Sermon given by Rev. Frank Clarkson, January 5, 2024.
Eighteen years ago, this church was searching for a new minister. I was the assistant minister in a nearby congregation, and that winter the senior minister was away on leave, so I got to lead the Christmas Eve service. Which I loved so much that I realized it was time to find a church where I could do that every year!
Just a few months later you called me to be your minister. And now we’ve just had our last Christmas together, and I find myself thinking about this journey we’ve shared; how blessed I have been to be your minister, how grateful for the good we’ve done together. And I’m aware that there are things left undone.
When I arrived here, there were things that needed attention and repair. And we’ve done that, and accomplished a lot. We’re a healthy congregation, and still, there are things we lost during the pandemic that need to be rebuilt. I’m thinking of our work for social justice.
We’re good at feeding people here, but our Community Meals program needs more leaders. We host programs that serve needy folks, and are rightly proud of all the ways our building is used by the wider community. Every Sunday we affirm that “service is our prayer,” and we do this pretty well. You help prepare and serve meals to hungry people, and do food and coat drives, and service trips, and donate to worthy causes.
But there’s a difference between service and justice. And guess what? Our worship theme for January is “Justice.”
Helping people in need is direct service that makes a difference in their lives. But what about working toward reducing problems like homelessness and hunger? You can certainly make the case that service to others is a kind of social justice, but it’s more of the bandaid approach, isn’t it? People will celebrate the anniversary of a homeless shelter or food pantry, but wouldn’t a better celebration be closing down because it’s no longer needed?
Just a couple of days ago there was a front-page story in the New York Times with the headline, “The Growth in Homelessness Is an American Moral Failure.” As a faith community, we are compelled to pay attention to social problems and to ask whether we are helping people or failing them.
We just heard part of Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” from the Civil Rights Movement, 60 years ago,. Given that racism and white supremacy have been part of this nation from its beginning, we have made progress—the violence and hatred and institutionalized discrimination against Black people is not what it once was—but does anyone think our racial justice work is done? Yes, actually—there are plenty of white folks unwilling to do their own anti-racism work, or even admit that racism is still a problem these days.
We could talk about poverty and income inequality and all kinds of discrimination still embedded in our culture. How people of color, and folks of different cultures and religions and sexual orientations than the majority ones can be targets of individual discrimination and abuse and systemic oppression.
This is the work of justice—changing attitudes and practices, undoing oppressive systems. And I have to confess that I can feel overwhelmed by the task. Because the work seems so vast, and hard, and complicated. When it comes to justice, where does one begin? It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the need and paralyzed by one’s own feelings of inadequacy. Which is why effective social justice work has to be a group project, and more of a long haul than a quick fix. Like this bit from a prayer written in honor of Oscar Romero reminds us:
“This is what we are about.
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
“We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast the produces far beyond our capabilities.
“We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. It may be incomplete
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest.” (Bishop Ken Untener)
We can’t do everything, but we can do something, right? And please, not just something that makes us feel better about ourselves, not something that just checks a box, but something that makes a difference, a real difference, that helps move things in a positive direction.
I want to have a community conversation about this, a conversation about justice, where we can share our hopes and ideas for how we will put our faith and values into action. So we can get ourselves organized again and moving forward. So please stay tuned for that. And if you feel called to be part of the effort, please speak to Marie, our Board chair, or to me.
There are certainly plenty of things going on in our culture these days that we could call moral failures. The fact that so many people in this land are suffering from poverty, addiction, lack of education or opportunity. Ways that we as a people are not living up to our aspirations and promises, from basic civility to hatred and discrimination. Ways that many of our so-called leaders have encouraged hateful words and actions, and failed to stand up for what is right. Ways that our democracy, and the rule of law, and the promise of equal justice under the law, are at risk. To say nothing about injustice around the world—like the genocide in Gaza, for example.
Don’t we, as a faith community, have something to say about these things? And don’t we, as people of faith, have something to do about these things? If not, then why are we here?
In that same letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, spoke to this, the call and responsibility to do one’s part. He said,
“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of (people) willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.”
Now is the time to lift up our heads and look around, to spend less time doom scrolling and more time making common cause with our neighbors. Now is the time to lift up our hearts and join hands and voices with those who need our presence and our gifts.
Did you grow up up saying the pledge of allegiance in school? Which ends “with liberty and justice for all.” But I never had a teacher tell me it wasn’t true; that in America there’s never been liberty and justice for all. So far it’s on an aspiration, a hope; and I wonder whether it’s even a shared value any more when some see liberty as the freedom to do what you want, regardless of how it affects others. Or as a limited commodity; that if you get your freedom then somehow I get less.
When we get discouraged, let us remember that there is a longing in the human heart, for freedom and for justice, that will not be denied. There is a calling, all the way back to the Hebrew prophets, to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
This striving for freedom and for justice isn’t easy or for the faint of heart. As we sang a few minutes ago, the work of building a better world is hard and long, often done “with bleeding hands and tears.” If you were doing it for immediate gratification, you’d have quit long ago. This is one of the reasons I love the church, and still believe in the church, even with all its failings, because it offers us a call to do this holy work, and practices for strengthening and renewing our souls that the work requires. The faith that the good we do “will not perish with our years.
We have taken care here to build a spiritual home that is solid and welcoming and caring. Now the world outside our doors is calling, is asking, “Will you be a faith that meets this moment, that stands for what is right and good? Will you give your hands to struggle, and give your hearts to the long haul work for justice?”
Now will someone say Amen?
Amen.