Washington's Birthday

Our heroes are human like us, so they have flaws, too. They can still be heroes.


Today is the actual anniversary of the birth of our nation's first President,
   George Washington.

He was born February 22, 1732.

There is a painting at the very top of the rotunda in the U.S. Capitol building.

It is titled, "The Apotheosis of Washington," the making divine of our First President.

Obviously it is a metaphor, and it's on its way to becoming a myth.

Probably not too many people take literally the idea that the First President of the United States has been made into a god,
   but it's not too far from the way Washington has been revered since he exhibited great personal and moral courage
         in becoming a leader of the breakaway British colonies in the late 18th Century.

Every personal and civic virtue has been attributed to him.

All kinds of groups have claimed him as uniquely their own,
   but we Unitarian Universalists have our own claim to his spirituality.

He was, after all, a Deist, not a traditional Christian, in his personal faith.

His church was Anglican, a.k.a. Episcopalian after independence from the mother country was won.

The Church of England became a very open and tolerant church in its infancy.

Its founding in the reign of Henry VIII removed England from the political and religious authority of the Bishop of Rome, the pope,
   and made it one of the Protestant denominations.

When Henry's daughter, Mary, took the throne, she re-established the Roman Catholic Church as the State Church.

When Mary died, her younger sister, Elizabeth, a Protestant, became queen and made her father's Church of England also her own
    and the legally sanctioned faith.

In those times there was no such thing as freedom of religion.

On the continent of Europe, so many wars were fought over which church would be legal
      that a principle was developed, "Cuius regio, eius religio."

That is, "Whoever reigns, his or hers shall be the religion."

The back and forth of Catholic and Protestant in England threatened to tear the fabric of the society to shreds,
     so the Church of England developed a legendary tolerance for a variety of opinions within its fold.

There were Anglo-Catholics who hated the term Protestant
   and Calvinists who were as extreme in their hatred of Rome as anyone.

There were even Deists, including most of our founding fathers.

The Deists subscribe to a watchmaker theory of God.

They believe that God created the universe the way a master craftsman makes a fine watch,
   winding it up and then allowing it to progress as it may according to the rules of operation
      endowed to it by its creator.

Deism was one of the founding principles for many early Unitarian Universalists.

In fact, if any one church today epitomizes the faith of the founders of the United States of America,
     it is the Unitarian Universalist Association.

Our denomination does not even use the word church in its name
       because not all of our congregations are to be considered churches per se.

One of the best books about the renewal of Unitarian Universalism is called "The Almost Church".

The sequel is "The Almost Church Revitalized".

A wide variety of faiths, beliefs and unbeliefs are present in our association of congregations.

There are still plenty of Deists.

There are also Christians like me, and agnostic Christians, also like me.

There are nowadays plenty of agnostics and atheists whose questions inform and deepen
    the spiritual understanding of all of us.

We share in common with today's Anglicans a wide variety of beliefs and unbeliefs.

A story about the relationship of Washington with his own pastor illustrates beautifully
   the truth about his personal beliefs.

It was widely known that Washington did not participate frequently in Holy Communion.

When a considerable time had gone by in which Washington went to church but did not participate in the Sacrament,
    his minister mentioned in a sermon that those in exalted positions needed to set an example
       by taking Holy Communion frequently.

After that Washington stopped attending that particular church.

He very rarely participated in Holy Communion,
    often leaving the church before the Sacrament was administered.

If he had been a devout, traditional Christian as he is so often portrayed these days,
  this would never even have been an issue.

The fact is that he was not.

One could well say that George Washington was a Christian Deist.

He often spoke of Providence, and he clearly believed in a guiding Universal Spirit,
    much like Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Everyone wants to claim him as their own because he is a true national hero,
    but we UU's and the Episcopalians of today have the best claim,
       we UU's because of his personal beliefs
         and the Episcopalians because of his actual church membership.

His life was exemplary in many ways.

His personal and moral courage in leading the army of rebellion in the former colonies
   placed him - and others among the foundiing fathers - in great peril.

His enemies would have loved to have captured him
   and to have made an example of him
      to cause any future rebels
        to think twice.

To this day, in the mother country of England,
  our Revolutionary War is known as the War of Insurrection.

The name of George Washington is hardly revered in England,
      but Benedict Arnold is fondly remembered there.

George Washington was truly a hero for our country, in his own time
     and still in our own.

He was known as the father of his country,
     and in his own time, it was said of him that he was,
         "First in War, First in Peace,
            and First in the Hearts of his Countrymen."

So he is very nearly universally regarded as a hero
     of the United States of America.

At the same time,
  Washington is a fine example of a hero whose human flaws
           were and are also well known.

The best known of his flaws is that he was a slave owner.

The racism that is sadly still so prevalent in our society
  was near to the heart of the nation's founding.

George Washington became a slave owner at the age of 11
  when he inherited 10 slaves upon the death of his father.

He was born into a culture in which slavery was a part of life.

His own views of slavery changed over time.

Washington's treatment of his slaves reflected the custom of the time.

Severe punishment and the threat of being sold away from family and loved ones
    were methods of controlling the enslaved people.

Yet Washington changed his views over time.

He came to hate the institution of slavery,
     and he very much wanted to see it abolished.

This was a very progressive view in the 18th Century!

He was the only one of the slave holding founding fathers
    who made manumission, the freeing of his slaves,
         a stipulation of his will.

He left instructions for all of his slaves to be freed
     upon the death of his wife, Martha Washington.

A part of my own family history intersects the story,
    and I want to share it at this point.

One of my ancestors was born in Virginia, like our first president.

Washington was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia.

My great-great-great grandfather, Benjamin Brown,
     was born in Orange County, Virginia.

Benjamin Brown served as a soldier in the American Revolution.

He received a land grant for his service in Elbert County, Georgia.

His granddaughter, Nancy Brown, was my great-grandmother.

A small part of her story is what I want to share with you today.

Her husband-to-be was my great-grandfather, Daniel Milton Carlton.

Like Washington, he was a slave owner.

When the Civil War began, my great grandfather was a widower
       with four children under the age of five.

He left those young children in the care of his household slaves.

When the high command of the Confederacy heard of it,
   they sent him right back home,
      where he married Nancy Brown, my great-grandmother.

At the age of 16 she took over the running of the household and the plantation
     while her husband went off to fight for the Confederacy.

My point in sharing this part of my family story
    is to say that it's possible for a decent human being
        to live in horrible times
             within a morally repugnant regime

   and still retain at least some significant portion of his or her human decency.

The least I can say about the situation my great-grandfather was in
      at the start of the War Between the States
           is that he left his babies in the care of people he trusted.

Yes, he owned those people.

It was a morally repugnant situation,

but one does not leave one's babies in the care of anyone
   who is not a member of the family in some sense.

Like George Washington, my great-grandfather owned slaves.

We recoil in horror to think of it.

In our strange times there are a few people who are trying to say
     that slavery wasn't really all that bad!

I am certainly not trying to say anything of the kind.

My point is that there were people whom we can admire in other ways
    who were caught up in the horrors of their own time
       and yet who left legacies of great good
             in their own right.

Before we begin to judge and accuse those who came before us,
   we need to stop and think about the things that future generations will think and say about us.

There are many matters we can consider,
   but what comes to my mind first is the issue of climate change.

Future generations may shake their heads that we have spent so many years
   arguing about whether climate change is really happening
       rather than taking steps to mitigate it.

In the face of questions of slavery and race as related to the U.S. Presidency,
     future generations my find it shocking that the first African - American president of the United States
               was treated with the kind of disrespect that he has faced.

They may find it almost as shocking as George Washington would have found the whole concept.

Like all of us, Washington was a child of his own times.

We can recognize that he had flaws as we all do,
    but he can still be one of our heroes.

Maybe the most important thing Washington did for the United States
   was the personal precedent he set
     for the Presidency of the new nation.

There were those who wanted to make him king,
    but he wanted no part of that.

He refused any title such as "Your Majesty" or "Your Highness",
     preferring the simple designation of "Mr. President".

Washington respected and deferred to the balance of powers
   among the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government.

He could easily have served more than two terms as president,
    but he declined to run for a third time.

That precedent of two terms for a President held
   until FDR was elected for four terms.

Thereafter the concept of only two terms for a president,
   as outlined in Washington's Farewell Address to the American People,
        was enshrined by law in the 22nd Amendment to the Consitution of the U.S.A.

There are many examples of the wisdom of George Washington
  that our people would do well to heed today.

He advised against giving power to political parties
    because those parties often work against the needs of the people
        in promoting the interests of a priveleged few.

He was right.

Likewise, he warned of the danger of a political party playing into the hands of a foreign power
    that might try to exert undue influence over the United States.

This certainly comes to mind as the Prime Minister of Israel plans to speak to a Joint Session of Congress
   without consulting the present President of the United States.

Of course, I'm still hoping that Netanyahu will decline the invitation, but we shall see!

Finding the ideas and the precedents set by our first president
   so fitting with today's headlines
        brings me to the level of mythology which George Washinton has reached
             in the popular imagination.

The myth represented by the painting in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol
     implies that our first president has achieved the rank of some sort of divinity.

While he is not worshipped,
   he is certainly revered in our country.

His example is offered by all sides of many debates
       as something to be followed.

His life, with all its flaws, brilliance, courage and example
       gives the rest of us hope of leaving a legacy of meaning
               for our own and future generations.

The idea of the Apotheosis of George Washington,
   like all such myths,
      is meant to call us all
           to the hope of being the best
               and seeking to achieve the most possible
                   for any of us and all of us
                     in our own lives and times in this world.

Amen.

So mote it be.

Blessed be!

Worship Service at Church of the Dawntreader Thursday February 5, 2015 10:00 a.m. SLT
Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
    Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™
    Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
    www.zondervan.com
"New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989,
Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.
Used by permission. All rights reserved." Designated by the initials, (NRSV).

Invocation:
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the Communion of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen
Confession and Absolution
We come before you, our Loving Father, Mother God, confessing most of all our need of you.
We confess that we have not always acknowledged just how much we depend on you.
We confess that we have not always loved you with all our heart, soul and mind.
We have not always loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We ask that you will forgive us and grant us your strength to conform more fully to your loving will for us.
We pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Amen.
In obedience to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is my privilege to declare to you and to myself, the entire
forgiveness of all our sins.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen
Prayer of the Day
Let us pray.
Everlasting God, you give strength to the weak and power to the faint.
Make us agents of your healing and wholeness, that your good news may be made known to the ends of your creation,
through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
Amen
First Lesson: Job 7:1-4, 6-7 (NRSV)
1 "Do not human beings have a hard service on earth,
and are not their days like the days of a laborer?
2 Like a slave who longs for the shadow,
and like laborers who look for their wages,
3 so I am allotted months of emptiness,
and nights of misery are apportioned to me.
4 When I lie down I say, "When shall I rise?'
But the night is long,
and I am full of tossing until dawn.
6 My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle,
and come to their end without hope.
7 "Remember that my life is a breath;
my eye will never again see good.
Here ends the First Lesson

Psalm 147:1-11, 20c (NRSV)  
1 Praise the LORD!
How good it is to sing praises to our God;
for he is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting.
2 The LORD builds up Jerusalem;
he gathers the outcasts of Israel.
3 He heals the brokenhearted,
and binds up their wounds.
4 He determines the number of the stars;
he gives to all of them their names.
5 Great is our Lord, and abundant in power;
his understanding is beyond measure.
6 The LORD lifts up the downtrodden;
he casts the wicked to the ground.
7 Sing to the LORD with thanksgiving;
make melody to our God on the lyre.
8 He covers the heavens with clouds,
prepares rain for the earth,
makes grass grow on the hills.
9 He gives to the animals their food,
and to the young ravens when they cry.
10 His delight is not in the strength of the horse,
nor his pleasure in the speed of a runner;
11 but the LORD takes pleasure in those who fear him,
in those who hope in his steadfast love.
20 Praise the LORD!
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Second Lesson: 1 Corinthians 9:16-23 (NRSV)
16 If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting,
for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel!
17 For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission.
18 What then is my reward? Just this: that in my proclamation I may make the gospel free of charge,
so as not to make full use of my rights in the gospel.
19 For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them.
20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews.
To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law)
so that I might win those under the law.
21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law
(though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law) so that I might win those outside the law.
22 To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak.
I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some.
23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.
Here ends the Second Lesson.

Gospel Lesson: Mark 1:29-39 (NRSV)
29 As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.
30 Now Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once.
31 He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.
32 That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons.
33 And the whole city was gathered around the door.
34 And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons;
and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.
35 In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.
36 And Simon and his companions hunted for him.
37 When they found him, they said to him, "Everyone is searching for you."
38 He answered, "Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also;
for that is what I came out to do."
39 And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.
Here end the Readings from Holy Scripture.

 - Sermon -

Tradition has it that St. Mark wrote his Gospel based on the memoirs of St. Peter.
Of course, St. Mark was much more than a stenographer,
but he likely received a lot of information from eyewitnesses who saw much more of the life of our Lord than he did.
St. Peter is a likely enough candidate to have been St. Mark's informant.
In any case, Mark wrote the first of the four canonical Gospels.
Two of the other three are based on Mark's work:
The Gospels of Matthew and Luke follow Mark's outline
and fill in details that each of them has from their own sources.
In addition, Matthew and Luke have a Source that Mark did not have,
an extensive collection of the teachings of Jesus,
most likely a kind of very early Christian catechism or teaching document.
In our Gospel lesson for this week, Jesus visits Peter's home
and finds that Peter's mother-in-law is very ill with a fever.
When Jesus took her by the hand and raised her up,
she was immediately healed,
and then she was able to serve Jesus and His disciples.
Some people may find it jarring to think of Peter as a married man.
After all, he was surely a leader among the disciples,
and for many years he was the leader of the church in Rome.
One could even call him the first Bishop of Rome, the first Pope.
So sometimes it seems surprising to think of him as married.
Yet the requirement of celibacy in the Roman Catholic Church did not come about for a thousand years
after the times of St. Peter,
so it was likely enough for him to have been married,
and even for some of the other disciples to have had wives and children.
From a simply historical point of view, it is even likely enough that our Lord Jesus Christ was married.
An unmarried rabbi who traveled around the countryside preaching and teaching
would not have had much credibility.
If it were not known that he was or at least had been married,
most of the people of His time would not have paid much attention to Him.
Of course, anything we say on that subject is speculation.
The Bible says little to nothing on the subject of the family lives of the disciples.
The primary concern of their stories
was their relationship to Jesus,
and even when their families are mentioned,
it is generally in connection to something Jesus said or did in relation to their families.
The Bible doesn't even tell us specifically that Peter was married,
but it would be really difficult for him to have a mother-in-law if he were not married!
The story of the healing of his mother-in-law would have been very important to St. Peter,
and so it would have been something he would have been sure to tell St. Mark
to be included in the notes that would make up the Gospel of Mark.
The story about Peter's mother-in-law and her healing by Jesus
is valuable for us too,
because it is a story of our Lord's compassion
in healing a loved one of one of His disciples.
It is a priceless glimpse into the domestic life of St. Peter
and the very positive effect that the presence of Jesus had
on his home and family.
It was not always that way.
Family relationships were sometimes disrupted by the life and teachings of our Lord,
but in this case, we get to see something really good.
Not only was Peter's mother-in-law healed
but she was enabled to serve the One who healed her
and His followers.
In our lives too, when our Lord heals us in body, mind or spirit,
we are enabled to serve Him and each other as a result.
If nothing else, our faith that He is the healer
can have a strong effect on others who need His healing grace.
In and around Capernaum the power of the stories of healing by Jesus had the effect
of bringing more and more people to see Him
and to receive His healing touch for themselves.
Two themes that we see over and over again in the Gospel of Mark
are well represented in our lesson:
First, the effort to keep the secret of Who Jesus really is,
and second, His habit to slip away from the people who wanted and needed Him
in order to take time to pray.
He would not allow the demons to speak because they recognized Him.
He kept the secret of His Messiahship away from His enemies as long as He could,
for His fate was sealed
as soon as they knew He was truly the anointed one, the Christ, the Messiah of God.
This can be hard for us to understand,
but the position of the powerful was deeply threatened by One Whose loving message brought hope and joy
to the people whom the powerful ones wanted to exploit.
How different is that from our own times?
We still see opposition for the truth of the Gospel
from the powerful and wealthy
especially when it brings hope and a sense of self worth
to those who are less fortunate.
We can also identify with our Lord's need to get away for times of prayer and communion with God.
When we rely on God's strength to live lives of love and self giving,
we need times in our lives to recharge our spiritual batteries.
Jesus experienced the same thing.
He would go off by Himself
and receive the sustenance He needed from His Father in Heaven,
and His disciples would find Him.
Together they would go back to the people who needed Him,
and His mercy would be made manifest over and over again,
as it is to this very day.
Now we are the ones who need to have special times - like right now -
in which we draw our spiritual strength - and so our emotional, mental and even physical strength
from the presence of our Lord.
He comes to us and meets us where we are and as we are,
sharing His life and love with us.
Now we can serve Him by taking His life and love with us
wherever we go.
Amen.

Prayer of the People
Please type your spontaneous petitions in chat.
Each prepared petition is intended to remind us of the things we need to pray about,
so a brief pause will be provided for us to pray our own petitions,
either sharing them in the chat window
or praying them in our own hearts.

Loving God, we pray for each other, for those who depend upon us for prayer, and for all people according to their needs.
We ask that your healing power may prevail in our lives.
We pray that those in positions of public trust may be worthy of that trust as they act as stewards of power and wealth
for the benefit of all.
We pray that conflicts may be resolved in the context of relationships,
so that violence of thought word and deed may be diminished all through our world.
We ask your blessing for all who bear witness to the Gospel, so that relationships with you may be deepened for all people.
All these things, and whatever else you see that we need, we ask that you will grant for the sake of your Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ, in Whose name we pray.
Amen.
Our Lord's Prayer
Our Father Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name.
Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the Kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever and ever,
Amen.
Benediction
May the Lord bless us and keep us.
May the Lord make His face to shine upon us and be gracious to us.
May the Lord lift up His countenance upon us, and give us peace.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
Amen +