Listen to the key passage from the Emancipation Proclamation: "That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free."

Judge James A. Wynn Jr., a brilliant jurist and legal scholar, takes the position that we are celebrating the wrong document and the wrong day. He contends that that it was the ratification of the 13th Amendment in December 1895 that actually made emancipation a legal reality, not the Proclamation. And the judge is absolutely right. I support his efforts to commemorate the ratification of the 13th Amendment.

But for the people who were slaves, this was not merely about law or politics. For them, emancipation was a sacred moment. They saw the hand of God in it. They believed that their God had delivered them out of the house of bondage. So, it is entirely fitting that we commemorate Emancipation, and that we commemorate it here, in the sanctuary of this great church. And it is significant that St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church was founded just a block from here in 1864. Even before the Civil War was over, blacks in Chapel Hill had organized a church to give thanks to their God for bringing them out of the slavery.

The great scholar W.E.B. Du Bois understood this very well. He wrote: " The magnificent trumpet tones of Hebrew Scripture, transmuted and oddly changed, became a brand new Gospel. All that was Beauty, all that was Love, all that was Love, all that was Truth, stood on top of those mad mornings and sang with the stars. A great human sob shrieked in the wind, and toss its tears upon the sea -- free, free, free."

In February 1865, black Union troops marched through Wilmington bringing liberty to the people who had been slaves. Some of the soldiers were deeply moved and overwhelmed by the experience. One of them described the scene this way:

"I would have loved for you to have had the sight in the city of Wilmington as we marched through. Men and women, old and young, were running through the streets, shouting and praising God. I noticed an old man and woman. They said they had been praying so long, yet thought they should die without this sight, and they thanked God that the day had come when they would no longer be driven to market to be sold like sheep. The children shouted and clasped their hands. I was indeed speechless."

As those soldiers marched through Wilmington, some of them must have been thinking of the words of the prophet Isaiah: "The spirit of the Lord God is upon me; ... he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives. To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord . . . to comfort all that mourn . . . to give them beauty for ashes."

That was Isaiah's Emancipation Proclamation. It was not primarily about a single moment of celebration. The spirit of the Lord required of him an ongoing commitment to bind up the brokenhearted, to give beauty for ashes. The prophet understood that a great deal of work needed to be done during the acceptable year of the Lord. So, emancipation was not an ending -- it still is the proclamation of a beginning. Our celebration of emancipation signifies our acceptance of responsibility to extend the benefits of freedom and to build up the places that have been broken down in our world, in our communities, and in our spirits.

As you know, after the Israelites were released from bondage, they did not go right to the promised land. After their emancipation they faced 40 years of wandering and struggle. Du Bois knew just how long and how hard the distance was that had to be traveled between emancipation and freedom. He wrote: "What did such a mockery of freedom mean? Not a cent of money, not an inch of land, not a mouthful -- not even ownership of the rags on his back. Free! And after the first flush of freedom wore off, and his true helplessness dawned on the freedman, he came back ... and picked up his hoe, and the old master still doled out his bacon and meal. ... The rise of a nation, the pressing forward of a social class, means bitter struggle, a hard and soul-sickening battle with the world, such as few of the more favored classes know or appreciate."

Surely this nation has traveled an amazing distance since 1863. I take for granted opportunities and accomplishments that my grandparents couldn't even have imagined. But sometimes do you ever get the feeling that we are wandering? That something is missing? That our culture and maybe even our faith have gotten a little shallow? Too shallow to sustain a movement for justice and freedom. Too shallow to give us meaning and purpose. And too often, too shallow even to sustain our families.

Popular music and the media exalt violence and materialism at home and abroad. We lavish our attention on incredibly superficial celebrities and on incredibly lightweight national leaders and politicians. Our wise men are talk show hosts. Our prophets are motivational speakers. The distinction between worship and entertainment has become blurred and we have exchanged the theology of hope and deliverance for the gospel of personal prosperity.

As profoundly serious and deeply disturbing as the situation in the world is, the presidential debates looked just like quiz shows. The way the debates were set up, you would have thought you were watching an episode of "Jeopardy" or "Family Feud." And the commentators judged the "performances" like they were on "American Idol." Shallow.

In this corporate, consumer, media culture, leaders and movements and even faith are transformed into commodities and entertainment; and then completely drained of all their meaning and power so quickly, so thoroughly, and with such regularity that it leaves us breathless, directionless and grounded in nothing. Substance and meaning give way to distractions and trivia. But we must press on. We should try to with meaning, and to do that we need to be grounded in something. Something with depth. Something strong. Something real.

That is why we have come here today. To commemorate an important historic event, but also to reconnect with something real, the real faith and the real moral endowment that has been bequeathed to us by the struggles and sacrifices of many generations. We have come because now the spirit of the Lord is upon us and we must find ways to emancipate those whose lives are imprisoned and blighted by poverty and war, by social and economic injustice. We must find ways to emancipate the minds and spirit of the young people who want carry our world forward. We must find ways to join ranks with our sisters and brothers abroad, of different cultures and religions, who are oppressed and denied the most basic human rights

The work of freedom is far from done. We have come to do the work of the acceptable year of the Lord, which is the time when all who languish will feel the presence and the spirit of the people who came out of the house of bondage on this day, and will join with them in casting their tears, and their fears, upon the sea ... free ... Free ... FREE!