As always, we gather on this day to give thanks to God Almighty for the many blessings of our lives. On this particular Sunday, the closest to the 4th of July, as is our custom, we make these particular thanks and petitions: “Lord God Almighty, in whose Name the founders of this country won liberty for themselves and for us, and lit the torch of freedom for nations then unborn: Grant that we and all the people of this land may have grace to maintain our liberties in righteousness and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”
On a day as glorious as this, it is easy to remember, and give thanks for, the big names of that revolutionary era, and we do. Harder to remember, but no less important, are the women, the lovers, the wives, those who faced financial ruin, those whose hearts were broken when young soldiers, names still unknown, were first to be slaughtered in the cause of freedom and who now lay in unmarked graves. And, we never adequately remember the slaves who never lived in freedom, but through whose toil our freedom was also forged.
In this sermon, I would like to remember one slave—Oney Judge—who lived several years near here in Philadelphia, property of George Washington. Her life has been uncovered, as the President’s House has been excavated at 6th and Market Streets.
But first, let us remember the biblical text that speaks of the source of human freedom.
We have heard in the Scriptures this morning the prophetic words of the Apostle Paul, “For freedom, Christ has set us free.” When Thomas Jefferson wrote, and Benjamin Franklin edited, and the Continental Congress ratified the words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” this is an expansion of the simple truth of Paul’s words 1800 years earlier, “For freedom, Christ has set us free.”
Freedom is a word easily used, frequently misunderstood. Freedom is not getting to do what you want, when you want to do it. The Apostle Paul said, “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence.”
That very sentiment was echoed by the distinguished 20th century jurist Learned Hand, when he wrote in The Spirit of Liberty (1944), “[Liberty] is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not the freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men [and women] recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few.”
For the Apostle Paul, freedom was release from one form of slavery that calls us into a different kind of slavery with a different master. “Through love,” Paul taught, “become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
In the biblical sense, to have freedom means you can say, “I have been ‘released.’” Freedom for the prisoner is release from jail; freedom for the slave is release from bondage; freedom for the debtor is release from debt. The Revolutionary War was a fight for the American colonies to be released from the control of King George III and England. It is a terrible mistake when we think it was a fight so Americans can do what they want to do when they want to do it. Such an attitude leads to the very self-indulgence Paul calls us to shun.
The Apostle Paul knew that freedom does not stop at release from bondage, but moves on to restoring what has been lost, and granting what was never there. If the freed prisoner has no food, he will steal again. If the slave has no work, she will fall into bondage again to those who would exploit her work.
I think Franklin Delano Roosevelt was right in the Second World War in saying human freedom requires four specific freedoms to be present. First, we must be free to speak, and free to express ourselves—and remember the freedom to express ourselves means being allowed to be openly and publicly who we are as God has made us, and not living secret, hidden lives. Second, we must be free to worship God as we wish, and free to not worship God if we choose, and for one not to oppress the other because of belief and conviction. Third, and this is where freedom truly restores, truly puts in place what is needed for freedom to survive: we must have freedom from want; a hungry people cannot be free in a world of plenty. Lastly, we must have freedom from fear; fear wielded by both the powerless and powerful suffocates freedom.
“For Freedom, Christ has set you free.” Paul knew what we too often forget. Freedom is release from indignity and humiliation of the weak by the powerful. To say positively, Freedom is God’s gift of human dignity that no person, no power or principality, no government, can ever take away.
And this brings us to Oney Judge. Her story is not a new one, but the excavation of the house that President Washington lived in while in Philadelphia has brought her life into focus as the layers of dirt have been scraped away from the very slave quarters in which she lived.
Oney Judge came to Philadelphia with George and Martha Washington in 1790. She was seamstress, playmate to children, and companion to Martha Washington. In 1796, after learning that she was to be a wedding present to Martha Washington’s eldest granddaughter, she escaped, with the help of free blacks in Philadelphia, while the Washington’s ate dinner. She was smuggled to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and lived out her days as a free woman, marrying and bearing children of her own.
In 1793, President Washington had signed the Fugitive Slave Act (in his office in Philadelphia just a few feet from Oney’s quarters) that allowed him to recapture Oney, and he tried to do so for years. Martha Washington concluded that because Oney had been treated so well, she must have been taken against her will. This was the argument President Washington used in urging officials in New England to capture and return her. But, after interviewing Oney, a federal official concluded "It appeared to me that she had not been decoyed away [by a Frenchman] as had been apprehended, but that a thirst for complete freedom which she was informed would take place on her arrival here had been her only motive for absconding."
Deep in her heart, Oney knew that “For freedom, Christ had set her free.”
Fearing her eventual capture, Oney tried to negotiate that if she returned to the Washington’s, she would be set free on their death. President Washington replied, “it would neither be politic or just to reward unfaithfulness with a premature preference [of freedom]”
I don’t recount this history to take the luster off of President Washington on this most patriotic of weekends. Simply, we who follow Jesus--who lived among the slaves, and, in an act of total servitude, gave his very life so that slaves and free might enjoy freedom in the Kingdom of God--have obligation to remember the forgotten heroes of freedom, including Oney. Jesus also taught that “God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven,” calling us to make freedom real, not ephemeral, earthly, not just spiritual, for those in bondage of any sort or condition. Our freedom in Christ, as Paul taught, allows us, to love our neighbors as ourselves. We must remember, freedom is not for self-indulgence, but for slavery to God’s transforming love.
I suppose the history of President Washington and Oney reminds us that freedom is not a human construct, but the gift from God of human dignity, a gift far more powerful than any human, or human society can honor in any one time and place. The United States of America helped bring the reality of God’s freedom in Christ into a form of political liberty that serves the secular and religious alike, and President Washington is a huge hero in those events. But his own human limits to extend freedom to those whose work made it possible for him to become the “Father of our Country” should humble us all, and especially our political leadership, that believe God’s freedom is a simple gift that somehow transforms us into Godly stewards of it.
In 1848, a newspaper reporter found Oney in New Hampshire. An old woman and now a widow, she was listed as a pauper and lived poorly. The reporter asked her if she were sorry that she left the comforts and privileges of the Washington’s home. Her reply is all the preaching this sermon needs:
“No, I am free, and have, I trust, been made a child of God by the means.”
On this patriotic day, I give thanks to God for this nation and the torch of liberty kindled here, and for the many men and women who made it possible. Today, I give thanks to God for Oney Judge and George Washingtion, knowing that in ways I can barely imagine, they both sit together at the welcome table in God’s perfect kingdom, both free, forever.