8/21/55

Scripture: (Read Ephesians 2: 1-14).

Text: Ephesians 2: 14; “He is our peace, who ... hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us.”

There may be some in this room who have traveled the Alcan highway through parts of Canada to Alaska. It was put through as a war measure, to link the USA with its northern Territory of Alaska by way of its Canadian ally. Like some other links between people and places, it proved to be expensive in dollars and cents, one of the most expensive roads per mile ever built.

Some had thought the obstacles which hindered its construction insurmountable. The road had to be engineered through uncharted mountains, across raging streams, and over the tundra bogs where the roadbed could just sink out of sight with the thawing of sub-surface ice. But in the anxious race against time, after months and months of countless difficulty, it was finally completed and opened for military and civilian use.

In some such fashion, a great many of life’s worthy accomplishments are achieved. Thomas Parrish points out that the kind of freedom we have had, and which we want for our children and for all people, must be achieved in this way --- the hard way, across countless difficulties.

We, in this lovely land, like to sing Katherine Lee Bates’ hymn, “America the Beautiful.” In the wording appears the phrase: “A Thoroughfare for Freedom’s beat across the Wilderness.” It refers not alone to the system of highways built through the years from New England to New Mexico -- Virginia to Oregon -- but to the spirit of people who pushed out the geographical frontiers in order to broaden the reality of their freedom. She attributed this road-building to liberty-loving people whose sternness was born of hardships willingly accepted because of their passion for political, economic and religious freedom.

We are accustomed to the bromide that there are now no more geographical frontiers to be conquered; that only the frontiers of the spirit, and of technical advance, can be exploited. But even the familiar geographical scene is being changed continuously by determined effort to make it better, more convenient, more beautiful, for the people who dwell there and who go by. [road in northern Wisconsin] The addition of each bridge in a city such as ours is a case in point.

All of us realize that many of the frontiers of the spirit are yet to be conquered, or constantly to be bridged. For they are as yet incomplete. It is as true for us today, as it was for Paul 1900 years ago, that “We are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” [Ephesians 6: 12]. We are still to labor in the construction of bridges and highways in the realm of ethics, morals, and ideals.

1) The evils of warped prejudice are a constant threat to our liberty. Some thoughtful people feel that social prejudice of one group against another -- majorities against minorities (and vice versa), of race against race, nationality against nationality, is the most serious evil in our contemporary scene. Prejudice threatens our national well-being, our unanimity as a people. It makes insecure the relationships of people all over the earth.

And it is chiefly ignorance -- ignorance of the other fellow’s life -- its origins, problems, needs, and its possible contribution to the total well-being of living.

Class distinctions divide us; racism plagues us; minority groups are deprived of economic and cultural opportunities enjoyed by members of majority groups. And so long as that is true, freedom’s thoroughfare is delayed in the sinking muck of prejudice.

The communists of the world keep an alert eye upon flagrant instances of class and racial discrimination in America; and out of them, compound the poisons against freedom with which they entice the whole world.

The ruling of the US Supreme Court against segregation of the races in our country is a tremendous step forward. But significant though it be, it is only one step in the urgent, continuing struggle to free us of corrosive prejudice. The battle against this evil must be waged, and won in the individual American heart, among people of all races.

2) The highways and bridges of freedom’s thoroughfare must be constructed across civic and political indifference. The apathy with which we often approach election time is appalling. A disgracefully large number of our eligible citizens stay away from the voting booth out of indifference and neglect. And others of us have to remind ourselves of voting as a duty.

The examination of issues, the choice of candidates for office who will represent our viewpoints on issues, the expression of our preference as to some of the laws that are to be enacted --- all of this is a privilege denied to many; deeply desired by throngs of the earth’s peoples to whom it is denied; struggled for, bled for, died for by our forbears. Unless it is kept in repair by concern for social and political well-being, by voting at the appointed times, by the exercise of positive choice, the “thoroughfare for freedom” may very easily fall into such a condition as to be marked “impassable.”

A concerned people aware of the blessings of freedom’s heritage and alert to the continued building of liberty will not be captivated by the evil forces which design the destruction of democracy. It would probably be a good exercise for each of us to talk at length with some of those who have escaped from behind the Iron Curtain of totalitarianism, “often by the skin of their teeth” about the enslavement they have known, and the liberty they love. They are not indifferent. Some of them have died, and others continue to spend their lives, in the effort to reach freedom.

3) And then there are torrents of cynicism to be bridged on freedom’s thoroughfare. If public servants are seriously inconsistent, or incompetent or crooked, no citizen should accept that fact with a cynical “what’s the use,” but should do what needs to be done in forming public opinion, and in casting his vote, to correct the situation. It only does harm to become cynical and suspicious of all those who occupy government offices. [We sicken at the news of corruption in high places. But the effort to root it out is the evidence that there are sincere people also in high places. They deserve the support of other sincere folk.]

We need a restored and rebuilt and expanded faith in our kind of government, in its leaders. We must beat back the cynicism which denies that the majority of our leaders are honest and upright. Many of them go well beyond their “line of duty” in these troubled times. A renewed confidence in the basic integrity of the individual American will help us to master the mood of cynicism. Our nation’s liberty is based on belief in such integrity. It must continue to be based on the repair and building of such faith.

---------------------

This thoroughfare is not a one way street. It is an avenue of mutual helpfulness and communication. Its streams of traffic, like that of our city’s bridges, must flow both ways. Democracy is a give-and-take philosophy of living. It is a “highway of hope for both the government and the governed,” since the government exists by the consent of the governed. This highway is for rich and poor; literate and illiterate; black, white, yellow, brown and red; short and tall; male and female; for the “born here” and the “naturalized here” -- for everyone.

It is no dead end, but it leads somewhere. It is not the exclusive property of Americans, but it is the hope of all mankind. And we of this blessed country must inspire that hope, by discipline and devotion, by precept and example, by resolution and faith.

A little over 7 years ago here in Wisconsin Rapids, we had dramatized for us some of the physical and spiritual truths of communication in the completion and dedication of the Jackson Street Bridge across the Wisconsin River. We had long been aware of the community need for such a bridge so that we can get our bodies back and forth, to and from work, shopping, calling, or whatever other need impels our travel.

If we are wise, we regard that bridge also as a symbol of understanding, maintaining our city and community as one family of people. We shall continue to be, like any family, folk of differing ideas and ambitions, abilities and achievements. But our social solidarity ought to be deepened by the understanding of each other engendered in easier communication over both bridges. And, as our city continues to grow, there may well be other bridges planned and built, to facilitate our communication.

For convenience, there is a geographical difference between east and west. But there ought to be recognized no social difference that can not be lost in the feeling of community. It is harmful to us to assume that the people of one side of the river bank dominate the life of the city, or grasp all the advantages for themselves. We have no area or segment of population that is on the “wrong side of the tracks.” We are one city, and the problems and privileges and duties of the whole city belong to us all.

Rivers are often made boundaries separating countries and counties and states. The Yalu separates Korea and Manchuria; the Rio Grande separates the USA and Mexico; the Mississippi separates Wisconsin and Minnesota. Actually, this kind of separation is a very arbitrary and quite artificial separation. One geographer whom I know says that rivers are very poor boundary lines. For they are also arteries of transportation, sources of water and power. The peoples of a whole valley on both sides of a stream have the same interests and needs regardless of which bank they live upon.

This is singularly true of our town. Time was when it seemed necessary to regard it as two communities, Centralia and Grand Rapids. It has long since been recognized that this became unrealistic. For the community is one city in economic, social and spiritual fact. And our bridges only implement our effort to be one people. If any still regard the river as a kind of partition, that partition needs to be broken down and forgotten, like the partitions in ancient Jewish temples.

Paul was speaking to the Ephesians about a partition that was real in their experience. The wall of the inner sanctuary was inscribed by the Jews as follows: “No man of another race is to proceed within this partition and enclosing wall about the sanctuary; and anyone arrested there will have himself to blame for the penalty of death which will be imposed on him as a consequence.” That was a discrimination against, and warning to, all Gentiles of that day. And it was really enforced!

Paul did not go in with a stone hammer to knock holes in the physical wall. But he emphasized that, spiritually, the wall was already destroyed in Christ. For Christ is for all people, Jew and Gentile alike, Roman and Palestinian, citizen and “foreigner.”

Our best hope, in the whole earth, for the destruction of the walls of prejudice and the bridging of rivers of separation, is a Christian hope. I know that Christians have a certain amount of division into denominational families. But those families are still of right, and ought to be, families in the greater Christian community. [The emergence of the United Church of Christ.]

The Christian faith is a missionary faith. In this faith, Christian folk sing: “In Christ there is no East or West,” thinking of the essential unity of the peoples of the whole earth. Sometimes our missionary enthusiasm gets a little vague and needs to be brought close to home. It is just as true in Wisconsin Rapids, as anywhere, that “In Christ there is no east or west, in him no south or north,” but one fellowship of community in love. And our bridges ought to be monumental symbols of the spiritual bridge closebinding the whole community in constructive Christian citizenship.

[Probably the best-loved minister in Hawaii today is the Rev. Dr. Abraham Akakaha, pastor of Kawaiahoo Church in Honolulu. He is ready to help anyone, of any race or creed or condition, who can use his help. He would as soon teach a stranger how to ride a surf board as to advise one in teaching a church school class. His deep Christian sincerity, his very considerable ability and training, are recognized in the fact that his Seminary has awarded an honorary DD degree to him, that he was named Chaplain of the meetings of the General Synod of the United Church of Christ in Philadelphia in 1961 and that he serves as chaplain of the Senate in Hawaii. He is up early each day, making thoughtful preparation for the prayer by which he is to open the session of the senate of that day.

He was once asked by a Senator to which of the two chief political parties he belonged; was he a Republican or a Democrat? His smiling reply was: “Try to find out to which party God belongs. I’m in the same party with Him.” Then in less whimsical vein, he asserted that he regarded his position as that of being a bridge between the two, helping to keep open the exchange of ideas, the willingness to cooperate, the vision of responsible citizenship. May his kind be fruitful and multiply among us!

The parties are important as families. But the nation is made up of the families. And the church universal is made up of families. Let better roads and bridges be built and maintained and imposed among them.]

--------------------------

Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, August 21, 1955.

Also in Wisconsin Rapids, September 16, 1962.