DREAMING THE REPUBLIC

A Sermon by
James Ishmael Ford

5 November 2000

It’s Sunday. So, let me make a confession. I’ve mentioned this before, but I don’t think quite as vehemently as I should. Frankly, I am hooked on a television show, NBC’s remarkable "West Wing." When I have to wait until getting home from a meeting to watch the tape, I actually twitch until I’m sure it was recorded all the way through.

I’m serious about this. We don’t even watch it downstairs in the family room. I want to be nestled comfortably sitting in bed, with a throw over my legs, I want a cool drink sitting on the bedside table to my right hand and the remote with its fast forward button to deal with commercials resting near to my left hand.

And all this to see what? Now as I’m sure many here don’t ever watch television, let me describe a bit of what one does see. For me it is an experience of the presidency I voted for in the last two elections. Well, at least the first time. I rather expected what I’d get in that second election. And, let me tell those who haven’t noticed the last eight years, it isn’t the "West Wing" White House.

On "West Wing" we see something of the best that one might hope for in some dream for our republic. Certainly there are failures, most every kind that follow our being human. But on that show it is a dream of a humanistic and broadly liberal presidency in a world that looks rather authentically like the one in which we live. I really like it.

Now, a couple of episodes ago they were winding up what happened after the assassination attempt upon the president that was the, admittedly, rather cheesy cliff-hanger with which they ended the last show of their first season. Many of the principle players were crazed.

The president himself became obsessed with his opponent from his very first election, who was now running for the School Board back home. He ordered secret polls and kept trying to cajole his staff into telling him to interject himself into the election, certain, absolutely certain his old opponent was evil incarnate.

One of my favorite characters the chief speech writer was himself obsessing with how they should for all practical purposes suspend the Bill of Rights and go after the neo-nazis and their ilk who had perpetrated that assassination attempt just because the president’s daughter’s boyfriend was black.

However as the show went forward, slowly reason reasserted itself. Slowly the principle characters each remembered why she or he was there, what it was they were doing serving in the White House. And in the closing scene, or near to it, many of them were sitting in a brisk Washington evening, on the steps of a brownstone, drinking beer and ruminating on what had happened.

In some ways it was a reflection on our common political life. At least that was what I heard. Midterm elections had just been completed, and after the expenditure of many millions of dollars, after much madness and anxiety on the parts of so many in the country, the results were a complete wash. Once again people voted for a divided government. Much like I’ve, we’ve lived with for most of our lives.

Then, at some point near the end, holding up his beer bottle, one of them made a toast. And each of them repeated it. The toast was "God bless America." And I, sitting there drinking my ice water, munching a chocolate chip cookie, found myself tearing up. Tears for a darned television show.

Or, maybe for something more. Maybe there is something more here. Today, the Sunday before our national elections, I want to reflect just a little on what that something more might possibly be. As those among us who have a bit of a historical turn of mind undoubtedly know; there is a deep intimacy between the spirit that birthed this republic of which we are all a part, and the liberal theological spirit that birthed both Unitarianism and Universalism, of which so many of us present also are a part.

We are all children of the Enlightenment, the great flowering of human thought in the west focusing on the eighteenth century. I suggest there were two points that were intuited at that time both among some political thinkers and among some spiritual thinkers that are very important to us today.

The first was that the individual counts. Each of us counts. You and I and all the great crowd; every one of us is important just as we are. And I suggest the most profound symbol for this acknowledgment was the idea of a universal franchise, the vote. Hedged, curtailed, and otherwise limited as it was in almost all democratic and republican models being touted at the time, the bottom line held an astonishing assertion that the individual is precious, is unique, has thoughts that count, and feelings that matter.

Not for a very long time had such a proposition been put forward in the public arena. Now the time was at hand. While few knew this for the fact it was, the time of kings had been shattered. The dream of a divine right to rule held by one, was revealed to be a nightmare. And a new dream, a dream of a republic arose in many minds in that day.

No wonder so many saw these rich and difficult times as holding the promise of scripture. In the "Book of the Acts of the Apostles" we hear it. "And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young shall see visions, and your old shall dream dreams." Well the prophecy was fulfilled, the vision was at hand, and the dream, the dream was a republic.

Here the second knowing of our liberal intuition was also revealed. And that is even as we are precious individuals, we are also bound together, wrapped together, forever joined together. We are bound up, as our contemporary Unitarian Universalist faith so eloquently presents it, within a vast and wondrous web of relationships. So, if this is true, of course, in human affairs, there needs to be democracy, there needs to be a government of the people.

And, we the too proud, the too rich, the too complacent; we are the heirs of that dream. You and I are facing in the next few days the most sacred rite of our national cult, the secular religion dreamed forth from our ancestors, the dream of a republic. With every flaw you can imagine, and has manifested, this is, nonetheless, the dream of something powerful and true and godly.

I hope we will not forget the sacred part of this, even as many of us see ourselves possibly losing this election, at least this national election. As we reflect on the larger picture, that doesn’t matter quite as much as it feels. Knowing the work is corrupted and incomplete, and even facing a significant electoral loss; still, we all continue to be engaged in the grand experiment of a humane and caring world.

I fear most for the cynicism of our times. I believe if anything will destroy the republic, and of course it can be destroyed; it is cynicism that will tear it down. I was driving from one appointment to another the other day listening to a fragment of Terry Gross interviewing Al Franken. I really like Al, I like his humor, I like his approach to things. And, I very much like his commitment to social engagement.

In fact in that interview he was speaking of those who claim there is no difference between Gore and Bush in our current election. Franken observed how they who say this while knowing the issues actually in play, represent that dangerous cynical perspective which can, more than anything else, rip apart the country, and doom the republic.

Today, I want to speak of hope. I want to see the world as it is, both with its failures and corruptions, and with its possibilities shining forth. So today, I want to talk about what is, and what can be within our lived lives. For us, a people who believe in reason and human dignity and the possibility of relationship, what is being debated and voted upon is how best to engage those dreams of what can be. This is true for the conservatives, the liberals, and the radicals among us: all are informed by that same dream of dignity and a better world.

I honestly believe those who disagree with me on the best way to honor human dignity and the beauty of relationship, and the best ways to live gracefully upon this planet, also believe in those ideals. Some who have heard me outside the pulpit railing against, how shall I say this, the other party, might not believe me in this assertion. But I mean it. I think they’re wrong headed, and sometimes even in the pockets of special interests, by which I mean bad special interests as opposed to those I agree with. But I also believe at bottom: they really are trying their best by their best lights to do right for our country.

And we need to remember that. We really need to remember that. Even knowing there is so much to do, and how some in the grand debate really do seem to ignore the most important things. We need to heal the wounds of racism, of homophobia, of all the ways things are stacked against the poor, of the terrible indignities being inflicted upon this planet, and so much more.

And I think in this we are talking of a dream so glorious that it deserves sacred language to describe it. All of us who commit our hearts and hands to the life of this republic, whatever our party affiliation, are giving ourselves to that wondrous dream. Of course it is difficult. Of course it is hard. Indeed, I think we need to remember how there have been times when the cost for sustaining this republic and expanding its vision was actual blood. Here, on the eve of this election where maybe we’re facing setbacks, such perspective can be helpful.

A few years ago Jan and I took a driving vacation on the East Coast. We had a wonderful time. It was, as I said, a driving vacation. We gave New York City and Boston each, two days. The one because it was big, the other because it is, after all, the holy city. However, we only spent a single day in the capital, wandering around the Mall and visiting some of the sights we just happened upon.

One has marked me rather more than any of the others, as powerful as they could be. And it surprised me, because I didn’t really know about it. If I had, I doubt I would have thought much of it, at least in the abstract. We were walking around the Capitol building, making our way to the western side, and there it was.

It is an astonishingly large complex of statues, including a civil war artillery grouping on one side and a cavalry grouping on the other, I later learned the whole thing is 265 feet long, which is nearly as long as a football field. But it is the figure in the middle that caught me. It is an equestrian statue of general Ulysses S. Grant. Now, when reading about it later I found one writer claiming it "is an accurate depiction of General Grant’s composure in the heat of battle…"

But, standing there, gaping in awe that’s not what I saw. True the figure is sitting astride some great war horse. But he is not sitting ramrod straight, he is not holding his sword ready for the charge. He is hunched over. He looks like he’s sitting in a rainstorm, as indeed, he was in this war, a fire storm of rage and terror, a time when dreams were birthing and nightmares were waiting.

Have no doubt, please: the only state’s right that was in debate in the years leading up to this terrible war, was the right to enslave human beings. Remember that when Lincoln was elected, before he was inaugurated, the slave states were already seceding. Whatever one wishes to say about the personal shortcomings of Lincoln, of his own racism, of his many failures of courage, he was elected as an abolitionist and everyone knew it.

And here was Grant. Another failure in so many ways. He failed in business--he even failed as president. He did one great thing. He saved the republic. Grant, failure and alcoholic, heeded a call, took charge of an army and he saved the republic. And there we were, staring up at his statue. Somehow it is important to me that the statue, while very large, it stands a full sixty-five feet high, was not glorious. Rather it showed a very ordinary man, possibly even a man way in over his head. The slouched shoulders implied such within my imagination. I was sure this was true.

Anyway that’s what I saw: a failure slouching atop his great war horse, standing with his back to the capital, protecting it. The capital filled, as we all know with corruption and veniality ever as much as hopes and dreams. Here I witnessed a memorial to this ordinary man, this failure in so many things, who became great in one terrible war, protecting everything our republic holds dear, that we dream as true and good.

I stood there and I wept. A freer crying than with that episode of "West Wing." But, still tears for what we have inherited. This beautiful dream of hope in what we human beings can do when given the chance. And here is the point of this sermon. I plead with everyone here to give up your cynicism. And instead, to dream the dreams, to hope and to act.

Just as it says in the "Book of Kings" the great and the good, the holy, God, is not found in the rushing wind or the terror of an earthquake. The good is found in the still, small voice. It is found in the ordinary. It is found in the likes of General Grant, not president Grant. And it is found in the likes of you and me, who all have fallen short so many times, who’ve failed so many times, and yet who stand up and reach out and try again and again. Here the nobility of the individual and our living community of relationship is revealed. Here we find in our common purpose something powerful about each of us, and all of us together.

Our national election takes place in two days. When you go to vote, remember, please remember, this is the action of our faith. Here we are seeing the value of the ordinary human, and the mysterious web of relationships, the twin truths of our spiritual heritage being given manifestation, the hope being given flesh, the reality of our greater good, once again, showing itself a witness before the nations.

Once again tyrants tremble. Once again the blood of patriots runs through our veins. Once again the good and the possible awaits birth. This is our faith, and it is in our hands.

Truly: God bless America.

Amen.