A Fourth Church Sermon by Victoria G. Curtiss

September 5, 2010 | 4:00 p.m.

Prepare for Faithfulness

Victoria G. Curtiss
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Luke 14:25-33

This summer, my husband and I each read thick books about Abraham Lincoln and found ourselves drawn anew to the profound depth of President Lincoln’s character. We visited the Lincoln Museum in Springfield and were impressed again by his integrity, his humility, his generosity of spirit, his courage and persistence, and his faith in God.

The Lincoln Museum has a moving exhibit displaying, in a four-minute video, the numerous battles fought during the Civil War and the number of people killed—over 1 million by war’s end. From that exhibit, one walks through a portrait gallery of photographs of Abraham Lincoln from the beginning of his term as president until his death. He aged considerably in those four and a half years as he bore the terrible weight of the Civil War. One can actually touch a bronze casting done of his face at the beginning of his presidency and then another done just a month before he died. The sculptor who did the final casting said, “This is the face of a death mask.” And indeed, his cheeks had become hollowed, his forehead deeply etched. He himself had said, “With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.”

All this came to mind when I read the scripture for today: “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it?”

Abraham Lincoln did not know in advance the full cost the presidency would take on his life and that of his family, let alone the nation’s, when he first became the president-elect. But he had some idea. Though he had campaigned hard for the presidency and urged his allies to work his campaign trail, too, upon learning that he had won the election, he took four days before he accepted.

Lincoln once remarked, “’Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” A central dimension of Lincoln’s life was living with integrity. To live with integrity requires preparing oneself for the cost of remaining true to oneself.

A number of Lincoln’s comments reflect how important it was to him to remain true to one’s values. Here is a sample:

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.

I do the very best I know how—the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.
The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.

I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end . . . I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.

These comments also reveal that Abraham Lincoln knew one pays a price for that integrity. The Confederate states that seceded from the Union did so before he took office, in the months immediately after his election. That was the context when the president-elect boarded the train in Springfield to embark on his journey to Washington, D.C. At the train station, the crowd that had come to say their good-byes persistently requested that he speak. His spontaneous remarks were spoken with much emotion: “My friends, no one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything. I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington.” Biographer Ronald White wrote, “These words were not boastful. They were offered with a sense of an appointment with destiny.”
Lincoln then said to the crowd, “Without the assistance of that Divine Being, who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in him, who can go with me, and remain with you and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To his care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me” (Ronald C. White Jr., A. Lincoln, pp. 365–366).

Lincoln’s faith in God’s providence, his trust that God’s hand was at work, no doubt sustained him through four years of intense ridicule and even hatred from many. Now we revere Lincoln as one of our nation’s greatest heroes, but it wasn’t always so. Lincoln’s leadership to save the Union and abolish slavery was threatening to many. Anti-Lincoln sentiments were high while he was president; the Springfield Museum has a room full of satirical cartoons that derided him. His assassination was at the hands of one who abhorred him, who was pushed to kill him by comments Lincoln made right, after the Civil War ended, about granting the right to vote to blacks.

Jesus’ teaching seems harsh when he says, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” What does this mean? I think Lincoln’s life helps us understand it. Just as Lincoln remained true to what he believed he was called to do, even at the cost of his own life, so we are called to be obedient to what God calls us to be and do, even at risk of losing what we most dearly cherish. Jesus knew well what may pull us away from that obedience. It could be the desires of our family or our wanting to keep peace in the house and not have tension with our relatives. It could be our desire to be liked and respected. It could be our love of possessions. It could be wanting to preserve our life on earth. Jesus teaches that we should take all this into account before we seek to be his disciple. The cost for our faithfulness may be high. We should not be surprised and thrown by temptations that could pull us away, but rather should prepare ourselves to resist them.

One of my mentors is Gordon Cosby, the founding pastor of the Church of the Saviour in Washington, D.C. Cosby preached, “Money is not important. Prestige is not important. What is important is to follow God’s call for your life and to be faithful in it. Exhaustion comes from being on the fence, with one foot in the kingdom and the other in the world. You need to put both your feet on the same side of the fence. Throw caution to the wind” (“Thank You, Academy of Hope,” The Disaspora, Summer 2010).

Unlike Lincoln or Jesus, we are unlikely to lose our lives because of our obedience to God’s call to us. But like both of them, every day we are called to be true to God’s leading in our lives. Just as Lincoln said of himself, “I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day,” so may we, every day, turn to God for guidance and strength and live with as much integrity as we can, prepared to pay the price.