We re in the second week of four with the 10 Commandments. Last week I preached on the

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Claude Barker
5 years ago
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God Loves All People Ten Commandment #1 and the Isaiah Binding the Covenant Event 6.29.14 We re in the second week of four with the 10 Commandments.

The Ten Commandments are somewhat like our nation s Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.

Ten Commandments are saying unless we know the story of the Exodus.

For the Israelites to stay free, they are to turn from the Pharaohs of that time and every time. They are to have no other gods before Yahweh.

I told stories of UCC churches in the Philippines standing up for justice at the risk of losing their lives for the sake of unionizing fruit plantations and

1 God Loves All People Ten Commandment #1 and the Isaiah Binding the Covenant Event We re in the second week of four with the 10 Commandments. Last week I preached on the first commandment, and I talked about how the Ten Commandments are a response to slavery in Pharaoh s Egypt. The Ten Commandments are somewhat like our nation s Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. Just as we can t know the significance of our nation s founding documents unless we know abuses of England that sparked the revolution, we can t hear what the Ten Commandments are saying unless we know the story of the Exodus. In the Exodus God delivers the Hebrew slaves from the empire of Egypt and the Ten Commandments is the beginning of a new holy and priestly nation. For the Israelites to stay free, they are to turn from the Pharaohs of that time and every time. They are to have no other gods before Yahweh. Last week I told a few stories of churches staying faithful to this God of liberation and justice. I told stories of UCC churches in the Philippines standing up for justice at the risk of losing their lives for the sake of unionizing fruit plantations and strip mines. I also talked about how the work of Isaiah Minnesota was becoming a bigger deal within the work of the Minnesota conference of the United Church of Christ. Well it turns out that my sermon on the First Commandment has two parts. Today is part two, I ll talk about Sabbath next week. Today I ll be telling the story of what we experienced as we went to the Isaiah Binding the Covenant Event. Through the work of Isaiah MN, churches

2 are pledging allegiance to the God of the Exodus. We recognize that Pharaoh is still here. We still live and move in the midst of empire, and yet there is a God in our midst who hears the cries of those who are calling out for justice, a God who is empowering the church to lead. At 8:00a.m yesterday morning, Carolyn Fure-Slocum, Leota Goodney, Soraya Dangor, Graison Hensley-Chapman, Loy Jeffrey and Bob Entenmann left First UCC to attend a morning training session along with 300 other people. The purpose of this training was to begin the 2014 Prophetic voter campaign. Isaiah is empowering churches, including ours, to register 15,000 voters in the state of Minnesota who don t think they count. Here s what Isaiah says about the campaign: We will be encouraging people to vote in November for the values of economic dignity, pathways to opportunity and racial equity. The prophetic voter campaign is not about electing the right people. It is about loving our neighbor and standing with each other. We will stand with our kids who will flourish if our schools honor them for who they are. We will stand with people who work hard but cannot make ends meet. We will stand with people who feel real pain because the powers that be act as if people exist to serve the economy, not the other way around. We will stand with aspiring Americans who seek comprehensive immigration reform and a path to citizenship. Those who were at the training will be talking more about the Prophetic Voter campaign during coffee hour today. At 11:45, a bus left First UCC with over 30 rowdy First UCCers and we joined the masses at the Minneapolis Convention Center. There were 1600 people there representing over 100 churches and many denominations from the state of Minnesota. To provide some perspective, at our Minnesota Conference meeting of the UCC we had 350 people there. This was a big group of church folk. And it was diverse. 400 attendees were members of the Latino community. There were at least that many African Americans. Which means that there were as

3 many people of color in that room as there were members of the anglo community. Sunday may be the most segregated day in America but yesterday we saw a united church that looked more like the Realm of God. And I have to say people noticed First UCC. My UCC colleagues were telling me that Isaiah organizers were asking Who s this First UCC from Northfield with 40 people registered? What s going on there? We ve got to talk with them. We started the afternoon with worship, and it was loud. There were baptist choirs from the African American tradition belting it out. And worship was long. My wife will tell you that this is one of the hazards of having too many clergy in the same room. The worship was grounded in the Exodus story. What was proclaimed is that the God of the Exodus, and the God of the Ten Commandments is a God who loves all people. The God of the Exodus wants all people to thrive. And when worship was done we heard stats and stories, stories of Pharaoh in the present. We were told that Isaiah had surveyed 5000 individuals, members of 50 different churches in the state. What they found was that 1 in 6 of those surveyed were unemployed or had a family member unemployed, 1 in 3 were facing foreclosure, and 1 in 5 were a medical emergency away from bankruptcy. Then we heard stories from individuals. Each person who shared their story, sat face to face with Governor Dayton and with 1500 people standing behind them, they asked Governor Dayton what he was going to do about their struggle. We heard the story of Justin Atripoo from Togo. He said that when he came to the U.S. he thought he was coming to paradise. His proudest moment was when he purchased a home. But now he is afraid that his family will be homeless, and no one is homeless in Togo. His wife s job was outsourced to Mexico, and when he asked the bank to refinance his house, they refused because his income was now too low. Houses throughout his neighborhood are going through foreclosure. He s underwater on his mortgage and he s fighting the bank to stay in his

4 home. Justin told Governor Dayton that the raise in the minimum wage was great, but people like him wouldn t be able to catch up unless they could get out from underneath their debt. He asked the Governor if he would declare jubilee, or the cancelling of debt, for communities suffering under this debt. We heard the story of Mary, a woman in her 60 s who looked like she could be a member here. After 19 years of work she lost her job in a corporate downsizing. She felt ashamed but there was nothing she could do. Her husband got sick, and the bank refused to refinance their mortgage. The bank said they needed to default or they would lose everything. After decades of paying their mortgage on time, they walked away from their home. People couldn t believe they were doing this, but it was what the bank was telling them to do. She still shoveled the walk in the winter and mowed and watered the flowers in the summertime. She didn t want her home to look abandoned. She asked the Governor why banks would want a house like hers to sit empty rather than renegotiate a loan. And the crowd cheered. We heard the story of Bill Middeke. Bill worked for the same company for 39 years. He was six months away from retiring and receiving social security and his job was eliminated. It was sent to India. As he was leaving the workplace he left a letter for the CEO. The CEO called him and spent 45 minutes trying to explain to Bill why laying him off was really a good idea. The first thing the CEO said to him was, We are not in business to keep people employed. Just after Bill s job was eliminated, the CEO received a 5 million dollar bonus for staying with the company. That 5 million was enough to provide work for 60 people at Bill s salary. He asked the Governor how he was going to hold companies accountable for actions like this. We heard the story of Towanna Williams. Towanna is a single mom with two children. Both children have disabilities that make it difficult for them to sit still in school and learn.

5 Starting in 2007 she decided she needed to quit her job so that she could be a full time advocate for her children. She lost her house. Her children have been suspended from school many times, and she knows that in her district in North Minneapolis, when black children are suspended they are on the path to the prison system. She asked Governor Dayton to remove the criminal justice system from the schools and to call for a moratorium on non violent school suspensions. And we heard the story of Catalina Morales Des Sanchez. She told the story of her mother getting pulled over on the way home from the grocery store. Because her mother was undocumented, she didn t have a driver s license. The police took the car while Catalina was trying to explain that this was her mother s only way to get to her job. Catalina asked the 400 members of the Hispanic community to stand, and she asked Governor Dayton if he would stand with them and provide a path to driver s licenses for undocumented immigrants who are long time members of the community, who go to work and pay taxes and care for their families and go to churches and pray. These stories moved me, they touched my heart. And I thought as I was listening, I know people in Northfield who are also living these stories. These stories and issues are not just out there, they are right here. Over and over Governor Dayton said, Go back to your churches and build your movement. We need more people like you. Vote your values. Hold your leaders accountable. Hold me accountable. If your leaders are not representing your values, elect new leaders. We have a couple of opportunities now as a church. We will talk after church about how we can join with other UCC churches, and African American churches and Latino churches throughout the state and participate in the Prophetic Voters campaign, registering voters so they can vote for economic dignity and racial equality. I also believe we have the opportunity to

6 begin talking to and working with other churches in Northfield, and Faribault, and Owatonna. Our towns are facing many similar issues, issues that are shared by many communities throughout greater Minnesota. If we could work together we could be a strong voice for justice, and Isaiah MN could help us. All the work of yesterday was the work of churches showing love to God, showing love to a particular God: the God of the Exodus, the God of the Ten Commandments, the God of Jesus Christ, who said he would not abolish the law but fulfill it. May we find the courage and strength and hope to continue to be Christ made visible for a hurting and aching world. Amen.

2018 Inaugural Address: Mayor-elect Melvin Carter

2018 Inaugural Address: Mayor-elect Melvin Carter Thank you all for coming out today. I am so grateful. I m grateful to God, whose love and grace are the reason I am here today. To Sakeena, thank you so