Sermon

INTRODUCTION: Carl Sandburg, in Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years, tells the story of Lincoln’s running as a Republican for Congress in 1846. To run against him, the Democrats had put up the Rev. Peter Cartwright, a famous and rugged old-fashioned circuit rider in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the major forerunner of what we know today as the United Methodist Church. Follows is an incident that occurred during their campaign for Congress.

Since the Rev. Cartwright was making some rather derogatory statements about him, Mr. Lincoln went to hear his opponent for himself. As the Rev. Cartwright neared the end of his sermon, he said, "All who desire to lead a new life, to give their hearts to God, and go to heaven, will stand." A sprinkling of women, men and children stood. Then the Rev. Cartwright said, "All who do not wish to go to hell will stand." Everyone stood up—except for Lincoln.

Then the evangelist said in his gravest voice, "I observe that many responded to the first invitation to give their hearts to God and go to heaven. And I further observe that all of you save one indicated that you did not desire to go to hell. The sole exception is Mr. Lincoln, who did not respond to either invitation. May I inquire of you, Mr. Lincoln, where are you going?"

Lincoln slowly rose and spoke carefully. "I came here as a respectful listener. I did not know that I was to be singled out by Brother Cartwright. I believe in treating religious matters with due solemnity. I admit that the questions propounded by Brother Cartwright are of great importance. I did not feel called upon to answer as the rest did. Brother Cartwright asks me directly where I am going. I desire to reply with equal directness: I am going to Congress."

That incident, perhaps as much as any other, reflects the unique, yet unconventional role that religion played in the 16^th president’s life. On the one hand, he was supportive of religion, and had a grasp of religious language second to none. He was well versed in the sacred scriptures of Judaism and Christianity. That stems in part from the fact that was taught to read using the King James Bible as his textbook.

Yet after having learned to read, as a young man, he was also deeply influenced by the writings of Thomas Paine, the Founding Father, whose The Age of Reason was a broadside against much of the Bible, and the mythological underpinnings of Judaism and Christianity. Later in life, Lincoln said, “I never tire of reading Paine….Others can rule, many can fight, but only Thomas Paine can write for us.”

The result in Lincoln was the winning combination that has stood him in high stead to this good day, namely, a high degree of religious sensitivity mixed with a critical analytic view of religion. These were not necessarily the greatest assets in running for political office, then or now.

If you’ve read the U.S. Constitution, you know that it forbids tests of religion as a qualification for public office. What that is supposed to mean is that anyone, regardless of their religious affiliation, can run for public office: They do not have to be a Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, Hindu, Mormon or Jew. Theoretically! And yet the reality is that religious affiliations, especially Christian and to a lesser extent Judaism, or at least public confession of religious inclinations, seem to be requisite to successfully winning and holding political office, despite what the Constitution states.

So how is it, that someone who admired Thomas Paine…who never joined the church…never took part in its sacraments…and never converted to Christianity…how was it that he penned some of the most sublime of religious statements, by any statesman or office-holder?

Statements like these majestic words from his Second Inaugural Address: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right….” Or from the closing line of the Gettysburg Address, “…that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.”

Lincoln spoke of God often and in many different ways. In his Collected Works, author William J. Wolf counted 33 different expressions for God, such as the “Almighty,” “Maker,” “Father of Mercies,” “Most High,” and “Divine Providence” to name only a few.

Which are only some of the reasons why many consider Lincoln to have been deeply religious, but not in the conventional sense of the word. He was not a member of any organized religion. Like many of you describe yourself, he was “spiritual, but not religious.” But actually that phrase is the product of fairly recent decades. President Lincoln’s use of the word “religious” also encompassed the meaning of word “spiritual.” So we might ask, “Did Lincoln have faith? Or more specifically, did he believe in God?”

To answer that let’s digress a moment from our focus on Lincoln. I attended graduate theology school in the years immediately following the Roman Catholic Church’s second Vatican Council, called by Pope John XXIII. That meant that reading the documents of that Council, especially the 16 of which were called “constitutions,” was requisite. And one of the theological consultants to a leader of the Council, was a German Jesuit theologian by the name of Karl Rahner. He came up with one of the more intriguing concepts to come out of the Council. It also became the theological presupposition of the “constitutions” – “anonymous Christians.”

Anonymous Christianity means that a person lives in the grace of God and attains salvation outside of explicitly constituted Christianity — Let us say, a Buddhist monk — who, because he follows his conscience, attains salvation and lives in the grace of God; of him I must say that he is an anonymous Christian….

According to Rahner, a person could explicitly deny Christianity, but in reality "existentially is committed to those values which for the Christian are concretized in God." I would suggest by this definition, Lincoln could be thought of as an “anonymous Christian.”

But more probably, Lincoln would have rejected the notion of being identified as a “Christian,” as well as also rejecting behind defined as an “atheist.” His constant use of the word, “God,” and his criticisms of the dogmas the churches of his day, suggest that. And in what is probably still the most definitive study of Lincoln, Lincoln scholar Allen Guelzo’s Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President characterizes Lincoln's worldview as a kind of "Calvinized Deism.” A Creator God who knew all that was to happen, but like a giant clock wound it up and left things to run on their own.

So how does all of this apply to us? What is there about Lincoln’s religion, disputed or otherwise, that has meaning for us?

I think the first step is the recognition that we all, including every species on the planet, have faith and confidence in the created order. It’s what Santayana called, “animal faith.” It’s shared by fish, birds, insects, human beings, and every other living thing. Every species has an innate sense of confidence in the world of which it’s a part: that the Earth will stay in its orbit around the Sun…that the atmosphere will give us moisture to drink and oxygen to breathe. Put more simply, when we get up of a morning, because of our inner confidence in the created order, we don’t ask, “I wonder whether the Earth will have turned half a revolution during the night so that the Sun will be shining today?” We all innately trust that to be the way things are. It’s intrinsic to who we are. It’s a confidence that we share with every living thing. Lincoln had it, too.

When we marvel at the beauty of the planet and the magnificence of the Universe, it stems from that inner faith with which we were born. My favorite piece of music, and one that I have several renditions of, is the one that Louie Armstrong made so famous, “What a Wonderful World.” Its opening words are a paean of praise to the world of which we are a part.

I’ve seen the snow capped peaks of Mt. Kilimanjaro in East Africa; sun-bathed on the shores of the Mediterranean in Tel Aviv; seen the cliffs of Dover; crossed the Red Sea; felt the spray of the mighty Atlantic; and watched and heard the crashing of the waves of the Pacific on the stony precipices of Carmel.

I’ve seen thousands of wildebeest thunder by, seen herds of zebras racing along, heard and seen the lion roar and the elephant trumpet.

I’ve made love and been loved, kissed and been kissed, hugged and been hugged; had loving parents and been a loving parent; had kids who had kids. And when all is said and done, no words express it better than, “What a wonderful world.” Poet e. e. cummings describes it best, when he writes:

i thank thee God for most this amazing day
for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky
and for everything
which is natural which is infinite
which is yes

That’s innate, intrinsic faith. We all have it. It’s who we are: faith-filled creatures.

That’s why the most natural thing in the world is for you to be optimistic, positive, and hope-filled. Because rooted in our very nature is a deep, gut-gripping, gizzard-grabbing, soul-stirring, confidence-building sense of faith. It’s who we are. Faith says, we can climb the highest mountain, overcome every obstacle, and storm the citadels of doubt and despair. Because we are human…because we are children of the Earth…because we are the creatures of this planet.

But we human beings have to have more. We have to bring that inarticulate, inbred reality, into consciousness. We have to know what it means to be a faith-filled creature in a world that sometimes seems to be filled with everything but faith. We have to know how we can get up in the morning when all the props have been knocked out from under us. We have to know how we can live another day, when sometimes there seems no good reason even to face the day. We have to know what it is that makes life worth living, and the day’s work worth doing.

We want to know that we know that we know that we know. We want to feel in our very bones and in every fiber of our being that life has meaning and purpose. That we can place our confidence and trust in tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

We want to know who we are and where we came from. We want to know how we’re supposed to live, and how we should relate to others. We want to be able to look in the mirror and like whom we see. We want to know how to address our guilt. We want some way to deal with the anguish of broken relationships and ended love. We want someway to handle the loss of a loved one and the death of someone very dear. We want to know how to make it to Monday, when it seems like we can’t make it through the next moment. Help! Is anybody listening? Does anybody care?

More than an unarticulated, inbred faith, we want something in the foreground of our consciousness…something we can rely on as intellectually true…something to give hope, and heart and help. And that’s where the religions of the world come in.

I love parts of them all. When I stood at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, I wanted to turn and proclaim to everyone present, “Hear O Israel. The Lord our God is one. And thou shalt worship the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all they soul and with all thy might.” (Deuteronomy 06:4f)

When I stood on the banks of the river Jordan…or when I watched the sea boats sailing on the Sea of Galilee…when I walked through the streets of Nazareth, Jerusalem and Bethlehem, my soul resonated with the proclamation that:

"I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

When I stood before the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and went inside its sacred precincts…when I heard the Islamic call to prayer…when I saw the faithful kneel to pray…I felt the power of the prayers of Muslim faithful all over the world, and their affirmation that, “There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his prophet.”

And what of Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Shintoism, and Confucianism, to name only a few? And what of the many variations within each of them? That’s our decision to make and our journey of faith to travel.

Carl Sandburg wrote about Lincoln. And in one of his most poetic phrases he writes this:

“Abraham Lincoln was one ‘who saw far lights and tall rainbows.’ Let us look off in the distance for that far light shining. Let us see that tall rainbow.”

[1] Given February 06, 2011, at the All Faiths Unitarian Congregation, 2756 McGregor Boulevard, Ft. Myers, FL, by the Rev. Dr. Wayne Robinson, minister.