Revisioning Freedom

Acts 16:16-34; John 17:20-26

May 25, 2008, Memorial Day

In the chapel of Belmont Abbey College, a Roman Catholic School in North Carolina, there is a curious baptismal font. The font is hollowed out of a huge piece of granite. Mounted on the rock is a sign that reads, “On this rock, slaves were once traded. From this rock, people are now baptized and set free in Christ.”

What a powerful piece of revisioning that is. It is a metaphor for us today as we pause on this Memorial Day weekend to think about those who died in the service of our nation and the freedom we so often say they died for. Both Paul and Jesus have much to say to us as we reflect on the idea of freedom which we as a nation, and as individual members of that nation, cherish so much.

In Acts, Paul and Silas are placed in an inner prison in foot stocks. We’re talking maximum security here. They are placed in this prison for taking away the livelihood of some exploitative capitalists. Then, according to the story, an earthquake causes the doors of the prison to break open and the imprisonment of the jailer is revealed. Suddenly we have to revise our thinking as to who is imprisoned and who is not. Paul and Silas are having a regular revival, and the jailer is ready to commit suicide.

Who is really free? The jailer is more tied to the jail than Paul and Silas. He is the one who will have to give up his life if the prisoners escape. As human beings, we bind ourselves to jobs, and systems, and status quos. We pay dearly in time, talent, worry, energy, and sometimes we even pay with our lives to maintain our prisons. Yet, at the very same time we believe that we are maintaining our freedom. Our jails are maintained by keeping distinctions: I/you, us/them, slave/free, male/female, veteran/non-veteran, and prisoner/jailer.

When we create distinctions we imprison ourselves to maintaining those distinctions. Think about it, how was the jailer freed from his prison? He found freedom when he broke the distinction between himself and the prisoners; when he saw that Paul and Silas had something to offer him.

We talk so proudly of the freedom that we have obtained and maintained at such a high cost over the years. Could it not be possible that we have become imprisoned to a particular concept of freedom? We have the freedom to be. We have the freedom to have. We have the freedom to protect. We have the freedom to bear arms. And we will do whatever it takes to protect those freedoms even if it means we will close our borders because others are taking the jobs that we need to purchase our freedoms. We will protect our freedoms even if it means that we will have to form armed militias that operate independently from any governing agency. We will protect our freedom even if it means we will have to go to war and kill in order to protect our national interests, such as enough oil to feed our thirsty SUV’s.

Have we become imprisoned to our own American version of freedom? Perhaps it is time for us, for our own good, to do a revision of what freedom really means.

We have to begin by understanding that prison doors are human constructions; just as someone has to make the steel and concrete ones we use as real jails. Someone or some group has to make the prison doors which protect us from those things or people that would rob us of our freedom, that would take away our individuality, that would puncture our egos, that would challenge our values, or our lifestyle. Whatever it is that makes us afraid is a prison door, for our fear then causes us to separate ourselves for protection, and then we become bound to maintaining that separation. Then we become like the jailer, who fears for his life when the door springs open.

A man who took great pride in his lawn found himself with a very large crop of dandelions. He tried every method he knew to get rid off them. Still they plagued him.

Finally he wrote the Department of Agriculture. He enumerated all the things he had tried and closed the letter with the question: “What should I do now?”

In due course the reply came back: “We suggest you learn to love them.”

I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one.

“That they all may be one.” The theology of unity recognizes that our doors are not real, if by not real we mean where we can be one with God. As Paul and Silas point out to us with their revival – the door is not real, the stocks are not real, because even behind doors that seem closed and locked they can experience oneness with God and with each other they can experience freedom.

Jesus knows that in only a few hours these disciples are going to desert him. Yet he is able to pray with and for them because of his oneness with God, rather than to chastise them, or to put them down for their lack of faith.

Our prisons are only as real as we allow them to be. God shatters prison doors, if we let God. God shatters our concept of freedom, if we let God. God can help us open the doors so that we see not only the war dead of our nation, but also the war dead of the conquered nations. God can help us revise our concept of freedom so that it encompasses all people. Freedom does not happen when we separate people, but when we build bridges between them. I would like to close today with a story that I have shared with you before that was told a long time ago by the Rev. Peter Pangore, who at that time was the pastor of the Congregational Church of Booth Bay Harbor, Maine.

At Pearl Harbor, Oahu, I witnessed an extra ordinary act of repentance, of sorrow, and of honor. I stood in the gleaming white arched and covered Memorial above the USS Arizona, which was still leaking oil, among a gathering of clergy and spouses of a church tour group I was leading. One Maine minister from our group, was there that day, December 7th, 1945, when the Japanese stealthily flew in to sink our Pacific Naval Fleet. As I listened to his vivid descriptions of the horrors of being aboard a flaming and sinking vessel (not the Arizona) as bullets flew and bombs roared, I chanced to see a Japanese tourist stoically entering the Memorial.

The man's fine clothes, his lonq tie, his buttoned sports jacket, and shined brown tie shoes attracted my eye. In Hawaii lawyers, corporate executives, soldiers and ministers seldom, if ever wear ties, or jackets. Even network television news anchors wear open collared Aloha shirts. This man, dressed as he was, had purpose. His purpose was in his face as stoic as he tied to form it. Along with him walked, who I took to be, his wife and an older daughter, both in conservative dresses and wearing fancy shoes. The man appeared to be in his 50's, spoke only Japanese (so I heard) and he carried, almost shyly, in his left hand an ornate multi-flowered wreath about 18 inches across and having some value.

The Maine minister veteran, our group gathered about him, spoke on about being caught below deck, disoriented, the ship taking on water where he stood, fire coming from above and smoke stealing his breath. His buddy, his friend lay dead at his feet as the Minister then sailor struggled in the darkness with his fear and adrenalin to escape to the surface. Neither he nor the group ever noticed the Japanese tourist nor his family who walked quite near to us.

The tourist stopped turned to his wife and daughter and spoke to them. They stood quietly, solemnly. He straightened his tie first at the neck, then by the belt, tugged at the hem of his jacket, squared his shoulders, breathed deeply exhaled as if in preparation and soberly stepped forward alone toward the railing at the water's edge above the USS Arizona. Around him swirled other tourists apparently, to my eye and ear, all Americans, talking, laughing, looking, asking questions and listening to our minister’s story. Apparently not witnessing the scene of the tourist who had captured my heart and mind.

He could not I guess know what the words of the minister meant, but as I listened and watched, the Japanese tourist came to the rail, bowed at the waist, stood then erect, said words I heard but, could not comprehend. However from their tone and look of his face his meaning I understood. His meaning was of confession, sorrow, hurt. honor, dignity, repentance and prayer. When he had finished his quiet prayer he gravely dropped his flowered wreath down into the sea water, the same which the minister kept mentioning in his remembrance, and watched as the wreath floated away on the tide.

This tourist of foreign birth struggled to keep formality, to keep face, but his tears betrayed him as a soldier, a warrior of the air, whose own plane, whose bombs, whose bullets, tore through our young and sank their lives. He came, it struck me, on a pilgrimage of repentance, not to our government of these United States, but to the grave of our young men whose lives he took in the name of war. Stepping backward one pace, the Japanese veteran then bowed, very deeply, very slowly from the waist, with eyes closed, stood tall, turned, rejoined his family and his deed done, left. The minister veteran spoke on.

I was wrong though, I was not the only America to witness his act. As I watched his family leave I noticed an other American, obviously a WW II veteran, probably who had served in the Pacific, himself on a pilgrimage, dressed casually, with a red VFW marked windbreaker on, with thinning hair and hat off in his hand, who as the family walked by him, stepped out, from wall on which he leaned, the into their path, blocking their way. For me the tension rose. The American stood at attention, strong, straight backed and rigid, then raising his right hand, slowly, stiffly to his forehead he saluted his once and former enemy.

The startled tourist deep in his thoughts and memories, stopped short, surprise and sorrow mixed on his face. His family, eyes on the ground, stopped abruptly and crowded closer to their man. The American remained in salute until the Japanese with understanding returned it. There they stood tourists touring by, alone in their shared pain, shared glories and honors and memories and in their new reconciliation until the American slowly lowered his arm and formally stepped backward one pace remaining at attention. The tourist, when his arms were at his side, bowed formally, once again and too my surprise the American returned the honor. Neither said a word. Neither had to. Their rigid faces wet with tears expressed in human lanquaqe what neither could have ever said to the other in words.

And still the story of the minister went on about the men who helped men stay alive that day. And how his ship, later in the war was raised off the harbor floor dry docked and repaired. And how he went on, like so many others to fight so many battles on tiny islands, against a common enemy. And of the heroism of soldiers, marines and sailor, who though they hated war, fought for sake of freedom. These words I heard as I stood there watching the veterans watch each other.

The American's wife broke the spell. She had been inexplicably delayed at the Memorial's boat and dock and only now approached, calling her husbands name, "Ernest!." He heard her and turned toward her. And the veteran tourists, their reconciliation complete went their ways separately but in unity forever.

My Brothers and sisters, it is time to be free.

Amen

© 2008 Rev. Dr. Thomas T. Peters