Greater Than the Sum of Our Fears Rev. Julia Hamilton Delivered at the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara, November 6, 2016

Transcription

1 Greater Than the Sum of Our Fears Rev. Julia Hamilton Delivered at the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara, November 6, 2016 READING America by Langston Hughes Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be. Let it be the pioneer on the plain Seeking a home where he himself is free. (America never was America to me.) Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above. (It never was America to me.) O, let my land be a land where Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe. (There s never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this homeland of the free. ) Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? And who are you that draws your veil across the stars? I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro bearing slavery s scars. I am the red man driven from the land, I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek And finding only the same old stupid plan Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak. I am the young man, full of strength and hope, Tangled in that ancient endless chain Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land! Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need! Of work the men! Of take the pay! Of owning everything for one s own greed! I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil. 1

2 I am the worker sold to the machine. I am the Negro, servant to you all. I am the people, humble, hungry, mean Hungry yet today despite the dream. Beaten yet today O, Pioneers! I am the man who never got ahead, The poorest worker bartered through the years. Yet I m the one who dreamt our basic dream In the Old World while still a serf of kings, Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true, That even yet its mighty daring sings In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned That s made America the land it has become. O, I m the man who sailed those early seas In search of what I meant to be my home For I m the one who left dark Ireland s shore, And Poland s plain, and England s grassy lea, And torn from Black Africa s strand I came To build a homeland of the free. The free? Who said the free? Not me? Surely not me? The millions on relief today? The millions shot down when we strike? The millions who have nothing for our pay? For all the dreams we ve dreamed And all the songs we ve sung And all the hopes we ve held And all the flags we ve hung, The millions who have nothing for our pay Except the dream that s almost dead today. O, let America be America again The land that never has been yet And yet must be the land where every man is free. The land that s mine the poor man s, Indian s, Negro s, ME Who made America, Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, Must bring back our mighty dream again. Sure, call me any ugly name you choose The steel of freedom does not stain. From those who live like leeches on the people s lives, We must take back our land again, America! O, yes, 2

3 I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath America will be! Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, We, the people, must redeem The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless plain All, all the stretch of these great green states And make America again! SERMON Greater Than the Sum of Our Fears What a week it s been. What a week it s been, my friends. Here we are, on the eve of the presidential election, arguably one of the most bizarre and tumultuous election cycles this nation has ever seen. Here we are, a nation divided along lines of race and class and gender, a nation seemingly engaged in a battle for our very soul, a search for winners and losers - if you listen to the political pundits. It s all election, all the time on the news. And personally, as many of you know, this week I answered a call that led me to the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, one of over 500 religious leaders that gathered in support of the indigenous people trying to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. I ll say more about that in just a moment. And although I don t follow baseball, I gather that the fact that the Chicago Cubs won the World Series is a big deal, too. And if that weren t disorienting enough, the Daylight Saving time change happened this morning. Everything seems to be shifting under our feet. If I weren t standing here in this pulpit talking with you, I probably wouldn t know what day of the week it was. Everything seems to be shifting, one way or another, and there is a lot of uncertainty is about what the outcome will be. The story of our national identity is changing it s being re-written, whether we like it or not. It s being re-written demographically, as we become more diverse. It s being re-written ecologically, as climate change progresses and none of us knows exactly what that will mean. It s being re-written economically, as wealth consolidates and social mobility declines. 3

4 What is happening at Standing Rock is part of the re-writing of that national story. The Black Lives Matter movement is part of the rewriting of that story. The movement for Immigrant Justice and the Raise the Wage campaigns are part of the rewriting of that story. Movements for LGBTQ equality and gender equity are part of it. The rise of the Religious Left, of a new interfaith movement, is part of it. All of these movements are tributaries that join together into a larger river of justice that seems to be pushing forward, even as those who would like to turn back the clock on progress are pushing back. Even as those who have controlled the pen of history for so long struggle to retain their grip, and use fear of these changes to try rally around hate to hold back the tide, I do believe that the tide is turning, and that no matter what the outcome of the election, we are moving forward. The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber is calling this era of change the Third Reconstruction, following the First Reconstruction that came after the Civil War and the second Reconstruction that occurred during the Civil Rights movement. And every Reconstruction is met with push-back, he says, so don t be surprised by resistance. In fact, resistance is an indicator that change is, indeed, taking hold. Rev. Barber is one of the leaders of a multi-faith coalition calling for a national moral revival, a movement beyond party lines, beyond left and right, a movement that unites the moral values of faith traditions with the moral values articulated in our Constitution, and he sees in this moment of change an opportunity a reconstruction of the nation that has the potential to move us toward a more just and equitable society. He quotes Langston Hughes, calling us to build the America that will be. He says, Despite dark money, old fears, and vicious attacks of extremists, we know America will be because our deepest moral values are rooted in something greater than people s ability to conspire This is the confidence that has sustained every moral movement in the history of the world. But what do I mean when I say a moral agenda? After all, the moral majority in the 1980 s also stood on the ground of faith-based values. But I am with Rev. Barber who refuses to cede that moral high ground to a narrow slice of fundamentalist Christianity. As articulated in a document called the Higher Ground Moral Declaration, this interfaith moral revival states, We believe our moral traditions have a firm foundation upon which to stand against the divide-and-conquer strategies of extremists. We believe in a moral agenda that stands against systemic racism, classism, poverty, xenophobia, and any attempt to promote hate towards any members of the human family. We claim a higher ground in partisan debate by returning public discourse to our deepest moral and constitutional values. The Moral Declaration has been signed by over 10,000 people so far, and on this Sunday before the election, religious communities all over the country are lifting it up in their worship services, declaring their intention to be a part of reclaiming the moral high ground during such a divisive election. 4

5 Rev. Barber writes about this movement in his book, The Third Reconstruction: How a Moral Movement is Overcoming the Politics of Division and Fear. This book is the common read for the Unitarian Universalist Association this year, and I will be leading a discussion group around it later in January. When I picked up this book, I realize that it spoke to something I had preached on not so very long ago the need for new kinds of interfaith alliances, deeper and more demanding relationships that require more than just showing up at an annual pancake breakfast. Rev. Barber calls these fusion coalitions interfaith organizing coalitions that include a wide spectrum of participants labor groups and faith groups and civic groups and issues-based groups and artists and any others who are grounded not just a single issue, but in shared moral commitments. These are relationships built to last, to carry us through not just a moment, but a movement. Bending the moral arc of the universe is no small task. Reconstructing a national culture is no small task. When I decided to be a part of this moral revival, to talk about this choice between fear and justice on the Sunday before the election, I had no idea that I would be heading out to Standing Rock this past week. I had no idea that I would have such a direct example of the importance and the power of this moral movement, such a direct example of what interfaith moral action could be. One of the key points that Rev. Barber makes in his book is that we don t just take a stand on something because we think we can succeed, but that there are times we take a stand simply because it is the right thing to do. This runs a bit contrary to some of the conventional wisdom of community organizing established by folks like Saul Alinsky, that you only take action where there is the possibility of a win. You don t spend precious energy and community capital working on something that seems like a long shot. This, says Barber, is the difference between a leap of faith and a pragmatic political decision. And sometimes, he says, when we stake out a moral ground, we must take a leap of faith. We cannot always predict the impact of our actions, and a loss today may become the foundation for future wins. Barber uses the example of the Supreme Court Justice John Harlan, who was the only dissenting justice in Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 court case which upheld separate but equal and created the segregation of the Jim Crow era. The dissenting opinion that Justice Harlan wrote became the basis for every legal argument against segregation in the 20th century. As Barber said, Justice Harlan lost by a landslide in But he won history. The importance of moral action, whether or not the outcome is what you hope for, was made clear to me by the events of this past week. What brought me to Standing Rock was the call for religious leaders to come and support the water protectors, to bear witness to the violence of the police response, and to advocate for a stop to the construction of the pipeline. The event was, in the words of the local Episcopalian priest who organized us, to be peaceful, prayerful, nonviolent and lawful. He 5

6 expected maybe 100 people to answer his call he got over 500 of us, from 20 different faith traditions. What I didn t know at the time I bought my plane ticket was that there was also a ceremony planned around an official repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery, the 1493 proclamation from the Catholic Church that formed the basis for the colonization and forced conversion of indigenous people all over the world. Many denominations have officially renounced this doctrine, including the Unitarian Universalist Association, but for the first time, representatives of these diverse religious traditions formally met with indigenous leaders and apologized for the harm that had been done to them because of this document that had legalized exploitation. They ceremonially burned a copy of the doctrine, and only after that was complete did we march out to the bridge to take a stand in front of the police. I don t know if we will be successful in getting the pipeline stopped. I hold out hope that we will. I hope that the event brought some media attention to the situation. I hope that it allowed the police officers and security forces who were there an opportunity for some self-reflection about their use of force against nonviolent, prayerful people. But the ceremony we held about the Doctrine of Discovery did nothing to stop the pipeline and it was not about that. It was, politically and strategically, unimportant. But it was a deeply moral act. The ceremony about the Doctrine of Discovery was about healing deep wounds between communities, it was about turning the page to a new chapter of relationship, based on mutual respect and dignity, not domination. And it opened an unexpected door in the hearts of individuals who began sharing, sometimes for the first time, their own experiences of abuse and mistreatment at the hands of Christianity. Native people talked about the boarding schools they were sent to as children, they talked about how their own traditions had been repressed and lost, and what this meant to them. They shared how meaningful it was to have so many clergy here not to convert, but to support. Whether or not the pipeline is stopped, a piece of the work of the Third Reconstruction has begun, reimagining and reworking the relationship between indigenous people and the people who came as colonizers. There is so much more that I can say about what I learned at Standing Rock, and I am still processing everything that I experienced. But thinking about how this relates to the work of Rev. Barber, and his desire to lift the level of conversation from what is expedient to what is right, I realized that another aspect of how what is happening at Standing Rock that exemplifies his call for moral action, is that it is all happening outside of electoral politics it was not about the presidential election at all. This is a rare moment, these days, to encounter something happening that defies categorization based on political affiliation. At Standing Rock right now there is no conversation about right and left, democrat and republican. It is, instead, about humanity and inhumanity, respect for people and for the earth versus respect for profits and productivity. Putting a stop to the pipeline is a moral act, not a political one. The fact that this controversy exists outside of traditional party lines has made most of the candidates a bit skittish about engaging with this issue at all I m sure that the oil company was hoping 6

7 that during the election season, while all the media attention was elsewhere, they could get the work done under the radar. And on a personal level, one of the best things about being there for a few days was that, because there was no internet, I was cut off from the political chatter. Instead, I was engaged, in a large, multifaith action of public witness that was grounded in the moral conviction that the lives of indigenous people need to be respected, and the water that we depend upon needs to be cherished. It was exactly the kind of work that Rev. Barber is talking about, creating the opportunity for justice and love to take root instead of bitterness and hate. In fact, one of the most beautiful things about staying at the main camp for several days is that I got to witness just how peaceful and prayerful the Standing Rock movement really is. Not a day went by that the elders did not remind everyone that the police officers and their families are people, too. The water protectors repeat over and over again that they are protecting the water for everyone, and that includes the people on the other side of the barricade. They prayed for the health and safety of the officers on a regular basis, and they prayed for the governor and for all the construction workers and for everyone involved in the project. The camp is, first and foremost, a site of prayer and ceremony, and the thousands of people who are gathered there begin and end every action with a reminder that peaceful, prayerful resistance and respect for all creation is the bedrock of their movement. I will be sharing more stories and details from the trip as I have a chance to reflect on what I learned there, but it is serendipitous that I stumbled into this living example of moral action beyond electoral politics on this week before this momentous election. It has given me a glimpse of the work that we have waiting for us on the other side, work that is spiritually grounded, joyful, and dare I even say transcendent? Work that crosses borders and leaves polls and pundits by the wayside in the favor of the wisdom generated in loving, joyful, inclusive community, work that reconstructs our nation by reconstructing our own hearts. May it Be So, Amen, and Blessed Be Resources: 7