“Breaking Down Barriers”

October 16, 2005

A sermon delivered by the Rev. Carol Rosine

at the First Universalist Society in Franklin

A few years ago, Dr. James Forbes, minister of the Riverside Church in New York City, delivered the Ware Lecture during the UUA’s General Assembly.  He told us about being in South Africa for several weeks prior to the 1994 election that resulted in Nelson Mandela becoming President.  He said that in the weeks leading up to this election, fundamentalist Christians, those on the religious right, had been going into the townships telling people that instead of voting for one of the candidates on the ballot, that they should write in their vote for Jesus.  You may recall that this was an angry time, a fearful time in which many white Africaners were convinced that they’d be driven into the sea if Blacks gained positions of power.  Many were convinced that black Africans would never be equipped to run their country.   Anything that undermined blacks casting valid votes was welcome.

Dr. Forbes, a prominent African American preacher, had been invited to come to South Africa and to talk with the people in the townships.  The goal was to convince the people that they shouldn’t waste their votes by writing in a vote for Jesus.  Dr. Forbes told them that Jesus already had an office that he wasn’t likely to give up so they better cast their votes for one of the candidates who was actually listed.

When Dr. Forbes returned home after spending several weeks talking with the people in the townships of South Africa, he said that he became more acutely aware of the changes that had happened in our American society over time.  There was more mean-spiritedness, he said.  Selfishness was more legitimate than it had been before, the gap between the top-tier rich and the bottom tier destitute had grown increasingly bigger.  His observation was that a big chunk of this change could be attributed to racism.   Racism you might wonder?  What does mean-spiritedness, selfishness, and the widening gap between the rich and the poor have to do with racism?

As I watched all those unthinkable images filling my TV screen a few weeks ago, It was apparent that most of those left behind as Katrina approached were the poor—those living in such abject poverty that they didn’t have access to transportation.  There was no way for them to get out.  But in addition to the poverty of those left behind was the reality that most of them were black. 

As I watched this tragedy unfold, I thought often of Dr. Forbes words and wondered how much of what was happening could be attributed to racism.  I noted the way in which there were photos of blacks “looting” the stores while whites were described as merely trying to find food and other necessities.  I listened to frightening stories of black gangs roaming the Convention Center,  raping, stealing, committing acts of violence, and only later did I hear an African American woman interviewed who’d been there and was able to confirm that yes indeed there were black gangs moving through the Convention Center.  But she described something very different.  She said that these gangs were black men who had organized in order to scavenge for food and water which they then shared with those who had none.  These “gangs” roamed the Convention Center making sure that the women, the children, the elderly, and the sick were safe.  They protected us, she said.  They fed us, she said.  Those black men in the “gangs” were heroes, she said.    

Why such a discrepancy in describing what happened?  Why would some see looters and violent gangs raping and pillaging while others describe desperate people attempting to feed and protect each other?   Why are things seen through such different lenses?  Why do we see each other in such different ways?  And perhaps even more important, what are the consequences of this happening?   

On the day in which the evacuees arrived at Camp Edwards, Eileen McNamara, a Boston Globe columnist, wrote:  “The front page contrast could not have been more clear:  Above the fold, the State of Massachusetts was embracing evacuees from the rooftops over New Orleans, below the fold it was evicting squatters from underneath the bridges of Boston.   Compassion for the homeless sure has a short, selective shelf life in these parts.  We are back in Ronald Reagan country, reserving our empathy for the ‘deserving poor’ and the ‘truly needy.’”

“When does the clock start ticking for the victims of Hurricane Katrina?  When the complimentary ‘Welcome to Cape Cod’ beach pails packed with travel-sized toiletries are empty?  When it becomes clear that the needs of the traumatized extend beyond a warm meal, a clean cot, and a change of clothes?  When an angry or disheartened guest at Camp Edwards has too much to drink and picks a fight?  Will Governor Romney decide then that the displaced are not getting ‘back up on their feet’ fast enough, that they are starting to look a little too much like our own homegrown poor?”

My daughter Kathleen’s agency that serves the homeless population in Massachusetts was asked to spend time with the evacuees at Camp Edwards as they were sorting out what kind of services were needed.  She said that so many of the stories they heard were pretty much the same stories they hear on a daily basis right here.  So many of the evacuees were dealing with the very same issues that face our own homegrown poor. 

So what is it?  Poverty?  Racism?  A confusing complicated combination of them both?  Is this what we saw unfolding on our TV screens?  A tangled mess of both?  It’s so easy to slip into not only anger over what we’ve seen but feelings of helplessness and hopelessness as well.  The problems are so enormous.  Problems infecting the whole system.  James Forbes named them:  mean-spiritedness, selfishness, a widening gap between the top-tier rich and the bottom tier destitute.  What are we to do?  What can our response be?

When Dr. Forbes, an American Baptist, agreed to deliver the Ware Lecture, one of the first things he did was to find out a little bit more about who we Unitarian Universalists are.  He studied our history, spoke with some of our leaders, took a close look at the things we’re doing right now.  He was especially enamored with our UU Principles which he said were almost enough to make him want to join us and become a Unitarian Universalist himself. 

One of the things he was wondering about, he said, was how we have “managed to take a small denomination and create leadership and radical servant-hood of the humanitarian ideal so that our impact is far in excess of our demographic data.  How did you help people to become that?  We have stereotypes about you.  As if your spirituality is a minor modality of your tradition.  I don’t buy that.  You know something that some of us don’t know. Therefore to prepare you for your vocation, you may be asked to show what it is that takes people where they are and transforms them so they are willing to make a radical commitment.  Once you’ve identified what that spirituality of consciousness and transformation is, you may be ready to meet other denominations and say ‘We are not everything and we don’t boast of a certain kind of doctrinal intolerance that some of you might, but we know this.  We know how to bring people together, to make a narrowing of the gap between their creeds and their deeds, between what they say and what they do and we want to share it with you.’  That’s what I see!  You have a responsibility!” 

Dr. Forbes says that we Unitarian Universalists have a responsibility because we know how to bring people together.  We know how to narrow the gap between creeds and deeds, between what people say and what people do.  It was wonderful to hear him, an outsider, say that about us.  But was he right?  Are we Unitarian Universalists righteous enough to fulfill his expectations of us?  Do we stand firmly enough on the side of what is right and what is just?

Dr. Forbes told the story of a man traveling in a faraway place who purchased a beautiful, talking bird to send to his mother.  He waited a few days and then called to see how she’d liked his gift.  “It was delicious,” she said.  And he said, “Oh no, Mom, you weren’t supposed to eat the bird.  It was a talking bird.  They told me it could speak 4 languages.”  “Well,” his mother said, “it should have said something.”  Are we Unitarian Universalist motivated enough to say something about what we see?  Are we willing to speak up?   Are we willing & able to narrow the gap between what we say and what we do so that we can speak with integrity to others, as Dr. Forbes would have us do? 

In a recent address, Nick Carter, the President of Andover Newton Theological School, had this to say:. 

“It has been observed that we Christians have a long-standing love affair with doctrine and only secondarily begin to address the ethics of how we live….  Judaism does just the opposite.  For all the intellectualism and vigorous debate in the Jewish religion, it rates living a good life on a higher ground.   Essential to living a good life is my obligation to see the divinity in you: to grant to you and insist that others grant to you the same reverence, solitude, and freedom I claim for myself as a child of God.  To this obligation there are no exceptions.  Similarly, these obligations extend to societies as well as individuals.  Rabbi Steinberg has said that righteousness demands that every person old enough to know what is going on and strong enough to do something about it, is responsible more or less directly for every injustice committed by our nation, our economy, class or the institution of which we are a part.  That is a level of responsibility we are not used to carrying.  We’d rather point and blame than confess and commit.

In the Hebrew scripture righteousness is the fulfillment of the demands of a relationship, whether with God or humanity; indeed, the two are inextricably joined.  You can’t fulfill the covenant with God if you deny justice to your neighbor.  You are called to care for the poor and the oppressed and all those whom your society rejects and avoids.  You are to be a peacemaker.  And as Isaiah says "you are not to hide yourself from your own kin.'  When you can get out of the places that make you comfortable and safe, when you can recognize the humanity you share with those on the margins of life, you will finally start living the gospel you preach...."

You don’t hear that word “righteous” very much anymore.  At least not within the circles that most of us move.  But what does that word really mean?  It means to stand on the side of what is right and just.  It means, as the prophet Isaiah said, that we are not to hide ourselves from our kin. 

I have a good friend who is a righteous man.  He’d probably never think to call himself that but that’s exactly what he is.  He’s been working for decades with marginalized, Spanish speakers in his city, helping them find the services they need.  He has opened his home to Peruvian immigrants who are trying to establish a new life in America.  He raises money so that youth living in poverty in Indonesia can go to school.  He does not hide himself from his kin.  He’s been breaking down barriers between people for a long time now.  He is, indeed, a righteous man. 

I look around this sanctuary and I see other righteous people.  Those who are standing on the side of what is right and just.  Perhaps there’s a righteous person sitting next to you.  Perhaps that righteous person is you.  But what would it look like if each one of us  were to help change that mean-spiritedness, that selfishness, that assumption of privilege and entitlement that contributes to that tangled web of racism and poverty?  I guess it would mean that each one of us would have to look at the work we do, the institutions with which we’re associated.  We’d have to look at the way we spend our money and cast our ballots.  We’d have to look at the priorities in our lives and where we decide to direct our time and our energy and our passion.  We’d have to re-consider who our neighbors really are.  We’d have to open our eyes and open our hearts as well.

Dr. Forbes ended his lecture with a story that came out of the shooting in one of the schools that was hit by that wave of violence a few years ago.    This particular story happened in Padooka, Kentucky where several children, you may recall, died.  Afterwards a reporter asked the mother of one of the little girls who had been shot what her thoughts had been as she’d raced to the hospital.  She said that all the way there she kept praying, “Lord, please let my daughter live.”  And what happened when you found out your daughter was dead, asked the reporter.  “I started praying that they could harvest her organs so that others could live,” said the mother.  Her daughter, a little white girl, had been best friends with a little black girl.  These two children were so close and loved each other so much  that they told everyone they were twins.  What happened was that this little white girl’s heart was given to a black man and later her mother went to see him.  “Sir,” she said, “I have a request.  Is it alright if I lean my ear against your chest so that I may hear the heartbeat of my daughter?” 

We are one human race, Dr. Forbes said.  We can come to understand that the heart that beats here is the heart that beats there.  We are all children of God, he said, and then he shared the words of a hymn he’d written. 

“I looked around the other day and saw how truly blessed this life of mine has been.  I have health, strength and comfort, peace and joy within.  Special care in times of desperation.  A Helping hand when friends are few.  So I ask, dear Lord, what can I do, to turn some thanks to you?  I expected Mission Impossible, a call to service far away, but instead this gentle assignment God sends to us each day:  ‘love my children.  That’s all I ask of you.  Love my children.  That’s the least that you can do.  If you love them as I love them, we shall see them safely through.  Love yourself.  Love me too.  And whatever else you do, love my children.”