..."A diverse, spirit-growing, justice-seeking community"   PAST SERMONS "The Covenant of Freedom" January 18, 2004 Martin Luther King, Jr., Sunday Rev. Robert M. Hardies, senior minister READING "Freedom is not given, it is won by struggle... Man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. Man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true. So we are going to stand up here [and let] the world know, we are determined to be free." -- The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "They have rights who dare maintain them." -- Unitarian poet, James Russell Lowell SERMON Dr. King used to like to tell a story. A story about a little girl -- just 5 or 6 years old -- whom he once met at a civil rights march down South. The girl was marching with her mother, holding her mother's hand. It was the first march she'd ever been on. All was going smoothly until suddenly the police broke into the ranks of the marchers and tried to intimidate them and disperse them. One policeman in particular confronted the little girl and her mother, thinking he could frighten them off. When it became clear that his tactics he snarled at them did not intimidate them: "What do you want?!" And the little girl looked up at him and with a five-year old's determination she said, "Fee-dom. Fee-dom." Whenever he'd tell the story, Dr. King would sum it up by saying, "She couldn't even pronounce the word yet, but that little girl knew exactly what she wanted." Sometimes, when King felt like he was losing heart, he'd think of the little girl and her courage would revive his spirits. Fee-dom. And so today, in honor of Dr. King's birthday, in honor of that little girl, and in honor of all who have stood up -- and continue to stand up -- for their rights and the rights of others, today we set our hearts and minds on freedom. We're all used to hearing about freedom in the political arena. Legislators pass laws that either curb or extend liberties. Nations fight wars ostensibly to preserve freedom. People struggle against tyrants and dictators to win their freedom. We're familiar with freedom in this political sense -- and I'm going to get back to politics later in my sermon -- but I want to begin by talking about freedom as a religious category, rather than a political one. I want to speak about the spiritual dimensions of freedom. You see, I believe that our freedom is a gift from God. By that, I mean that it is a right bestowed upon us by our Creator. No one has yet said it better than Jefferson: "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." Before he ever makes his political argument in the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson makes the religious claim that freedom is a gift from God. Jefferson's a unitarian, and he's drawing here on the unitarian belief that all human beings are created in God's image, and that because of our divine provenance, we each possess infinite worth and dignity. It's intrinsic to our human nature. Imbued with this holy potential, freedom is the latitude that our Creator has given us to fulfill that potential. To become most fully who we are supposed to become. As a gift to us from our creator, theoretically, freedom should be ours for the taking. Right there at our fingertips. No questions asked. All aboard the freedom train. But it turns out there's a catch. An irony that was present right from the beginning of human history, an irony that is dramatically illustrated in the life of Jefferson himself who could pen such spiritual truth and yet himself own slaves. The irony is that though freedom may be a gift from God, though it may, indeed, by self-evident, it is not self -perpetuating. Which is to say, freedom doesn't exist just because God says so. It turns out that what our Creator has given us as a gift, is ours to protect and maintain lest we lose it. The paradox of freedom is that though it's a right bestowed by the Creator, it is a right that is enforced by Creation. By us. Freedom, it turns out, only exists when human beings covenant with one another to protect it. This is the covenant of freedom. A covenant is a promise. It's a pact. A pact among people to preserve and maintain something that is of common value to them. It's like our opening hymn this morning. "We would be one," we sang, "in building for tomorrow a nobler world than we have known today." That was a covenant, a pact, that we were singing. The covenant of freedom is one human being's promise to another: I will keep you free. I will protect you against the forces that would take your freedom away. I will ensure your worth and dignity if you'll ensure mine. Remember in his "I Have a Dream Speech" King talked about a promissory note? A debt owed to African Americans that the nation had defaulted on. That's the covenant of freedom he's talking about. It's a promise. The covenant of freedom is one of the fundamental promises that we, the members of the great family of All Souls, make to one another. Now, if you had tried to preach this sermon to me say, 12 or 15 years ago, I would've said to you: "Covenant? Promises? Whatever!" Because back then, frankly, I took my freedom for granted. You see, I grew up in a lily-white suburb in Upstate New York. Where, at least from the shady, tree-lined streets, everyone looked middle-class and happy behind their two story colonial and their attached garage. Growing up, freedom wasn't even a concept we considered outside of social studies class. It was a problem back in history, or a problem for other people. But not for us. Where I grew up, your neighbors didn't even know your name, much less care about meddling in your affairs. I grew up with an unfettered and illimitable sense of freedom. Well imagine my surprise then, when a few years later -- having come out and moved to the state of Oregon -- I found myself in the middle of a campaign by the religious right to restrict gay rights. The referendum would've forbidden any institution that received state funding from mentioning or condoning homosexuality and it would've outlawed sexual orientation as a classification worthy of civil rights protection. Well suddenly, this thing called freedom, which I had treated so cavalierly I barely knew it existed, was at risk. It was the subject of other people's political debates. My civil liberties were going to be put on a ballot for other people to vote on. How could that be, I thought? What do THEY have to do with MY freedom. I'd walk into cafes and I'd hear people discuss my freedom like they would any other political question. Like, you know, "who's gonna win the Iowa caucus!" The scales fell from my eyes. And I realized just how vulnerable and precious my freedom was. I realized that regardless of what Jefferson said. Regardless of whether freedom was my god-given right. In 1994, in the state of Oregon, God wasn't going to protect my freedom. It was all in the hands of the people of the state of Oregon. And that's when it hit home for me that freedom is a covenant: that we are utterly dependent on one other for the liberty that we possess. I'll tell you, it changes your perspective on things. It makes you feel kind of vulnerable when you first realize that your freedom isn't a given. It's not very comforting, really, to know that your liberties are in the hands of a bunch of complete strangers. And that's when you realize how important the covenant of freedom is. And how seriously we must take the responsibility to preserve and protect one another's liberty. I know that many of us have a first hand knowledge of the vulnerability and responsibility of this covenant. Whether you fought for freedom in World War II, or feared for its survival in the McCarthy Era. Whether you struggled for freedom in the Civil Rights movement or the women's movement, or protested against the Patriot Act. Each of us has a different story. But many of us have had a time when the importance of the covenant became real. Friends, I fear for the health of the covenant of freedom in our nation. In the Election of 2000, for the first time in over a century, the guy who got the most votes LOST the election. The US Commission on Civil Rights determined that in the state of Florida -- a state the President won by 500 votes -- minority voters were frequently denied the franchise. Their names were erroneously purged from voter lists. Their polling places were understaffed and ill-equipped. Many of their votes were tossed out long before the recount ever happened. While gerrymandering has a long and deceitful history in American politics, commentators of all stripes agree that what's happened in Texas this year is unprecedented. It makes a mockery of the principle of one man, one vote. Since the war on terror began in the fall of 2001, US citizens have been held as enemy combatants without benefit of trial or lawyer. And over 600 foreign nationals are denied similar rights at Guantanamo Bay. They've been in captivity for 2 years now and they have no rights whatsoever. I was traveling last week when the Transportation Safety Administration announced that it would begin assigning color codes to all travelers in the United States. We'd each be assigned a color, depending on our perceived security threat. Red means you can't get on a plane. Yellow means you're suspicious and get the full search treatment. Green means you can sail on through. In a letter of complaint about the proposal, one person echoed Doctor King's famous remarks, writing: "I want to be judged NOT by the color of my code, but by the content of my carry-on." Energy policy is being written by the oil companies. Health policy by the insurance companies. Tax policy by the rich. And here, in the District of Columbia, our sons and daughters are fighting and dying in a war authorized by a government in which they have no voting representation. I fear for the health of the covenant of freedom in our nation. We, the citizens of this country, have allowed this to happen. We are not taking our democracy seriously. We are shirking the covenant. The Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, which monitors voting rights around the world, reports that out of 131 world democracies, the United States ranks 103rd in voter participation. How can we have what Theodore Parker called for (and which Lincoln borrowed for the Gettysburg Address) -- "a government of ALL the people, by ALL the people and for ALL the people." How can we have that when in the Election of 2000 half of eligible voters didn't cast a ballot. With participation so scant, it is no surprise that the government serves the interests of only a few. We must act in this election year to begin to repair the covenant of freedom. Last October, nearly 150 of us attended a Social Justice Retreat in which we defined the justice priorities of the church. To me, one of the most exciting projects that came out of that retreat was a voter registration and mobilization campaign. A campaign that its leaders have decided to call "All Vote." The group has sponsored education forums and is now getting ready to hit the streets to register and turn out voters in our neighborhood. We've sort of adopted the Columbia Heights Metro station as a place where we're going to do voter reg. And partnering with other groups in the neighborhood and city, we'll reach out from there. There's even talk of a week-long voting rights work-camp in another state. I want to encourage you to participate in this project in some way. To play a role in caring for the covenant of freedom. This is not about partisan politics. This is about getting people involved in our democracy so that we can protect the covenant of freedom. The All Vote group has their next meeting next week after church. I encourage you to attend. And I want to highlight one more activity. Later in the afternoon next Sunday, All Souls and Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church are holding a public action to announce an agreement we've made with the city to get the appropriate agencies to begin enforcing code violations on sub-standard housing in our neighborhood. A decent and affordable place to live is part of the Covenant, too. Councilmember Graham and others will be on hand to hear the head of the DC Regulatory Agency -- the agency charged with code enforcement -- promise to take 4 buildings a month and clean up the code violations. You'd be amazed at the conditions that some people live in this neighborhood. After church today in Pierce Hall, you can learn more about this project. There are lots of opportunities. Find a way to help repair our covenant of freedom. You know, yesterday, while people all over the nation were beginning a weekend of celebration in honor of Dr. King's birthday, the President of the United States appointed to the federal bench Judge Charles Pickering. He made the appointment while Congress was in recess, to avoid the need for Senate confirmation. Judge Pickering's nomination was opposed by virtually every civil rights organization in the country. His record on civil liberties is shabby. The Senate has already rejected his confirmation once. This is the gift that the president chose to give to the nation on the anniversary of Dr. King's birth. I suggest that WE give our nation a gift that IS worthy of Dr. King's legacy. The gift of our renewed commitment to civil liberty. The gift of our participation in the institutions of democracy. Let's help give back to America its Covenant of Freedom. Amen.