Sunday, September 4, 2022

Proper 18

Jeremiah 18:1-11; Psalm 139:1-5,12-17; Philemon 1-21; Luke 14:25-33

The Rev. Clint Brown

Theme: Learning to doubt ourselves

After more than three months of debate and compromise, the moment had finally arrived to sign the piece of parchment. After all their labors, it was the delegates’ fervent hope that they had arrived at a system that would establish a “more perfect union” than that of the Articles of Confederation. On the morning of Monday, September 17, 1787, the last day of the Constitutional Convention, the engrossed Constitution having been read aloud one last time, Benjamin Franklin rose with a speech in his hand that he had worked on all weekend. In it he hoped to distill the work of the whole proceedings and to bring it over the finish line. Addressing first the chair and being recognized by General Washington, the President of the Convention, he handed his speech to his fellow Pennsylvanian James Wilson to read on his behalf. “Mr. President,” it begins:

I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them: For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. Most men indeed as well as most sects in Religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that whereever others differ from them it is so far error. Steele, a Protestant in a Dedication tells the Pope, that the only difference between our Churches in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrines is, the Church of Rome is infallible and the Church of England is never in the wrong. But though many private persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility as of that of their sect, few express it so naturally as a certain french lady, who in a dispute with her sister, said "I don't know how it happens, Sister, but I meet with no body but myself, that's always in the right" -- Il n'y a que moi qui a toujours raison.

In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us… [and] I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain may be able to make a better Constitution. For when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an Assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the Builders of Babel; and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats. Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best. The opinions I have had of its errors, I sacrifice to the public good…

On the whole, Sir, I cannot help expressing a wish that every member of the Convention who may still have objections to it, would with me, on this occasion doubt a little of his own infallibility-- and to make manifest our unanimity, put his name to this instrument."[1]

As we continue to navigate a time of deep division in our nation, I find myself thinking more and more of these words of Dr. Franklin. To me they speak with a force equal to Scripture of the two essential qualities of a free people: honesty and humility. In a system such as ours, which sees value in the coming together of many passions and views, we can and must “doubt a little of [our] own infallibility” if we are to reap any of its advantages. Intractability, local interests,  mistrust – these have always been the easier options, but the promise of the moment, the promise of America, thought Franklin, was the realization of that ideal that had thus far eluded humanity and that now stood its best chance of success: that the strongest and most enduring community is the one forged more from difference than from sameness. And the ongoing reinvention necessary of such a people is well-captured in today’s image from the prophet Jeremiah. We are all like clay in God’s hands, clay which has the potential to be reworked a thousand times. Jeremiah’s mission was all towards convincing the people that whatever judgement might be hanging over them, it was not inevitable. They could reform. Crisis could be averted. Always open to us is the possibility of being remade. But if we are too sure of ourselves, if we grow too inflexible and hardened in our opinions, if we choose, instead, hearts of stone, we will be broken, shattering into a thousand pieces. Christ tells us to prefer nothing to God, to renounce whatever might take first place to God and, to my mind, that means chiefly ourselves. Our salvation consists only in throwing ourselves constantly back into the hands of the potter, allowing ourselves to be remade, forever learning to doubt ourselves.

[1] Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, vol. 2 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1911), 641-43.