FOURTH CHURCH PULPIT
July 7, 2002

THE POWER OF A DREAM
John M. Buchanan

With malice towards none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God
gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the
nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow,
and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace
among ourselves, and with all nations.

Abraham Lincoln
The Second Inaugural Address
March 4, 1865

FOURTH
PRESBY
TERIAN
CHURCH
A LIGHT IN THE CITY

Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago
126 East Chestnut Street, Chicago, IL 60611-2094
(312) 787-4570

THE POWER OF A DREAM
July 7, 2002

JOHN M. BUCHANAN, PASTOR
FOURTH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Psalm 67 |
Isaiah 42:5-9
Philippians 2:1-11

We thank you, dear God, jor the precious gift of freedom: for the right to decide to be here this
morning, or not be here; for the privilege of worshiping in security and comfort. But may we
never be so comfortable that we take this freedom for granted. Startle us, O God, with your
goodness and presence and your love, which calls us to live intentionally, courageously,
faithfully, in Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Among the personal memorabilia I have accumulated over the years, placed on shelves, hung on
walls, in cabinets and ultimately storage boxes, two 8-1/2 x 11 pictures have remained. They are
stylized portraits of two men who have continued to fascinate me and in whom my interest has
continued to grow: Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln.

J can remember Churchill, and in my home Abraham Lincoln was always revered. There were
books about both, and 1 continue to read biographies and histories of them and their times. Both
Lincoln and Churchill were elected to lead their nations in the midst of unprecedented danger.
Great Britain in the 1940s, the United States in the 1860s were both vulnerable, unprepared for
what was ahead, and discouraged. The future looked bleak; events were swirling out of control. It
is commonly agreed that Churchill and Lincoln saved their nations. Both called their people to
new sacrifice by way of a compelling vision: Churchill’s “Blood, Sweat, and Tears,” Lincoln’s
Union government “of the people, by the people, for the people . . . humanity’s last best hope.”
Both were remarkably accessible. Churchill waded through the rubble of bombed and burned
London neighborhoods with his bowler, cane, and cigar. Lincoln walked and rode daily in the
streets of Washington and received citizens in his office. Both served a cause larger than self, a
cause that transcended the ordinary concerns of prosperity and security. Both articulated for their
fellow citizens a vision of what the future could be. Both paid a lot of attention to words, written
and spoken. Both were able to communicate their vision, their call to sacrifice and service, in
clear and compelling ways. Churchill’s legendary speeches in the House of Commons were not
extemporaneous, as many assumed. In fact, they were written, memorized, and rehearsed.
Lincoln, we now know, took great pains to write most of his speeches, editing, re-editing,
scratching out words, and substituting better words. And both were flawed human beings, and
each has many critics.

My interest in Lincoln as an extraordinary leader leads me to conclude that part of his greatness,
to be sure, was timing, the extraordinary historic situation in which he was called to lead. But
beyond that I conclude that his greatness was a product of his vision for the United States of

America and the way he became a servant of that vision and a servant of the people who had
chosen him to be their leader.

There’s a good new Lincoln book out this summer, Lincoin’s Greatest Speech: The Second
Inaugural. Written by Ronald White, dean and professor of American religious history at San
Francisco Presbyterian Theological Seminary, it is a careful analysis of the speech Lincoln
delivered on the steps of the capitol on March 4, 1865, on the occasion of his inauguration to a
second term as president. The speech, for those who are interested in the effective and economic
use of language, was just 703 words in length, 505 of them words of one syllable. It took Lincoln
between six and seven minutes to deliver it. That’s quite a model for those of us who stand up
weekly and go on for 20 or 25 minutes, week after week.

It was quite a moment. The war was nearly over. Finally the Union armies were prevailing, and
the end was in sight. In spite of rain and oceans of mud, Washington was in a celebrative mood
and, one thing more, a vengeful mood. People in the inauguration crowds that day wore medals
and ribbons with words such as “No Compromise with Armed Rebels,” “A Foe to Traitors.” The
year before, there had been a massacre of 300 Union troops, most of them African American, at
Fort Pillow, Tennessee. Lincoln was “besieged with calls for retribution.” Northerners were
demanding the execution of an equal number of Confederate prisoners.

And so the crowd that gathered to hear their victorious president speak expected triumphalism,
revenge, or, at the very least, satisfaction. Instead, what Abraham Lincoln did in 700 words was
ask them to think carefully about a vision of the nation after the war. Instead of triumphalism, he
asked the people of North and South, victors and vanquished, to ponder the mystery that “both
read the same Bible and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. The
prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully.” That is a very
mature theological statement. Politicians constantly invoke God’s blessing on the cause of their
own nation. When a federal court decided that “Under God” doesn’t belong in the Pledge of
Allegiance, the politicians gathered on the steps of the Capitol and sang “God Bless America.”
Few have had the courage after September [1 to suggest that every singing of “God Bless
America” should be followed by “And God Bless the World.” Reinhold Niebuhr said that
Lincoln was a better theologian than the religious leaders, all of whom—North and South—were
imvoking God’s blessing on their own cause. Lincoln struggled a lot with theological issues,
God’s role, God’s activity in the world. And his religious vision for the new nation that would
have to be created after the war included an inclusive theology of a God who transcended
partisan causes, transcended even nations, a God who is God of all nations, a God who created
and loves and works for the peace and salvation of all people. That is an amazing vision—and
still a very relevant word, particularly after September 11.

Instead of retribution, Lincoln asked for compassion, based on an inclusive, unifying vision of
the whole nation, South and North. Garry Wills points out in his book on the Gettysburg Address
that before Lincoln, the plural verb was always used—*“The United States are. . .” After Lincoln
it was “The United State is . . .” Lincoln’s vision of union became a fragile reality. One nation.

Standing on the steps of the Capitol, March 4, 1865, he said:

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right as God gives us
to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s
wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his
orphan.

Instead of regionalism and nationalism—the motto of the Confederacy, for instance, was “Deo
Vindice” (God Will Avenge)—Lincoln challenged all Americans to live up to a greater, larger
and better vision, “a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves and with all nations.”

Forty-one days, later Lincoln was assassinated. Professor White concludes that his second
inaugural speech was Lincoln’s “last will and testament to America” and that in a time when
“leadership and integrity seem in short supply,” Lincoln and his words stride across the centuries
with the capacity to both convict and heal” (p. 201).

Centuries before, a man by the name of Paul wrote to the early Christians in the city of Philipps:

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, .. . let each of you look not to your own
interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ
Jesus, ... who... emptied himself .”

Lincoln’s style of leadership was remarkably selfless, in a way consistent with the advice in the
Bible. And there is a lot to learn there. No topic is more important, or more discussed and written
about these days, than that one: leadership. The late Robert Greenleaf, director of management
and research at AT&T, professor at Harvard and MIT, came up with the intriguing and important
notion that great leaders are first of all servants. Servant Leadership he called it, based on a
Herman Hesse story about an expedition of travelers whose central figure, Leo, does all the
menial chores and sustains the other travelers with his spirit and songs. When Lec leaves, the
group falls into disarray and the expedition is abandoned. Later they discover that Leo was
actually the head of the huge organization that was sponsoring the project.

“The servant leader,” Greenleaf taught, “is servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one
wants to serve .. . makes sure other people’s highest priority needs are being served. . . . The best
test of leadership is simply—do those served grow as persons. Do they, while being served,
become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous?” (Servant Leadership, pp.7-13).

That is a rather different notion of what leadership is and means. It fits Lincoln, I think, and in an
amazingly consistent way, it reflects the ethical challenge St. Paul put to the early Christian
church in Philippi—and to us, to you and me, here and now.

The question the first Christians asked and the question Paul addresses is “what difference does
faith in Jesus Christ make in the way life is lived. How shall belief and trust in Jesus Christ work
itself out within the contours of my life lived in the world?” Paul is no abstract philosopher; he

moves from theology to anthropology, from beliefs to behavior, and in so doing sounds a lot like
Robert Greenleaf.

e Do nothing from selfish ambition
e Regard others as better than yourselves
e Look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.

And then Paul describes Jesus in terms of his emptying himself and living out of his obedience to
God—even to death on the cross—the perfect servant leader.

Paul’s compelling vision is of a people, a church, united in its faith in Christ, a church that lives
in the world with the mindset of Jesus. Christians are to live individually and together, as the
church, as Jesus lived in the world. “Have the same mind in you that was in Christ Jesus,” Paul
said. Paul’s vision for us—individually and as a church—is servant leader.

The world desperately needs that kind of thinking. Our nation needs it. David Gergen wrote a
feature in the New York Times two weeks ago that asked an important question: “How can we
transform the goodwill and willingness to sacrifice since September 11 into meaningful and
lasting changes in our communities and culture?” Gergen worries that a great opportunity is
slipping away, that as the shock of 9/11 wears off, most Americans are merely spectators in the
war on terrorism, affected only by an occasional inconvenience at the airport. While the
government worries about security, Gergen laments that there is no call from the White House or
Congress for common sacrifice for a better future. Great American leaders, Gergen observes,
recognized that in order to mobilize support for a long war asked for common sacrifice in service
of a “galvanizing vision of what life would be like after guns were silenced.” And then Gergan
makes a stunning suggestion:

The President could roll back his tax cuts (which mainly benefit the wealthiest one
percent of Americans) and propose that the savings be redirected toward a broad social
cause like improving the lives of children. If the war (against terrorism) is about securing
their safety, after all, why should we not be equally concerned about securing their health
and education? Why not seize this moment to make the war about something positive?

We need, David Gergen says, “a new sense of national purpose.”

Emest Campbell, one of my mentors from afar in the craft of preaching, used to remind his
students that while your sermon may be directed to the chief justice of the Supreme Court, or the
secretary of state, or the president of the United States, those people are not often in the
congregation you are addressing. Remember who is out there, Campbell used to say. So—we
don’t affect national policy. But we do have convictions and a voice, and there are ways to be
heard. And we have something else: we have a community that tries to live in the world, in the
nation, in the city, with the mind of Christ in it.

And so until the government comes up with a common vision for our life as a people, the church
certainly has one. And something more: a personal vision of faithful living, modeled on the mind

of Christ. The church does have a vision and a commitment to peace and justice and health and
reconciliation and education for children and service as our marching orders. Tomorrow
morning, more than 100 of our neighborhood children will enroll in our Summer Day program,
specifically designed to add education and social support to young lives always vulnerable,
particularly so in the summertime. And we have the model of faithful and full life in our work,
our leisure, our volunteering, based on Jesus, our servant leader,

Susan Andrews, pastor of Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church, Bethesda, Maryland, told a story
recently about having lunch with Jim Tooie, the new director of the White House Office of Faith-
Based Initiatives. Susan is a liberal Democrat and has many reservations abut the use of

governmental money for religious institutions. She changed he mind after lunch. This is how she
tells it:

Jim Tooie is a small, energetic man, with electric blue eyes and an engaging manner. A
lifelong Catholic, he attends Mass every day at 6:30 a.m. He keeps his Bible on his desk.
He is the father of four boys under the age of 10 with a fifth child on the way, and he
identifies himself as a pro-life Democrat. Trained as a lawyer, Tooie worked for Senator
Mark Hatfield. As part of that experience he found himself visiting Mother Teresa one
day in India. And the experience changed his life. He was immediately handed a basin of
warm water, a washcloth, and a gentle order to bathe a dying man—a grotesque skeleton
who was covered with open sores and scabs. Now, Jim was too proud to admit that he
was afraid to touch this wretched creature. So he meekly obeyed. And he ended up
staying for two years.

As a Catholic, he said, he had always been taught to experience Christ through the
sacraments, So to meet Christ in the disturbing disguise of the poor, to be drawn into a
personal relationship with Jesus through the lives of the least of these—this was both a

revelation and a conversion for Jim Tooie. And that experience has refocused his life’s
work.

Susan Andrews became a supporter of the Faith-Based Initiatives because of Jim Tooie’s
vision—and his servant leadership.

Servant leadership is based on a vision of what the nation could be. Abraham Lincoin gave the
nation a dream of what its precious union could mean: “With malice toward none, with clarity
toward all. . . a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves and with all nations.”

Lincoln served that vision and the government, the people, he believed were the last, best hope
for the world, literally poured his life out, emptied himself, like Paul said Jesus did.

The bold challenge, the great adventure of being a Christian today, is to live out that vision, to be
leaders, in whatever way we can, great or small: to lead on the job, at the office, in the board
room, in our homes, our families, in our friendships and intimate personal relations—to live out
the mandate to be a servant leader. To “do nothing from selfish ambition . . . to look not to your
own interests but to the interests of others . . . to have the mind of Christ.”

That is a powerful dream—powerful enough to effect change, in our lives, in the institutions we
serve, in the world.

“Where there is no vision, the people perish” the Bible says. That is true for nations, churches,
and individuals.

“Have the same mind in you that is in Christ Jesus,” the Bible says.
“The one who gives life away for my sake will find it,” Jesus said.

Amen.

Prayers of the People
By John A. Cairns, Dean, Academy for Faith and Life

Eternal God, we give thanks for all that surrounds us this day. For your abundant creation and the
fruit of the soil and sunshine; for the beauty of greens and golds, of reds and blues; for the fresh
breeze that brings the promise of newness into our tired lives; for each waiting day with its latent
treasures. Thank you, Creator God.

We thank you, as well, for the people who surround us. They show us your love as they offer
their guidance and support. Their hands reach out to us in times of despair. Their voices offer
encouragement; their smiles share affirmation. We are blessed to be in the midst of this caring
community. Thank you, nurturing God.

The community that surrounds us also calls forth our prayers of intercession. And so we lift
before you this morning the needs of our colleagues and companions. For all those who seek
healing, who are broken in mind, in body, or in spirit, may you be their great Physician. For all
those who are wrestling with difficult choices or weighing significant decisions, may you be their
“wisdom from above.” For all those who stand in harm’s way, may you be their Protector and
Defender. For all those who face the pressures of the 40- or 50- or 60-hour workweek that lies
ahead, may you be their Anchor in the storm and their “still, small voice of calm.”

O God, these are difficult days in which to live. We find ourselves constantly tempted by
lifestyles that are less than faithful, that fail to honor you. Yet even when we try to ignore you,
Good Shepherd, you are there. You awaken in us an awareness of your presence. You keep an
eye on us. You stand ready to grab us so we do not slip or fall. May we, in our various journeys,
be drawn toward you and find there our home.

What we ask for ourselves we also ask earnestly for others, particularly our leaders. May they
know your presence when they feel alone; may they sense your strength when they feel
threatened; may they hear your call for reconciliation when they shape their policies; may they
remember your grace and mercy as they deal with one another. We pray for our president and his

cabinet and advisors, for all our legislators, judges, and public officials. We pray, as well, for the
leaders of other nations, especially those whose governments are young or whose situations are
perilous. We pray, too, for religious leaders, that their leadership may be trustworthy and faithful,
offering a beacon of light and hope to an often-discouraged world.

O God, fill all our lives with light and hope. Keep watch over each of us. Empower us with the
courage to live what we say we believe. And hear us as we join our voices in the prayer Jesus
taught us, saying, Our Father...