“FOUR SCORE and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
 
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
 
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate––we cannot consecrate––we cannot hallow––this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
 
Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863
 
LITTLE DID I REALIZE — Thursday night as I looked upward toward the monumental face of Abraham Lincoln that I would be repeating this morning the words of his famous Gettysburg Address, which came to me at that time. I was more than 500 miles from where we stand now. I was walking along one of the streets of Louisville, KY. Suddenly, we came upon it — there it was, this monumental statue of Abraham Lincoln.
 
The spotlight was thrown on this face –– black with the tarnish of time, as black as those people who he unchained, to whom he gave a new birth of freedom. Mysteriously, the feature of this statue depicted a man whose life was filled with love –– love for humanity, for nation, love for God. It was like a magnet –– pulling you upward until you found yourself present, with this man of history. 
 
And there the words of history spoke softly to your listening ears: “Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
 
Tenderly I placed these words back into my subconscious where they had come from in this moment of encounter — I walked quietly onward towards the Sheraton Hotel where I was staying.
 
I had planned this morning to preach on the subject “The Unbalanced Diet” to point out the unbalance of our physical–spiritual life. The sermon died with the tragic death of our President at 1:00 PM Friday. 
 
At the time, I was in a car driving back from Louisville. I did not hear the news immediately. It was not until we stopped in St. Louis at 1:35 (more than an hour after he was shot) that I learned the tragic news. It was in the Men’s Room of the Ramada Inn, an employee, dressed in work clothes with tears in his eyes at the death of our President. It was a heavy blow to me as it was to everyone I came in contact with. The President of the United States of America was dead. 
 
The President was killed by a man whose life was filled with hate. He did not hate the President or America; he hated himself. To say that he was a lover of Russia and the Communists and for this reason he killed, our president — are gullible and senseless words.
 
He did not love Russia.
 
How could he? 
 
He did not love himself.
 
His unstable mind may have favored Communist thinking, but he loved no one; for you cannot love one person and hate another — anymore than you love God and hate humanity.
 
Listening on our radio from St. Louis to Kansas City, we heard reporters from all over the world. While many of our stations in the early hours following his death were still playing “Rock-N-Roll” Europe was listening to funeral music. Their networks announced the news and immediately and switched from their regular program. Willy Brandt in West Berlin called upon his people to place a lighted candle in every window. The reporter from Moscow spoke these words: “A general condolence has been expressed by the Russian people.” 
 
All across the world, people were shocked at the word of the President’s death. Here in America, a Nation Wept. It still is weeping. Theaters which closed bear no shame — no sign of weakness, but the love that every American must-have for their President. 
 
In such a moment the walls — which I believe are necessary in holding our country, together –– the walls which separate one political party from another come down. People from the north and south and east and west forget their political differences and weep the tears of suffering for their leader who is dead. 
 
Why? — came the voice from Rome. Why? — came the voice from London England, Paris France, Bonn Germany, Moscow Russia, Ontario Canada, Sidney Australian, Tokyo Japan. 
 
Why? Came the voices from every home in a nation that is still weeping. Why? There is but one answer: for the freedom of humankind. This is why Lincoln was assassinated –– and Garfield and McKinley –– and John F. Kennedy.
 
These men who served as our Presidents dedicated their lives to the freedom and dignity and respect that man should have and must have for one another. They did not die in vain unless we, who live on allow America to be destroyed and our Freedom taken from us.
 
And this goes much deeper than any animosity we have towards those countries we call our enemies. You do not preserve freedom through hate. You do not create freedom out of coercion. 
 
The preservation of the world depends upon our accepting one another despite these differences or ideological thinking. It is this balance of power that has thus far preserved America –– the wall of differences between one party and another. 
 
In a very real sense, the death of our President should make us re-think our own part in the political structure of our nation. It should make us read and re-read American History until every stream, and avenue, is discovered anew. It should keep us abreast of this land, causing us to give something instead of always wanting something.
 
We moan of taxation — our minds are burdened with grievances and complaints; and yet did you ever stop, to think that this is a part of your freedom. Our blessings in this land are so great that all we have time for is to complain; we have no time to go down on our knees and thank God for America.
 
0 beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties,
Above the fruited plain!
 
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.
 
The continuation and preservation of our land are no longer dependent upon the 35th President of the United States, who gave his life for that cause. It falls upon our 36th President, upon our willingness to work with him and pray for and love him. Symbolically speaking this is a new birth of freedom, which has arisen out of this tragic event.
 
Its survival will depend upon the wholeness of its creation: and its wholeness in turn depends upon God. Who in the first instant gave to us this new birth of freedom. Where then shall we go from here as Americans, as Christians? 
 
There is only one place we can go — or one place from where we can start. We must start with prayer. First, a prayer of sorrow for our President who lost his life for this freedom. Second, a prayer for our new President.
 
Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
 
Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day. 
 
“Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he dies, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.”  Do you believe this? “.... Yes, Lord, I believe.”
 
And in a little while he said to her again; “Did I not tell you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?”
 
And he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.”
 
The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with bandages, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
 
This is what Jesus is saying to our deceased President, to our New President — even to you and to me. 
 
“Unbind him, and let him go!” 
 
This is your new birth of freedom — to go now; go stripped of that which has bound you unto death —- go in His name and for His sake.
 
In closing might there be a moment of silent prayer. There may be those who would prefer to come and kneel at the rail here this morning. If you feel so compelled — do so. Come quickly and go quickly so that others may come too.
 
Breathe on me, Breath of God, 
fill me with life anew, 
that I may love the way you love, 
and do what you would do. 
 
For all the saints who from labors rest,
Who Thee by faith before the world confessed,
Thy Name, O Jesus be forever blest.
Alleluia, Alleluia! 
 
 
 
 
 
Sermon delivered at Valley View Methodist Church in Overland Park, Kansas, on November 24, 1963.

 
THOUGHTS by Edna K. Starbuck
 
They come to my mind at night mostly
when I want to rest or sleep
Or – just to be still.
They come sure as day.
Like footsteps in the dark.
Quiet and far away at first.
Then closer and heavier,
Almost staring, it seems, 
Into – my mind's eye.
Not giving me any peace
Until I get up to let them out.
Then with pen and paper
I sit down and set them free.
 
 
THIS POEM, written by my wife, exemplifies her poetic talent and her ability to engage with the deeper meaning of life. We have been married for nearly twenty years, and no expectations or strings have been attached through the years. She has always set me free (much more than I have set her free) to do what God intended me to do with my life. And to be as creative as she is, with the thoughts she puts down on paper, with the movements of her hand and the aid of a pen.
 
Such a gift of freedom comes only through one’s absolute commitment to Jesus Christ, who can set us free. As a youth stated at our Texas Annual Conference a few days ago: “Once we make this unconditional commitment, we are ‘set free’ to love others no matter who they are or what they look like.”
 
It is 5:57 AM, Thursday morning, June 6th. I have just returned to my motel room with a cup of hot coffee and the tragic news of the death of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. The morning before, I woke to find my radio and, later, television telling of his hospitalization following the blast of shots, which wounded five other people at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. I thought again of the lyrics of a Rodgers & Hammerstein song. A song I have quoted from on several occasions. The words seem so appropriate that I offer them to you, your children, and mine –– once again.
 
You've Got to Be Carefully Taught
South Pacific – Rodgers & Hammerstein
 
You've got to be taught to hate and fear,
You've got to be taught from year to year,
It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.
 
You've got to be taught to be afraid of people
Whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a different shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.
 
You've got to be taught before it's too late
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate
You've got to be carefully taught.
 
The same hatred for the Jewish people by Robert F. Kennedy's assassin is possessed by many people in this land, this community, and churches for people of another race. Most of the time, its possession is on an unconscious level, but every so often, something is said, or some action is taken, and all that pus–flowing ugliness and hatred comes to the surface and filters the air with its fear, and poison, which intoxicates –– the best of us.
 
I stood in this pulpit a stranger in your midst a year ago. My sermon title was You Are Accepted. As I talked about your acceptance and mine and how it comes about through God's grace, I shared the following words of theologian Paul Tillich with you.
 
“In the light of this grace we perceive the power of in our relation to others and to ourselves. We experience the grace of being able to look frankly into the eyes of another, the miraculous grace of reunion of life with life. We experience the grace of understanding each other's words. We understand not merely the literal meaning of the words, but also, even when they are harsh or angry. For even then there is a longing to break through the walls of separation.
 
We experience the grace of being able to accept the life of another, even if it be hostile and harmful to us, for, through grace, we know that it belongs to the same Ground (the same God) to which we belong and by which we have been accepted. We experience the grace which is able to overcome the tragic separation of the sexes, of the generations, of the nations, of the races, and even the utter strangeness between man and nature. Sometimes grace appears in all these separations to reunite us with those to whom we belong. For life belongs to life.” – Paul Tillich
 
Do you remember the death of Dr. Tom Dooley, the great American Missionary in Laos?
 
In his book The Night They Burned the Mountain, he tells of the personal battle he fought against cancer while healing the sick in the jungles of Asia.
 
At first, Tom Dooley was unwilling to be accepted by his Creator even though he ministered to the people of Laos to set them free. In this instance, his unwillingness to accept his Creator was his unwillingness to face the reality of his disease. Still, such acceptance was to come to this great person, and he was to write; 
 
“From my hospital bed in New York with the same white light of revelation I had known once several years before, I saw what I must do. After Communion that morning, Tuesday, the first of September, my God, and my dream commanded me.
 
I must, into the burnt soil of my personal mountain of sadness. plant the new seedlings of my life –– I must continue to live. I must cultivate my fields of food, to feed those who cannot feed themselves.
 
The concept came to me as strongly and as powerfully as if a peal of bronze bells proclaimed it. There was no more self-sadness, no darkness deep inside; no gritty annoyance at anyone or anything. No anger at God for my cancer, no hostility to anyone. I was out of the fog of confusion standing under the clear light of duty. The jagged, ugly cancer scar went no deeper than my flesh. There was no cancer in my spirit. The Lord saw to that. I would keep my appetite for fruitful activity and for a high quality of life. 
 
Whatever time was left, whether it was year or a decade, would be more than just a duration. I would continue to help the clots and clusters of withered and wretched in Asia to the utmost of my ability. The words of Camus rang through, “ln the midst of winter I suddenly found that there was in me an invincible summer.”
 
You are accepted! No strings attached. In giving your life to God you are set free. The children of Tom Dooley's favorite Texas family wrote him from Ft. Worth, having composed new words to the tune “Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley.”
 
Lift up your heart, Tom Dooley,
Your work will never die.
You taught us to love our neighbor
And not just to pass him by.
 
We'll pray for you, Tom Dooley,
Your cure and your patients, too.
We’ll send in our dimes and dollars
For work that's left to do
 
Lift up your head, Tom Dooley,
Life up your head, don't cry.
Lift up your head, Tom Dooley,
Cause you ain't a-goin to die.
 
Even though his physical life was taken, Tom Dooley never died, and neither did John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, or all the others who have given themselves for freedom's sake. So much more significant than you and me, so far ahead of us in our thinking than we can and must but follow them. No strings attached.
 
It is a new day shared by all faiths and all denominations, by all who will participate in it and not be afraid of losing their own life. For if they lose it for His sake, they shall find it.
 
This was my first annual conference of Methodism in the state of Texas.  I was deeply impressed by the growth and creativity that went on in Houston this past week.
 
As the Pharisees would have denied the woman communion with Jesus, we often refuse those whom we consider less righteous than ourselves a fellowship in the Church of Jesus Christ.
 
“Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon; do you see this woman? I came into your home, and you gave me no water for my feet, but she has washed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You did not welcome me with a kiss, but she has not stopped kissing my feet since I came. You provided no oil for my head, but she has covered my feet with perfume. I tell you, then, the great love she has shown proves that her many sins have been forgiven.”
 
I dream that we, too, shall be forgiven for all our sins with no strings attached. That is, only the string of love that we might love others. I have a dream that the good in this church, in this nation, in this world will overcome the evil, be it the violence of an assassin’s bullet or the verbal expression of utter hate and hostility.
 
No wonder one great martyr was able to write, “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low. The rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountains of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to work together, pray together, and struggle together...This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning, 'Let freedom ring.' 
 
So, let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. But not only that. Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi, from every mountainside; then we allow freedom to ring when we let it ring from every city and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last, Free at last, Great God a-mighty, We are free at last.'” 
 
—Martin Luther King Jr., I Have a Dream
 
 
Amen
 
 
 
Sermon delivered at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Beaumont, Texas, on June 9, 1968 – three days after the death of Senator Robert Francis Kennedy.