perhaps remember the statement Ike made just before D-Day, when the success of the Normandy landings was very much in doubt. As Supreme Allied Commander he wrote, for publication, should the attack fail, "The troops, the Army and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty possibly could. If any blame or fault is attached to this attempt, it is mine alone." What a great statement -- greatness tied to a sense of personal accountability! Couldn't we use more accountability like Ike's in America today?
Don't recent corporate scandals seem to call for more responsibility and accountability from some executives and accountants? For example, the accounting firm Arthur Anderson was convicted of obstruction of justice in the Enron scandal. Officials at WorldCom acknowledged that they had hidden 3.8 billion dollars in expenses. Xerox admitted to overstating profits by six billion dollars. Tens of thousands of shareholders and employees got hurt. As President George Bush put it, "Corporate America has got to understand there's a higher calling than trying to fudge the numbers."
We are accountable to each other. One commentator has suggested that we don't just need a Declaration of Independence but also a Declaration of Dependence: the acknowledgment of how much we all depend on each other. We depend on each other to deal honestly and act responsibly for our nation's well-being. We depend on each other to tell the truth, even if, sometimes, the truth hurts. A sense of accountability could well be another aspect of greatness, and another characteristic we need to foster in the United States.
Another critical characteristic of national greatness is the acknowledgment that we depend not only on each other, but also, and ultimately, on God. We do this in our country by putting "God has favored our undertakings" in Latin and "In God we trust" in English on our currency and coins. Another acknowledgment of our dependence on God has been in our Pledge of Allegiance, where we declare ourselves to be "one nation under God." This is so widely accepted the earlier District Court ruling came as a shock: the ruling that ordered the removal of "under God." The outcry was so loud around the country that action on that ruling is still being debated.
Our dependence on God has been acknowledged since the early years of our country. Thomas Jefferson was probably the least conventionally religious president that America has ever had. It was Jefferson who rewrote the New Testament. He removed all miracles and all references to the supernatural from it, including Jesus' resurrection.
Even Jefferson strongly acknowledged America's dependence on God. One Sunday morning, during Jefferson's presidency, a friend stopped Jefferson when the president, carrying his prayer book, was on his way to church services. He was going, by the way, to worship on Capitol Hill. I was surprised to learn that regular Sunday services were held in the Capitol, the Treasury Building, the War Department building, and Supreme Court for many years. In fact, the first woman ever officially to speak in the Capitol was a woman preacher who delivered a Sunday sermon there.
Jefferson was on his way to worship at the Capitol when a friend stopped him. "Why are you going to worship?" his friend asked. "You don't believe all the things the preacher says?" Jefferson responded, "No nation has ever yet existed or been governed without religion. Nor can it be." He went on to explain that, as Chief Executive, he was obligated to give religion its proper place.
From our founding, America has been "one nation under God." We will continue to be "under God," whether the Pledge of Allegiance ends up saying so or not. I hope it still will. Nevertheless, our nation, and all nations, rely on God's providence and stand under God's judgment. Abraham Lincoln's warning, written in 1863, is still pertinent today. Lincoln wrote, in the midst of the Civil War:
We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation ever has grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand that preserves us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; as we have vainly imagined ... that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace; too proud to pray to the God who made us.
May that not be so for us. Rather may we acknowledge, now and always, our dependence on God.
I read somewhere that Tom Brokaw ran into a young fireman at Ground Zero in New York City after September 11. The fireman was part of the rescue efforts after the collapse of the Twin Towers. In a clear reference to Brokaw's book, the young fireman said something like, "Just watch us now, Mr. Brokaw, and see if this generation has what it takes for greatness." To me, greatness includes concern for the least among us, respect for the land God has entrusted to us, accountability to each other, and acknowledgment of our dependence on God. In the scripture lesson I read this morning, Jesus asks, "... to what will I compare this generation?" We might all compare ourselves to those standards and see if, in our time, as Jesus puts it, "... wisdom is vindicated by her deeds" (Matthew 11:16a, 19b NRSV).
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1.aTom Brokaw, The Greatest Generation (New York: Randon House, 1998), p. xix.
