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!