Rev. Joseph Boyd

Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address in a hotel he was staying in, right outside the famous battle field. He had been thinking about what he should say as he rode the train from Washington D.C. – at a time when the nation was just beginning the process of Reconstruction after the bloodiest war ever seen on U.S. soil. Lincoln was tired – his leadership had called on every last one of his reserves, and he decided it best to keep his speech short. A well-known minister at the time was invited to speak before President Lincoln addressed the crowd. The minister gave a one hour speech – a speech no one remembers. Lincoln spoke for 2 1/2 minutes. Lincoln was a well-regarded statesman, but he and others knew it usually took his voice about 10 minutes to reach an appropriate pitch that was pleasant to hear. This address did not give him time to warm up or find his stride. He showed up as he was – tired, with a voice that was high pitched and not warmed up, and said some words he remained nearly certain would not be remembered, and probably would not make much of a difference. In his brief 2 1/2 minutes, he said some words which would become one of the most famous American speeches of all time.

Lincoln’s greatness as a leader rested in his great capacity for doubt and uncertainty in the midst of crisis. In earlier speeches Lincoln remarked that both sides of the civil war prayed to God, read the same Bible, and went to church. Why did one side win and the other lose? Somebody less sophisticated would say because God was on the side of the Union. Lincoln never said that. He said instead the will of God is a mystery to humankind. We can never be certain that our best efforts are in line with a greater Power – we can only follow that which we discern to be the best choice under the given circumstance, never certain of our own righteousness. Lincoln combed the Bible for clues on how to speak to the American people in a way that conveyed both power and complexity. He knew America needed a vision if there was any chance of Reconstruction after such complete devastation and loss…and though he doubted he had a vision that was all inclusive, he knew he needed to speak anyway. For without his speech, perhaps the American people as we conceived ourselves to be, would perish.

It was very possible that the weight and responsibility of Reconstruction would crush the spirit of people. It was possible that the weight of tragedy after the war would be too great to mend, that we would remain a people divided. It was possible that all these soldiers had died for nothing – that the democratic experiment of our forebears had come to an end – there at Gettysburg. I’m certain Lincoln had these thoughts swirling through his mind as he stood up to give that speech. He knew there was unfinished work that lay ahead, work that perhaps would prove to be too much or finished too late.

We are here 154 years later after that speech was uttered. We stand on ground that was not hallowed by us, but has been hallowed by those who have lived and died here over the course of generations. They have given their lives, working in factories, saving money for their kid’s future, building churches so we would never forget our greatest ideals, ideals conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all people are created equal. We have all come to this place, birthed by a mighty proposition, a proposition that has piles of evidence to refute its truth. And yet the proposition remains.

The proposition has only remained for one reason – it constantly demands a new birth. It is never self fulfilling – it challenges each consecutive generation to give birth to a vision of liberty and equality. Without this new birth, it will most surely die. Another name for this new birth is Reconstruction.

The Rev. William Barber II calls this present time the Third Reconstruction in our nation’s history. He believes that civil rights movement of the 1960’s was the second reconstruction, a time of new birth in our country’s conception of what it meant to be a free people that guaranteed equality for all. The civil rights movement helped birth this new vision, forcing a nation to confront the unfinished work of the first reconstruction racism, gender inequality, and poverty. And now, we are yet again challenged to usher forth a new birth of freedom, picking up on the unfinished work of the civil rights movement. We are ready for a new Reconstruction.

The difficulty of this kind of Reconstruction, is that we can’t stand outside and adequately assess the damage.

We can’t step outside, and look at the house as a whole, and go to work in a methodical and reasonable manner.

We are all living inside the house, and we are being forced to do Reconstruction while we are still living inside it. A nation is not the physical land it occupies, the borders found on maps – A nation is a mindset, a story we inherit about who we think we are and what it means to be human. We are all living in a nation conceived in Liberty dedicated to a democratic possibility – that is the house we are living in. There’s a reason that Reconstruction is not seen as a priority every year of our existence, why this new birth of freedom takes so long to be taken seriously. Reconstruction is only demanded after the walls start falling in on us, as water pours on our heads from the leaky roof. We only consider the challenge of Reconstruction after it becomes clear that we will not be able to survive in the house as is – if we do nothing, it will literally collapse on us, and end us. Things have to be pretty dire before we consider looking at unfinished work. It take us being faced with the possibility of being buried before we dare to begin.

Many people look at me like I’m crazy when I tell them how grateful I am to be alive at this particular time. Many are scared and in shock as they as try to digest the day – Did you hear about the threat to women’s birth control? The threat to those who identify as Trans?

I don’t take these questions lightly. I don’t overlook the fear and the threats to both liberty and equality. I look at all these horrors, and I see there is unfinished work that is needing to be addressed now. And I feel grateful to be alive so that I may do what I can do take up this unfinished work and perhaps help a new birth of freedom see the light of day for myself and for future generations.

Reconstruction is tricky business. It’s tricky because you will find a group of people who will tell you all that we’re fine, we can live inside the house as is, that there’s nothing significantly wrong. Then you’ll find those who say – just let it fall. It was house built on sand – it wasn’t meant to last – just let it fall. And then you’ll find a third group that will acknowledge – yes, there is a lot of work here. Yes, I see that this is not livable, but it’s just too much work. There’s no way we can do it. Maybe I’ll go to Canada.

It takes a particular person who can look at the enormity of the damage done, and commit themselves to reconstruction. These particular folks, like Lincoln, are grounded people, who put their hope in something that has no clear evidence. They envision a new birth, not knowing what it will look like exactly or what it will feel like, they just believe it’s possible.

In Youngstown, you can literally see the walls coming down. You can look around this neighborhood, across the street in fact, and see houses that are abandoned, hanging on by a thread. You can see literal roofs caving in. Though it can be dispiriting to look at this, it makes clear the need for reconstruction. It is made explicit.

And here in Youngstown you see reconstruction happening. You see neighbors working to refurbish and repair their house – turning a place that offers no protection, no shelter, into a home they can live their life in. You see organizations like Cultivate Cafe, literally cultivating the potential for business and entrepreneurship. I would dare add our church to that list. You have continually looked at the needs of this community, and asked the question – How can I help? How can I help my neighbors and our community reconstruct a different narrative – a narrative based in freedom and equality.

The most difficult place to do reconstruction is in our own lives. This step can’t be skipped or if it is there are dire consequences. Most of us feel at times that our foundations are shaky, that we’re not sure what anchors us and gives us security. There comes a time for each of us when we reach the end of our narrative, of the story we’ve believed for so long, the story we’ve always told about our self. Something happens, and the pieces of our story that told us who we are and how we fit, begins to crumble. It starts to crack under the pressure of our living, and our life demands more space than the tiny narrative we’ve been trying to live inside. Our life is ready to bust out, but we try to contain it in the story we’re comfortable with, the one that makes us feel like we know what is going on. After a while, a wall falls down out of nowhere, and we’re left with no protection, no cover. We scramble to try to put the wall back up, but we can’t. Our cover has been blown – we’re forced to see that we’re more than the story we’ve been telling. There are whole other parts of ourselves waiting to find a home. And thus begins the slow and necessary process of Reconstruction.

This why this time is both so scary and so promising. This time of reconstruction is personal – it’s not something out there removed from us, stuck in a powdered wig, or in theoretical understandings. It’s concerned with the reconstruction of our life – our idea of who we think we are and what we’re capable of. The walls are falling down, and we don’t know what to do.

We can’t pretend we can live in the house as it is. We need to risk the possibility of something we have never seen, a hope without evidence. We are being asked if we’re willing to help usher in a new birth of freedom, a child of liberty that has never been seen before.

We are being asked to take a train from our secure and beautiful white house, and travel to where blood was spilled. And it will be up to us to decide whether that blood was spilt for nothing, or if it was spilt for a possibility beyond our imagining. It will be up to us whether or not we will let that bloodshed challenge us forward or cause us to retreat. And we will go to that horrific and hallowed spot, and we will let ourselves stand there. We will see if we can hear the ghosts of the past telling us about the house they lived in, the house they fought and died for.

We will come to them with a message, though we will be unsure if the words will be understood. We will come to tell these ghosts of a new house, of a new birth of freedom that they helped make possible. We will stand in front of the living, tired after a long trip, burdened by the things we’ve seen which we can’t unsee. We will stand tall with our voice hoarse and uncertain, and we will see the look in the crowd’s eyes, a find a look that mirrors our own – tired and uncertain. letting us know they are ready to hear our speech.