We often forget that ten blocks away from us, directly east on Locust Street, there is a mass burial ground. The National Park Service description of Washington Square puts it this way:
William Penn patented this square in 1706 as a Potter’s Field, or a public graveyard for the poor. Free and enslaved Africans were interred here alongside suicide victims, those unaffiliated with a church, and strangers to the city. More than 60 Native Americans who died from smallpox were buried here in 1763. During the Revolutionary War, Potter’s Field served as a military cemetery for British and American soldiers. John Adams walked these grounds in April 1777, where ‘…upwards of two Thousand soldiers had been buried…’ Victims of the yellow fever epidemic, numbering more than 1300, filled the remaining space in the burial ground in 1793. The city closed Potter’s Field to burials in 1794. (https://www.nps.gov/inde/learn/historyculture/places-washingtonsquare.htm)
What a unique meeting place Washington Square became, by reason of death. Where else in America - then or now - could so many souls come together who were supposed to be at so much enmity with one another?
The stone memorial in the Square today was erected in the 1950s, when city officials decided to mark the place with a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the Revolutionary War. That tomb lies at the foot of a statue of George Washington, and before it burns an eternal flame. The stone wall behind the tomb bears this inscription: “Freedom is a light for which many men have died in darkness.” This odd epitaph is not so easy to turn into a sermon. A search for its source reveals that it comes neither from scripture, nor from literature, nor from General Washington himself. The phrase was composed by an unidentified advertising man at the behest of the committee that designed the memorial. Oh, America, is there anything you have left untouched by the marketing department?
The readings the Prayer Book assigns for today are not new to the current edition. Far from being some expression of woke-ness on behalf of the libs, Jesus’ enjoinder to love our enemies was assigned as the Gospel reading for this day in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, and in the first American Prayer Book of 1789, adopted in the year the first Congress met under the auspices of the newly ratified Constitution.
Jesus said, “I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” Is it a wonder that they didn’t carve those words into stone in Washington Square? How long a line of people might line up to vandalize such an inscription today?
Free and enslaved Africans. Victims of suicide. Those unaffiliated with the church. Strangers to the city. Native Americans. Soldiers of opposing armies. Victims of epidemic disease. All gathered together in one place. What utopian ideal has been realized in Washington Square, shrouded only by death! Could we ever, I wonder, accomplish in life, what death has achieved in that Square without even trying?
As a slogan, the words supplied by the advertising man to be carved in stone strike me as the only real failure of the memorial in Washington Square - an effective rallying cry for neither the living nor the dead. Just imagine if they had chosen instead the words of the Gospel. “You have heard that it was said ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies.” When we teach our children about Jesus, do we teach them this lesson? When we teach our children about America, do we teach them this lesson? Do we model our own lives on this teaching? Could we ever even try?
But, “freedom is a light for which many men have died in darkness?” The dead whose bodies were buried in Washington Square - all of them - deserve a more profound reflection on light and darkness, life and death, and the real meaning of freedom.
If I were choosing readings for Independence Day, I would have included some lines from Galatians, chapter 5, where St. Paul writes, “For freedom Christ has set us free…. Only, do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love be servants of one another.” But nobody asked me.
One of the wisdoms of the founders of this nation was to see that, while freedom is worth fighting for, freedom doesn’t come from the fight. Rather, we were made for freedom by the artistry of the divine hand. I’d go a lot further and say that, indeed our real freedom was accomplished with death - but by only one death, and that on a Cross. And that death established for ever the victory of light over darkness, a victory that had been assured since the beginning of time, in any case.
The rectangular tomb that holds the remains of the unknown soldier in Washington Square bears its own inscription. It reads: “Beneath this stone rests a soldier of Washington’s Army who died to give you liberty.” I don’t object at all to this inscription. But a little research reveals that it makes a claim that was not, in fact, proven: namely, that the remains therein are those of a soldier of the Continental Army, and not of a soldier who was fighting (and died) in the service of King George III.
A number of commentators have looked into the account of how the remains of that soldier were identified in 1956, and many allow for the uncertainty of his identity. Forensic evidence suggests that the bones were those of a male, about twenty years old, with a wound to the skull that could have been caused by a musket ball. But there remains some doubt about which side of the battle the young soldier was fighting for.
And this fact of uncertainty - that our memorial to the unknown dead of our original American war might actually have enshrined the remains of a soldier of the other side - provides me with hope that yes, we are capable of loving our enemies. We can learn to do it, when we want to: when we put the past behind us, but remember who we are and what we were made for. Including… free and enslaved Africans. Victims of suicide. Those unaffiliated with the church. Strangers to the city. Native Americans. Soldiers of opposing armies. Victims of epidemic disease. Among others. All gathered together in one place. Not an enemy in sight.
Maybe some day the living will learn from the dead.
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
4 July 2021
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia
