Today is the day we join with the YWCA in this community and in neighboring states to publicly stand against racism. The Y wants to raise consciousness about the continued existence of racism and to inspire us to renew our efforts to be aware of it and do all we can to end it. They have a pledge for today, which reads "As an individual committed to social justice, I stand with the YWCA against racism and discrimination of any kind. I will commit to a lifetime of promoting peace, justice, freedom, and dignity for all people in my community and in the world." This is certainly a pledge I can make. Perhaps you can too.

What is racism? The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination states "the term "racial discrimination" shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life." Racism is the belief that race determines human value coupled with the power to limit or take away equal access to the various resources of a given society, based upon one's race. Racism denies the intrinsic equality of human beings, which allows it to diminish human rights and fundamental freedoms. In Unitarian Universalist language, racism denies the inherent worth and dignity of each person and the necessity for justice, equity and compassion in human relations.

Probably many of us in this room think well, we don't have that attitude, we do not discriminate against people because of their race. And perhaps we do not overtly discriminate, in our personal lives. But the fact is we live in a country where racism has deep roots and continues to harm us all. The fact is that some of us enjoy social, economic and other privileges based upon our race and some of us do not, based upon our race. Racism is so embedded that at times we cannot even see it. We only see the scars it leaves. Regarding racism toward African Americans, consider that according to the National Center for Health Statistics and the Census Bureau, in the years between 1940-99, blacks experienced 4.3 to 4.5 million premature deaths relative to whites. According to the US Census Bureau, Black households had the lowest median income of any racial group in 2007: $33,916, which was 62 percent of the median for non-Hispanic White households: $54,920, the racial group with the highest median income. 24.5% of blacks households lived below the federal poverty level in 2007, while 8.2% of non-Hispanic white households did. There seem to be some inequalities between racial groups that cannot be explained by individual, cultural, or other group=2 0characteristics. Our social and economic systems have a structure that tilts, based in part on race, in favor of some and away from others. It is this racism, embedded in the structures, as well as within individual people, that I want to stand against today.

Fine words. Beyond them, what does it mean to stand against racism? Here I look to Abraham Lincoln. Because 2009 is the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, much has been said about him this year. The Reverend Al Ahlstrom has just finished leading a Classics in Religion series on Lincoln at the Kingston Library. Lincoln -- classics in religion? Yes, Lincoln had a theological understanding of this country and its history and his words of almost 150 years ago reveal beliefs we still have about how the world operates, as well as pointing the way for us today to stand against racism. Let's listen to the Gettysburg Address and Lincoln's Second Inaugural address. Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of a cemetery at that battlefield in November of 1863. The second inaugural, given in March of 1865, came when the Civil War had not yet ended, though the Northern victory seemed certain. At Gettysburg he said: "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate ”we can not consecrate” we can not hallow” this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us” that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion” that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain” that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom” and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Lincoln understands the United States to exist under God, in covenant with God, and to have been founded upon the principles of freedom and the equality of all. (Lincoln said men, but in the intervening years we have extended that to women as well.) The unity of the nation is predicated in freedom and equality. Upon this basis Lincoln personally opposed slavery and thought it an evil and as we shall see, he also believed that God opposed slavery and the Civil War was God's way of bringing it to an end. The Second Inaugural speech: "Fellow-Countrymen: At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, urgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war” seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." Interesting. To the ideas in the Gettysburg address, namely that our country was founded upon liberty and equality, in covenant with God, which he takes as the basis for his personal opposition to slavery, Lincoln adds the idea that everything happens according to the will of this righteous God. We are the actors on stage, but the theater belongs to God. Slavery happened according to God's plan. The end of slavery happened according to God's plan.

Do you understand history this way? Do you believe your life works according to the plan, or the will, of something or someone outside of and more powerful than yourself, call it God, the universe, the laws of science, nature, or by some other name? Maybe yes; maybe no; maybe? I don't know that we use quite the same language as Lincoln did, but the belief remains very much alive and influential today. It persists in some religious thought, in some political circles, and in popular culture. Some Christians believe that a cataclysmic war in the middle east will signal the end of the world as we know it, as they believe God predicted in scripture and thus they take a particular political stand with those in Israel who would claim the land as promised to them by God. On Thursday I heard Suze Orman, the financial guru, say that the economic recession happened for the best. She said God provides. If, in the course of life unfolding great suffering occurs, it comes because of the offenses committed, not by God, but by the humans who promoted and benefitted from slavery, or in our current situation, excessive greed. In the end, things happen for the best. A variation of this is the conviction, held by some, that a small group of corporate capitalists, or rulers in some other sphere, meeting metaphorically in a small room, control the world and do so with selfish intent. In this scenario, things happen for the best only for the rulers and, increasingly, result in the worse for the ruled.

Do you believe that our lives follow some grand scheme or plan, whether God's or someone/something else's? Many people do. I believe, based upon my own direct experience, that life operates according to some kind of laws, whether fully comprehended by humans or not. I don't know if this constitutes a plan by a higher being or if it is simply and profoundly, the way things are. In some ways it does not matter to me whether there is a plan or whether there is simply a way because I do not believe that things always happen for the best. I believe things happen, sometimes for the best, sometimes not. Nevertheless, there is opportunity for good, for healing and wholeness in every occurrence. Do you believe that everything happens for the best? Many people do. If so, then there must exist some overall plan or condition of goodness, or love, in the universe, or God, that causes things to happen for the best? There must be, no, if it always turns out that way?

We are the actors on stage, but the theater belongs to God. Or the universe, or the laws of nature, or science, or something greater than us, however we name it. If you believe that we say the lines, but God writes the play, or perhaps provides the outline for the play, the question arises: What part do we humans have in this? How much free will do we possess? Can we influence the course of history, even our own lives? Here is where our beliefs matter. If we hold to a plan, or a condition, that directs history and individual lives, perhaps even directing them for the best, then we might become fatalistic about our own ability or need to make a difference. If everything is planned already, how does what we do matter?

Lincoln points a way. He is not a fatalist, even though he believes that the world operates according to the plan of God. While he thinks the plan belongs to God he does envision a part for humans, a part that includes human free will and choice. He outlines it in the last paragraph of the inaugural. "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." This is how Lincoln would have us stand against the racism that is both the legacy of and the parent of slavery. This is how Lincoln wanted the nation to act in the years following the Civil War. It did not. John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln in April of 1865 and the Reconstruction period established an unequal and discriminatory legacy for African Americans and thus we find ourselves today still not free of it.

With malice toward none and charity for all. Lincoln uses the word charity the way Paul used it in his first letter to the Corinthians. As Professor William Harris of Middlebury College (www.middlebury.edu/~harris) points out, Paul used the Greek word agape in his letter, which means love, as in love of neighbor as oneself. This got translated into the Latin as caritas and carried into the church that way, and thus came to English as charity. When Lincoln says charity, he means we should love our neighbor as ourselves, a love which manifests as healing the wounds, providing for those in need and living in peace.

This is what we can bring into our stand against racism. This is what we can bring into every aspect of our lives. Loving our neighbor as ourselves, taking care of each other and repairing relations. This means sharing. Sharing on every level. Sharing the resources of our society in ways that address people's needs as fairly as possible; sharing our own resources. Sharing our thoughts, our ideas, our feelings. Sharing our time. Sharing our talents and skills. Sharing our power and our privilege. Because our nation was conceived in freedom and equality, (or the broadest definitions of those terms that existed in their day), because we as individuals have inherent worth and dignity, we are called to share. To share, not from what we have left over when we have taken care of ourselves, but to share from a much more generous place. To share not from our excess, not from our abundance, but to share all that we truly have. To stretch, even to part with something we'd like to keep. How many of us can say we do that? To share from the depths, from the get-go. This is how love might reveal itself: as fearlessness of sharing.

Whether within the context of a larger plan or not, whether we believe that things happen for the best or not, there is room for human agency. What human beings do matters. What I do matters. What you do matters. Let us, then, remember and heed the words of Abraham Lincoln and live our lives in such a way that we bind up the wounds, provide for others as well as ourselves and live in peace. If we resolve to intentionally do so, we will live the pledge I read earlier of committing "to a lifetime of promoting peace, justice, freedom, and dignity for all people . . . ." and much, much more. May it be so.