Sermons
I Don't Know Where My Soul Is
The Rev. Dr. W. Frederick Wooden, Senior Minister
The First Unitarian Society in Brooklyn, New York
delivered March 23, 2003
(This sermon was delivered from notes and subsequently revised and written
to reflect a reading public.)
- Matthew 5:13- 14
You are the salt of the earth: but if the salt has lost his savor, how shall
it be salted? It is afterward good for nothing but to be cast out, and to be
trodden under foot. You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a
hill cannot be hid.
- We, unhappily, are living in the hiatus between two dreams. We have waked
from one and not yet started the other… Is it not, perhaps America's mission
to find the "dream that is coming to birth?" - Anne Morrow Lindbergh
- Although the desire of acquiring the good things of the world is the prevailing
passion of the American people, certain momentary outbreaks occur when their
souls seem suddenly to burst the bonds of matter by which they are restrained
and to soar impetuously toward heaven. - Alexis de Tocqueville
My title comes from a song by the Portuguese-American artist, Nelly Furtado.
It's a sweet song, but the refrain has a sadness in its words: "I'm like
a bird, I'll only fly away, I don't know where my soul is, I don't know where
my home is."
The sweetness of spring is here, but I feel a sadness in its midst. We are at
war, and right now "I don't know where my soul is, I don't know where my
home is." I speak for myself and my country. I don't know where its soul
is. And for that reason I don't know where my home is.
Souls are my business. I cannot speak as a politician or a general. I will not
be asked to speak on CNN or CNBC or C-Span, or those other forums for pundits.
All I have is this pulpit to implore you few. But to the extent that war puts
a nation's soul in the balance, and I believe it does, then I have something
worth listening to even if it is only a few who listen.
But what is the soul of the nation? The historian, Sidney Mead, wrote a book
titled: "The Nation With The Soul Of A Church." That title expresses
the origins of the United States. It is deeply entwined with the religious ideals
of the European settlers who formed it. But not as some have told it. Let's
set the story straight.
In 1630 John Winthrop spoke to the first settlers of Massachusetts and chose
this text: (Mat 5:13-14) You are the salt of the earth: but if the salt has
lost his savor, how shall it be salted? It is afterward good for nothing but
to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot. You are the light of the world.
A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid." He called it a "Modell
of Christian Charitie" and implored them to be knit together as one people,
bearing each others sorrows and walking in all humility, so that they may set
an example to the world of a holy commonwealth.
The result was an embryonic democracy, where both church and state were guided
by the people, not by king or bishop. They did not set out to create democracy.
But their ideal of a Model of Christian Charity, one constituted of those with
upright heart and pure, led eventually to Lexington and Concord and ultimately
to Thomas Jefferson.
Democracy took root here, both religiously and politically. Even old world religions
like Roman Catholicism are democratic here in ways they are not elsewhere. Democracy
is not a political idea that became religious; it is a religious idea that became
political.
The foundations of our democracy rest on spiritual ground. They express a vision
that the Quaker artist Edward Hicks captured in his wonderful painting "The
Peaceable Kingdom." You know it, I am sure. It is a primitive looking rendering
of a pastoral valley where ox and ass and lion and lamb are lying down together
(as promised in Isaiah) and a child stands in their midst (again as Isaiah said).
It is a Biblical scene but the image is America, its green and pleasant land.
This painting was so popular that he made dozens of versions. It was popular
because it expressed the soul of America.
But it is not the only soul of America. Much as individuals have two parents,
America has another spirit in it. To get at this, consider that other famous
Massachusetts band, the pilgrims. When the Mayflower unloaded, there were saints
and sailors, but also what the Plymouth folk called Strangers. These were the
adventurers and misfits who thought the new world would give them another chance.
Free of Europe and its confinements, they could make a new life, even strike
it rich in America.
This soul is found in the yankee trader, the yeoman farmer, the pioneer and
the cowboy. It is forty-niners and homesteaders and immigrants, and all who
want a chance to make a new life or a better life. "America means opportunity,
freedom, power," said Emerson. It is the Land of Opportunity where anyone
can succeed by their own wit and work.
America has two souls, and this is good. Either one, in excess, can become arrogant
and dangerous. The danger of the Peaceable Kingdom is religious zeal, most terribly
present in Salem of 1692. The danger of the Land of Opportunity is Hobbesian
war of all against all in the brutish competition for money and power. It was
most terribly present in the teeming slums of our so-called Gilded Age.
It may be that we have escaped the extremes of both because both claim our allegiance.
Our history can be imagined as the act of walking. We move forward with one
leg, that of religious idealism, which threatens to become zeal and fanaticism,
and then before falling, shift to the other. When our secular individualism
gets too great we go back to the utopian. So we have gone from Peacable Kingdom
to the Land of Opportunity, from utopia to marketplace, from materialism to
idealism, back and forth. The result has been progress, real progress, despite
all the difficulties.
At least this is what I have believed until now. But this war changes all that.
We seem to have a new soul, formed from the worst of both.
On the one hand there is the language of righteousness and the idea that Iraq
threatens the "peaceable kingdom." We have a holy duty, it would seem,
to protect the world even if others do not agree, because they are evil and
we are good. On the other hand we decide to make war because we can. We have
the power all by ourselves, and that means we should use it; a tautology of
might makes right.
We have become the Andrew Carnegie of nations, in which material success is
a sign of our moral success; our power is our right and makes us right. The
two souls that once kept us from fanaticism and imperialism have fused at a
common point of arrogance.
This is a true perversion of both souls, for each of them have their origins
in humility. John Winthrop and Edward Hicks knew that the peaceable kingdom
was ruled not by men but by God. We are the creatures who lie down together:
lions and lambs, strong and weak, rich and poor. "You are the salt of the
earth," means humble and ordinary. "You are … a city set on a
hill" a model and example of charity. Ours is not to rule with righteousness
but to be ruled by righteousness.
For Adam Smith and others, the free market was to dismantle the corrupting privileges
of aristocracy by giving everyone a stake and a chance as a citizen in the economy
that rewarded effort and intelligence not lineage and name. It is the promise
heard by the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free," as Emma Lazarus
says.
Such humility once joined the two souls of America, but now arrogance prevails.
Where once we were inspired by "A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
is the imprisoned lightning," today we speak of "shock and awe."
Instead of "Mother of Exiles," whose "beacon-hand glows world-wide
welcome," we fight the "mother of all battles." And though she
says, "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" we think ourselves
the new colossus, "With conquering limbs astride from land to land."
How far this is from the great words of our past. "All men are created
equal," we once said. "To form a more perfect union," we once
promised. "Government of the people, by the people, and for the people,"
we dreamt.
Each of these ideals, and more, tell me that America was great when it sought
only to be good. Do these same ideals now call us to a doctrine of preventive
pre-emption? Do they now call us to global economic and military dominance?
We have sold our souls, friends, trading greatness for glory and principle for
power. It was our humility, our humanity, that brought us thus far on the way.
But today it is grandiosity, wrapped in flag and prayer, propped up by power
and wealth, that is our soul.
This war it is not true to the real soul of America. Though the adversary is
wretched, the way we have done this is shameful. We are a nation of laws and
principles not powers and principalities. The humility and equality we promise
our citizens we have flung aside as a nation among nations. This war is a betrayal
of our souls. I cannot help but think of the words Jefferson wrote when he contemplated
the cost of slavery. "I tremble for my country when I think that God is
just." I tremble for my country today. And so should you.
Despair, though, is not the answer. "No one has the right to sit down and
feel hopeless," says Dorothy Day, "there's too much work to be done."
The answer is that which Lincoln gave at Gettysburg. He asked the nation to
rededicate itself to the ideal of a nation "of the people, by the people
and for the people."
If we have lost our soul in the intoxications of righteousness and power, this
is not the first time. America is the land of second chances, even for America
itself. It can be saved. But if we fail to act, it could be the last time. As
President Kennedy once said, "Domestic policy can only lose elections.
Foreign policy can kill us all."
But where to begin? Of all people, George Will gives us a clue: "The business
of America is not business. Neither is it war. The business of America is justice,
and securing the blessings of liberty." This task is the inalienable duty
of we the people.
If we are all created equal, we the people must do it. If there is to be a perfect
union, we the people must do it. If this is to be a government of the people
and by the people and for the people, only we the people must do it. And it
can be done. As Alexis de Toqueville noticed long ago: "Although the desire
of acquiring the good things of the world is the prevailing passion of the American
people, certain momentary outbreaks occur when their souls seem suddenly to
burst the bonds of matter by which they are restrained and to soar impetuously
toward heaven."
Now is such a time. Our leaders need us to show them the way. "Vox populi,
vox dei," it is said. The voice of the people is the voice of God. But
if the people are silent, our leaders will think God's silence is assent.
It means: can you pass up the latte for a letter to your representative telling
her or him to step up? It means: can you forego the stock market long enough
to tell your senator to take stock and stand up? They will not find the heart
to do it if you do not find it for them. As Dwight Eisenhower said, "Whatever
America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart
of America." We are that heart.
I must believe that we the people are stronger and more powerful than the pocketbooks
of business and the promises of powerbrokers. But if we are silent now, then
"the salt has lost its savor," it is "good for nothing but to
be cast out, and to be trodden under foot."
We the people must be the salt of the earth, not our leaders. We must be the
city on a hill, not Washington DC. The soul of the country is in our hands,
truly in ours not theirs. So tremble my friends, for if we do not act now, the
result will be on our hands, forever.
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