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[music] Repairing the crack in the Liberty Bell, a sermon by Dr. Bruce W. Fieldman. [music] Let us give reverent attention to the reading of God's Word,

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as it is recorded on the pages of the Old Testament in the book of Leviticus at the 25th chapter and the 10th verse, and in the New Testament in the 2nd epistle of Peter, the 2nd chapter beginning at verse number 17. Let us be upstanding for the reading of the Word of God. From Leviticus 25, the words which appear upon the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,

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"Proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all the inhabitants thereof." And then these words from the 2nd epistle of Peter, "These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the nether gloom of darkness has been reserved. For, uttering loud boasts of folly, they entice with licentious passions of the flesh men who have barely escaped from those who live in our.

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They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a man, to that he is enslaved. For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first.

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For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness, than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. It has happened to them according to the true proverb, "The dog turns back to his own vomit, and the sow is washed only to wallow in the mire."

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May God bless to us this reading from his word. You may be seated. Let us pray. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

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Amen. We live in a very hyper-moralistic age. We live in a time when it is common to say how bad things are. How bad things are with our society.

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How bad things are with the institutions of our time. How bad things are with the Church. To a certain degree at least, history does repeat itself. And this being so, we can note now that we are once again in the cycle of what has been called "cultural masochism."

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It is as if some people have discovered for the first time that there are poor people in America. It is as if some people have discovered for the first time that there are people in this country who are discriminated against because of their race, or their creed, or their national origin. It is as if for the first time some people have discovered that there are people in high office who lie and steal and cheat.

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Some speak as if this is all a great shock. But to Christians it should not come as a surprise. To those who are seeking to grow into the likeness of Christ, and who are trying to have the mind of Christ formed in them, to discover the evil of men, to see the perfidy, the iniquity, and the treason against truth,

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which is typical of so many, that should not come, to any Christian at least, as any great surprise. Still, having said that, one must also say that the events of the last week within our country have left us all, Christian and non-Christian, sensitive or insensitive, with a deep sense of shock. The Vice President of the United States has resigned.

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He has been convicted of income tax evasion, and honorable men in the Justice Department of the United States of America have brought against him a list of charges which, even if only a small portion of them are true, brand him forever as contemptible in his abuse and misuse of the confidence and trust of the people of this country. If you love America, you cannot contemplate this without hurt.

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And if you love God, you cannot contemplate this without thinking deeply on the sobering truth, that as we have sown, so now we are reaping. And the harvest is tares and weeds, and fit only to be cast into the fire. The Liberty Bell is cracked again, and the wound is very deep.

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About two centuries ago, a Frenchman named Alexis de Tocqueville traveled across America and kept a journal of his journeys. The pages he wrote have become one of the most interesting historical documents of that time. For they give a picture of America at the time of its birth, written by an outsider,

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and there is an objectivity and an enthusiasm and freedom about them which makes them much to be believed. At one point in one of his journals, de Tocqueville wrote these words, "I understand the greatness and the genius of America. America is great because America is good.

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When America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great." America, my brothers and sisters, has ceased to be good. And Vice President Agnew is a symbol of that. Make no mistake, I do not attempt this morning to brand every American with the sins of this one man.

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But I say to you in sorrow, but with the utmost seriousness, that what he has done is so symptomatic of the sickness of our time. He has sacrificed principle for dollars. He has prostituted truth for dollars.

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He has debased and dishonored his responsibility for dollars. He has bowed down before a God made of silver and currency and taken to himself the power that God gives. And in this, he represents most of our people.

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We have a doctrine of extenuating circumstances, which we quite frequently apply to instances of crime which occur within the ghetto. We say that the poor, the ignorant, those who grow up in those deprived situations, should be excused to a certain degree for the crimes they commit

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because of the negative effect which their environment has had upon them. I would submit to you this morning that we perhaps should apply the doctrine of extenuating circumstances not only to the ghetto, but to every other segment of our society and perhaps most particularly to those who are most affluent.

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For you see, we have a society today in which we teach people to lie and to steal and to cheat, to advertise falsely, to prostitute truth in order to gain the dollar. Peter Howard, a very successful young American businessman, told his counselor and had no objection to the words being quoted,

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"Success was my aim. I sought it through power. I sought it through money. Most men like myself believe that our first duty to ourselves, our families, and our nation was to get ourselves along in the world. And I, for one, never stopped to think what sort of nation would be produced

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by millions of individuals, all selfishly elbowing, maneuvering, and tearing each other's throats out to obtain for themselves a larger piece of the national pie." Now, Spiro Agnew could have written those words, and so could a whole host of other men. The cadets in our service academies who have cheated on their examinations could have written those words.

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The college students who go out and buy term papers that are already written and completed for them could have written those words. The young business executive who learns how to carry out a kickback or how to blat some false advertising over the television screen and into your living room,

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he could have written those words. Anyone who prostitutes truth in order to protect his own financial position, anyone who debases responsibility and dishonors those privileged leaderships given to him in society in order to fatten his own wallet, to build his own security,

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anyone so living in this time could have written those words. It makes no difference whether the crime is committed in the ghetto or in the chambers of the White House in Washington, D.C. A crime is a crime.

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And I will confess to you that I do not have sufficient mental capacity to understand Governor Ronald Reagan when he says that those involved in things like Watergate are not criminals, but have only done something illegal.

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If you are wearing a black leather jacket and driving a '62 Chevy and you steal at the point of a knife, you are a criminal and are to be called a criminal. And if you are wearing a pinstripe suit, standing in alligator shoes

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and riding in the back of a '74 Cadillac limousine and stealing while you speak of law and order to the citizens of this country, you are a thief and are to be called a thief. The plain fact of the matter is that we tend to excuse those

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in such high places for their criminality, at least in part on the grounds that politics has ruined them. Politics is amoral. Politics in itself is neither decent nor indecent. Politics is no better than the men and the women who go into it.

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When corrupt men enter politics, corruption will result. And we have fashioned a society in which we no longer pit men against nature. We no longer battle wind and snow and storm. Oh no. We have created a society in which men battle men.

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The contest is to outdo all those about you, to somehow trick your superior who is already planning that which will bring you down, to gather about you that money and the power which goes with it, which will enable you to stand while your colleagues and friends,

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or those you don't even know, go down. Well, for hundreds of years a great tree stood in Colorado, a tree that towered above all other trees and was known for many miles around, a tree that had stood there when Columbus first set foot on the shores of San Salvador.

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Across the years that tree has been struck by lightning no less than 14 times. It has endured storm and rain and sleet and mountain torrent. But three weeks ago that tree fell. And it fell because its heart had been eaten out by beetles.

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The fibers of its strength had been destroyed from the inside. Spiro Agnew is just another beetle. And his prominence is only in the fact that he was caught, and it was noted because he is notable.

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But there are many beetles, and they're eating at the heart of this country. I say it again, the Liberty Bell is cracked, and the wound is deep. Now there are those who would say that I should not be talking about this in the pulpit this morning.

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The church should not involve itself in political affairs and in social questions. We should limit ourselves to the proclamation of the gospel. Even our government is now saying that to us. Are you aware of the fact that the Internal Revenue Service now has the legal authority

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to take away the tax exemption of any church which makes any kind of political pronouncement or enters into any significant social involvement whatever? Did you know that the Glendale Presbyterian Church could lose its tax-exempt status because we ask you sometimes to write a letter to your congressman?

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Or do such an innocuous thing as becoming involved in the political process on one side of a question or another? No one ever proposed this kind of legislation when the church stood against slavery. No one ever proposed this kind of legislation when the church stood for the regulation of gambling. No one ever proposed this kind of legislation when the church hit out against the prostitution of some people's civil rights in America.

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But in an era when the government becomes more powerful, and when the corruption of almost every man reaches in to the most solemn offices of the land, in such a time as that, we are warned, "You will be silent, or it will cost you." I look back over the history of the Presbyterian Church in America.

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I think of how Horace Walpole stood up before the Parliament of Great Britain during the American Revolution and said, "Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson." I think of how over 50% of the soldiers who fought under George Washington were Presbyterians. I remember the Battle of Springfield, in which a company all made up of Presbyterians,

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and there were many companies in the Continental Army so made up with their pastors as their captains and their elders as their officers. At the Battle of Springfield, our revolutionary troops ran out of paper wadding for their weapons, and so that Presbyterian minister ran into his church and brought out armloads of hymn books. Most of the hymns being written by Isaac Watts,

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and tearing the hymn books into shreds so that they could stick them into their rifle barrels, he yelled to his troops, "Give 'em Watts, boys, give 'em Watts." I remember what George Washington said when he was asked what he would do if he had to retreat, and he replied, "I would retreat to some mountain stronghold, and there, with an army of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, I would fight on forever."

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I remember how the only minister to sign the Declaration of Independence was a Presbyterian, and how nine of the other men who signed that document were students of his, graduates of a university we had begun in the East, a university called Princeton. And I remember how the great historian Ranke, looking over the early history of the United States, said,

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"To all intents and purposes, the practical founder of America was John Calvin." I look at that flag, and if the red in it is to symbolize blood, then part of that blood was Presbyterian Christian blood. And if the blue in that flag stands for fidelity, then part of the faithfulness there was Presbyterian Christian fidelity. And if the white in that flag is purity, then part of the purity of service that is there is Presbyterian Christian purity.

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And I will not, in the light of that history, have anyone say to me or to the church of which I am a part, "You will keep silence. We have got the right to speak." "And no matter what it costs, we will speak." But more shocking still, there are even Presbyterians in our time,

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who say that the church is not to challenge the social diseases and the political perversions of this day, but to stick to the gospel. I get a letter from two who sign themselves as patriotic Presbyterians, and who tell me that to say anything about the society from the pulpit that is not positive is unpatriotic and un-Presbyterian.

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I brand them fools. No more deserving of respect than that man in New York City, who when asked this week what he thought about the resignation of the Vice President of the United States, replied, "Who the hell cares about Spiro Agnew, the Met's one?"

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Anyone who would write such a letter is not only ignorant of the history of their country, and not only ignorant of the history of their faith, but they are ignorant too of the word of God. They dishonor both the flag and the cross. They bow down before neither God nor Caesar.

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They have no vision for America, and they have no respect for the word. For what does the word of God say? In Exodus it says, "Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, and thou shalt not covet." In Isaiah it says, "Wash you, make yourself clean, and remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes."

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Again in Isaiah it says, "We are to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and we are to open the prison to those who are bound." And Jeremiah says, "Thus says the Lord, 'Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed, and do no wrong or violence to anyone.'"

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And Hosea says, "The Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of this land. There is no faithfulness or kindness and no knowledge of God in the land. They are swearing and lying and killing and stealing and committering adultery, and they murder." And Amos says, "Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."

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And Jesus says in Matthew, "I was hungry, and you gave me no food. I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink. I was a stranger, and you did not welcome me. I was naked, and you did not clothe me.

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I was sick and in prison, and you did not visit me. Inasmuch as you have not done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have not done it unto me." Christ, that we are to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, that is where we are living, and in Judea, that is in all of the land, and in Samaria, that is in the adjacent lands,

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and into the uttermost parts of the earth. This is the field of our service. And Paul ringingly announces in 1 Corinthians that he who is called to stand with the Lord, though he be a slave, yet in that standing he becomes a free man.

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How can one know the testimony of this book and not speak in the name of God to this time? When Woodrow Wilson addressed the American people for the last time before his death, this man, the son of a Presbyterian minister and himself a Presbyterian elder, said these words, "The sum of the whole matter is this, that our civilization cannot survive materially unless it is redeemed spiritually.

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It can be saved only by becoming permeated with the spirit of Jesus Christ, and being made free and happy by the practices which spring out of that spirit. Here is the final challenge to the Church, to our political organizations, to everyone who fears God or loves his country.

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Shall we not earnestly cooperate in bringing in this new day?" How can anyone who calls himself Christian or American turn away from that challenge? Wilson, you see, understood the Church to be the only institution in our society which puts God first. The Church has never said, "America, right or wrong."

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The Church has always said, "America, right, and where America is wrong, let that wrong be corrected." And when I stand in the Pentagon and read a banner which states, "In a democracy, religion is necessary to the success of national effort," I want to tear it down and cry, "Blasphemy!

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God does not exist to serve America. America exists to serve God." And if a banner is there to fly, let it read, "In a democracy, let Christians measure every national effort by the word and the will of God." Woodrow Wilson, you see, understood that the Church is the place and one of the only places,

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if not indeed the only place in the society today where the voice of the individual can still be heard. Oh, you still have your vote, but you cannot turn back the clock. You cannot make America smaller. It grows larger. Your vote, though still important, becomes progressively less important.

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And you don't have the opportunity frequently to say where anyone can hear you what is really on your mind. But in this Church, in the congregational meeting which will take place in this very room in a few hours, everyone, rich or poor, male or female, old or young, ignorant or educated, an officer of this Church or never an officer of this Church,

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will have the opportunity to say what he or she wants to say and be heard in the saying of it. A few years ago, some of our young people wanted to present a program in opposition to our involvement in Vietnam, and I gave them the opportunity to do so. And some people came to me and said they should not have been allowed to do that.

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And my response was then what it would be today. As a Christian, I could never forbid them to do that within the Church. And you have no right to make such a suggestion. You may come and you may ask to put on a program supporting our involvement in Vietnam,

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and you will have the same right and the same privilege that they do. But do not ask me to silence anyone. Ask to speak and you will be heard, but you have no right to take the privilege of speech from any other,

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not within the councils of the Church of Christ. And Woodrow Wilson understood the Church to be the place where the personal existence of a man is most demonstrated. Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, talks of how real identity comes at the moment

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when a man stands before God and without the assistance of any other, says to God, "Yes or no?" Takes his stand and in the taking of his stand runs his flag up the mast and determines that he will live for it or he will die for it, but he will not take it down.

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That is the kind of identity which the Church is supposed to demand. And when Woodrow Wilson called the Church to confront America with those things, the preeminence of God, the voice of the individual, and the call to personal identity, well, maybe then the Church could have done it and have been heard.

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But I am not sure that that is so today. I am not sure that even the Church can heal the crack in Liberty's Bell. For you see, the Church has become like the rest of our society. We too bow before a God made of silver and currency.

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Do you know why it is when you go to take an oath that you raise your right hand? It is because in ancient days slaves were branded on their right palm and slaves were not permitted to take an oath. And when you raised your hand you were showing that you had the right to take the oath which you were about to take.

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Well, when most Christians raise their hands today, they don't look any different from Spiro Agnes. They are just as well manicured and they are just as green. For I must grovel in this pulpit for the financial support of our people. And the Church goes simpering on its knees when any individual comes and says,

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"If you do not do what I want to do, then I will take my pledge or my tithe and go elsewhere." The Church gets down and prostitutes its privileges and its principles when someone announces that it will be as I want it to be or I will take my dollars and give them somewhere else.

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And the Church today makes its decisions on the same basis that Mr. Agnew made his. What's going to be the best for the bank book? I sat this last week and listened to the steps that are being taken to balance the budget of our Church in this year. Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of my candidating sermon in this pulpit.

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And as I sat and listened to the decisions made in that room, including the cancellation of every single program for the remaining of the year, the slicing of all mission allocations by one-third, the release of young men who are giving sacrificially of their service to children within this Church and outside of it,

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I felt as if the very heart was being cut out of five years of my life. I found this Church on its knees with but one goal, to balance its budget. It made no difference how unbalanced the program became. But we must end the year in the black.

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So the flag of principle comes down before a God colored silver and green. France has her lily and England has her rose. Ireland has her shamrock, as everybody knows. Scotland has her thistle on every downy hill.

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But the emblem of America is the one dollar bill. And as long as the Church will cut, cripple, denude, break its promises, its programs, its commitments, limit its sacrifice, in order to balance its books, then we are no different from those in society who will lay aside any responsibility or any principle if the dollars offered are enough.

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So I don't know if the Church can say anything to America today or not. I was reminded of a little girl who has no nerve endings, no tactile sense. And at first I thought to myself, "Well, that would be very nice. You'd never get sunburned. You'd never feel the freeze of the cold." But of course I was completely wrong.

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You would be horribly sunburned just never knowing that you were burning. And you could freeze to death without ever feeling it was cold. Well, there are Americans and Christians, I am afraid, who have lost all their feeling. Peter wrote of them when he said, "They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption.

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For whatever overcomes a man, to that he is enslaved." And there are many who have not yet recognized that they are chained. If within us we find nothing over us, we will soon surrender to everything that is around us. And I will have to say to a young seminarian who said to me with deep earnestness last Tuesday, "Bruce, has the Church become so much like the world that it can no longer confront it?"

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I will have to say to him, "That is true." We have the Gospel, and only the Gospel can save America. But I don't know whether we have enough commitment to take the Gospel to America like it must be taken. A few weeks ago, a teacher of the fourth grade in Minnesota was instructing her children about the Declaration of Independence.

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To illustrate her teaching, she brought in a facsimile of the Declaration. It looked like the original, but was of course only a copy. And as she taught, she passed the document around the room, and she watched it moving from student to student to student. Until at last, a little boy sitting in the back of the room took the document and did not pass it on.

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Instead, he began to read it, and he read it all. She did not tell him to pass it on. She wanted him to read it all. But even she was surprised when, after he had finished reading it, he put it on his desk, took out his pencil, and wrote his name with the others who had signed it. That's what we have to do. But beside our names, we will have to write also, "Disciple of Jesus Christ."

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And we will have to bring ourselves to the place where we will say what John Witherspoon, our Presbyterian ancestor, said when he wrote his name on the Declaration of Independence. Addressing all those there assembled, he said, "For my own part, of property I have some, of reputation more. That reputation is staked, and that property is pledged on the issue of this contest. And although these gray hairs must soon descend into the grave, I would infinitely rather that they descend thither by the hand of the executioner than desert at this crisis the sacred cause of my country."

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Nothing we can offer America is more important than the Gospel. But we cannot offer to America a Gospel which we ourselves do not believe. The Scriptures say, "If my people will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven. Then I will forgive their sin, and then and only then will I heal their land." So, O God, may it be.

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[Pause] God called us, Lord, to proclaim liberty throughout the land. Make us free enough to ring the bell of liberty in honor and in truth. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]