There was a story told centuries ago of a placid bucolic country with an ordered simple round of life - disrupted by a contagion of fear, an epidemic of anxiety, a famine of hope. I am not sure the peaceful countryside was ever as isolated as it appeared - even to the preacher’s daughter who told the story. For she wrote what she knew and described what she saw, and left to our imaginations what was going on in the wider world. That story was written in a time of war - the nearly thirty years of revolution and invasion of the era of Napoleon, and Jane Austen.
In her world things began to turn around when people who had initially regarded each other with distrust and suspicion, pride and prejudice, began to discover respect and trust, encouragement and support, and learned to love. That began between people, individually, in her story - but it begs to begin between peoples, nations - as well.
Seventy-five years ago there was an Episcopalian who knew his Prayer Book - who knew the phrase “free to worship him without fear” from the Song of Zechariah he’d have said every day in Morning Prayer, a song of redemption and hope. He drew on his Prayer Book at times of crisis - and when he wrote a speech - and he spoke of a world beyond hate and fear, anxiety and aggression, a world of hope and purpose, a world with four freedoms.
Freedom of speech and expression - everywhere in the world.
Freedom of worship - everywhere in the world.
Freedom from want - everywhere in the world.
Freedom from fear - everywhere in the world.
Four freedoms - not just for his own beloved country, his land of the free - but everywhere in the world.
He spoke of a vision - “the supremacy of human rights everywhere” - and asserted a power: “Our strength is our unity of purpose.”
It began simply, so imply, the in-breaking dawn of this kingdom of peace, of freedom, of justice. It began with a desperate father pleading for the life of his child, an itinerant preacher who answered his call, a woman who sought one last hope beyond the scope of her society, and a little girl who listened to a voice and got out of bed.
Darkness dispelled, anxiety relieved, hope dawned. Hearts mended. Souls healed.
Neither the women who endured 12 years of shame and isolation, nor the girl of 12 years who lay a corpse - neither was clean in their religion’s eyes. Both were unclean, contagious, in a sense unholy and so cut off from life by disease and death - and fear.
But each of them was reached - made contact with - a love stronger than death, a wholeness more contagious than disease - in the person of Jesus. He brought more than respect and trust, encouragement and support; he brought hope and love, a perfect love that casts out fear, a freedom that knows no bounds save justice, mercy, and the humility to walk with God.
Lord God Almighty, you have made all the peoples of the earth for your glory, to serve you in freedom and in peace: Give to the people of our country a zeal for justice and the strength of forbearance, that we may use our liberty in accordance with your gracious will;
Almighty God, kindle, we pray, in every heart the true love of peace, and guide with your wisdom those who take counsel for the nations of the earth, that in tranquility your dominion may increase until the earth is filled with the knowledge of your love; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
--from the Book of Common Prayer. page 256.
