Reading: from the Prophetic Imperative, pp.25-28 by Richard S. Gilbert HarperCollins, 1996.
In the Chapter of his book called “Confessions of a Militant Mystic, Richard Gilbert says, “With Unitarian Universalist theologian Henry Nelson Wieman, I think of the divine as the power of cosmic creativity. This creativity is manifest in nature as creative evolution; it is observed in history in those prophets of the human spirit who have tried to bend the arc of history toward justice against all odds; it is manifest here and now as we are co-creators of the Beloved Community. This work I know will not be completed in my lifetime, but I wish to work at repairing the world while I may. It is my mystic identification with this creative process that prompts me to continue…. This is my passionate and enduring center….
The mystic oneness has been given eloquent and poetic articulation by the late David Rhys Williams in We Speak of Life. [He says] “We are joined together by a mystic oneness whose source we may never know, but whose reality we can never doubt….this mystic oneness…has been glimpsed by nearly all the great seers and leaders of humanity. We are our neighbor’s keeper, because that neighbor is but our larger self….Behold, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, because thy neighbor is thyself.”
[Gilbert goes on] There is a temptation among us to be complacent….[But] people who live under the prophetic imperative are always worried. I am hopeful, though not optimistic about our capacity to repair the world in the face of the many unjust assaults upon it…. The church…is a school of the spirit, helping us to probe the depths of worship and work…perhaps the only [place] where we can ask the basic questions of the meaning of our brief guest appearance on this earthly stage.
Sermon
Are you a prophet? In Unitarian Universalism we hope that our people will value and be inspired by the ancient Hebrew prophets such as Micah, Amos, Isaiah and others that are so gorgeously carved into this pulpit with their emphasis on social justice. The ancient prophets were certain that they were called to reveal the will of God to the effect that all people are to remember to do justice. The famous words of the prophet Micah (6:8), “…and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” are a fine guideline for living. We can each define “the Lord” and “God” in our own way.
Perhaps you thought that the central message of the prophets was to predict gloom and doom. It was if the people were not just. The central message in most Bible stories and Psalms is to “lead a good life and make sure your neighbor has the freedom and wherewithal to lead a good life as well.”
In the reading this morning, Richard Gilbert calls us to work at repairing the world. The Hebrew phrase tikkun ha’olam means repairing the world. Upon reflection, if I had read Gilbert’s book earlier, I would have titled the sermon “Repairing the World.” He believes that we are all called to repair the world, or do social justice, just like modern day prophets such as Albert Schweitzer, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Susan B. Anthony.
When I was looking for a congregation to serve, I was attracted to this one because of its two major social justice accomplishments. One was their preparation to become a Welcoming Congregation. Many of you took the course series to inquire into what it has been like to be a gay man or lesbian woman, a group that has been oppressed for thousands of years while human beings came to have some understanding of their own sexuality. We came to understand that at least ten per cent of all people in all cultures are gay and lesbian. Humankind’s denial of and oppression of homosexuals has caused untold misery. This congregation, along with hundreds of others in our denomination finally opened their minds and hearts to an obvious truth: gay and lesbian people are born the way they are and there is nothing reprehensible in their natural way of being. The Welcoming Congregation program helped us to understand and welcome and affirm the worth and dignity of gay and lesbian people. (As a n important aside here, I do want to emphasize to you yet again that a gay man is not a pedophile. Pedophiles are people who gratify their sexual urges by using children. Pedophiles are almost always heterosexuals; they are usually husbands and fathers. I can hardly emphasize this enough for I know highly educated people who make this mistake.)
As we came to understand that it wasn’t quite that human sexuality was not quite as simple as people being just gay or lesbian, we more recently addressed the situation of bisexual and transgender people as well. We could, of course, have ignored the whole thing and not study human sexuality and come to terms with our own uncomfortable feelings, but no, this congregation did not want to continue to be perpetrators of oppression. We wanted to grow and change and live out our first and second principles affirming the equal worth and dignity of all persons and justice, equity and compassion in human relations and so some of us took the latest training of the Welcoming Congregation Program last year. At our semi-annual meeting next month, we will have an opportunity to formally declare ourselves a “Welcoming Congregation.”
The second social justice accomplishment I admired was that some years ago, when the Boys Scouts of America made a strong declaration to not accept gay boys or scout masters and to insist that their members had to believe in a higher power, this congregation had to examine whether we were living by our principles by sponsoring a Boys Scout troop. This was difficult because we had sponsored Troop 55 for more than 40 years. We asked the Troop to declare that it would not discriminate against gay boys and masters but they made no effort to challenge their national headquarters. Sadly, we had to stop sponsoring the Troop and we denied them the use of our building and more recently the use of our land at Snipatuit in Rochester. This was a very sad thing for us. Again, we could have ignored the whole thing, but instead we faced the discomfort and publicity surrounding our decision. I believe we are a better people for standing up for what we believe—that no people should suffer di scrimination, especially not at our hands.
This is not, of course, the sum of, or even half of our social justice efforts. Over the last few years we have signed petitions for peace and made calls to our representatives to support various bills that support the poor.
Being part of a church has many benefits. One is that we are part of a caring and interesting community of people. Another is that we have an opportunity to grow spiritually by grappling with religious and ethical ideas and ideals and by engaging in bringing more justice into the world to help repair the world. James Luther Adams, a UU ethicist, said, “The ‘holy’ thing in life is the participation in those processes that give body and form to universal justice.” Richard Gilbert asks us whether the mission of our church calls us to do social justice. As you attend the focus groups to contribute to our new mission statement, you might ask yourself whether the new vision and mission statements calls us to “repair the world,” although they do not have to include these exact words.
Today, I ask you, on behalf of our UU United Nations Office to call upon our government to press the UN to take strong measure to stop the killing of innocent people in Darfur, a province in the Sudan. Last year, the courageous Colin Powell declared that genocide was taking place in the Sudan and he was quickly silenced by the Bush Administration.
I know that I advertised that the focus of this Sunday would be the work of the UU Service Committee (the UUSC) but this, the Darfur situation, is more urgent topic that was requested by our office at the United Nations. I hope you will appreciate that we can move quickly like this when the world calls or when we are called to drop everything to help repair the world.
Perhaps you thought that the war was over in the Sudan because we no longer hear anything about it in the newspapers or on the television. The last I heard was that a peace deal was signed in January between the Sudan government forces and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. This has not affected at all the killing that goes on in the Darfur Province in the south. The Darfur situation is complex and I have put a write up of it in the Parish Hall. However, there is much truth to the report that the rebel group called the janjaweed is sponsored by the Sudan government to cause mayhem. I saw them on the television. They are bands of Arabs on camels. They are armed with guns and hachets! The janjaweed leader was interviewed and denied that they were killing anyone but only defending themselves. And yet, these men attack indiscriminately unarmed civilians—women, children, or anyone—cutting off arms and feet of even babies. These people were interviewed on the television showing t heir missing limbs and those of their babies and telling of witnessing the slaughter of loved ones. On top of this, the enormous displacement of people is causing untold misery. The janjaweed block convoys of food. The people are afraid to go back to their villages for the planting season and UN and non governmental agencies are certain that famine will wipe out thousands of people already weakened by dysentery.
The UN is taking no action because members of the Security Council are stalling, including the U.S., because of strong ties to the Sudanese government and Sudanese oil, and the United States is not pushing hard enough to force a resolution. The UUA president, Rev. Bill Sinkford, the UUSC, and our UU United Nations Office all fervently ask us to take action now to demand a Security Council resolution. This situation is without doubt the largest humanitarian failing in the world right now and if it is not checked, it will exceed the horror that Rwanda suffered because of the world’s looking away.
The United States Senate has introduced the Darfur Accountability Act of 2005. This is a piece of legislation that will force action. The UUA, the UUSC, and the UU-United Nations Office is asking us to each handwrite a letter to one or both Senators and that we collect them and fax or mail them to their Washington DC offices.
Senator Paul Simon, who died is 2003, said after the Rwandan genocide, “If every member of the House and Senate had received 100 letters from people back home saying we have to do something about Rwanda, when the crisis was first developing, then I think the response would have been different.” Let us not let Darfur suffer the fate of Rwanda. What a simple thing it is to write a letter, here, in our church and I will personally mail all the letters tomorrow. Here is the sample letter that our UU-UNO has suggested we write:
Senator Edward Kennedy
315 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Date
Dear Senator Kennedy,
A human tragedy is unfolding in the Darfur region of Sudan. If you have not done so yet, I urge you to co-sponsor the Darfur Accountability Act of 2005 (S. 495).
Last summer, for the first time in its history, Congress called an ongoing conflict genocide and acted during the crisis, rather than after violence ceased. However, the U.S. and the international community are now procrastinating while crimes against humanity continue. The failure to sustain pressure on the government of Sudan is a death sentence for thousands of people in Darfur. Strong action by the Senate as prescribed by S. 495 will put the U.S. back on the right track.
S. 495 calls on the U.S. to support the expansion of the African Peacekeeping force, to take legal actions against the government of Sudan and perpetrators of the crimes, and to insist that the Sudanese Government allow humanitarian workers and monitors in Darfur. Such actions are necessary in order to stop the violence and displacement.
I commend Congress for its past work to prevent further killing in Sudan, but more must be done NOW to succeed. Genocides can be prevented. Failing to act effectively is unthinkable.
Sincerely,
If you are reading this sermon, please write your letter today. Note that you could also write the same letter to Senator Kerry. We have also written a much shorter version of this letter for those of you who want that; it is attached to this sermon. This quote comes from the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C:
“Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou salt not be a bystander.”
Most of the world’s countries stood by when they could have saved the Jews before World War II.
Letter writing tables with paper, pens, and envelopes and sample letters are all ready for you in the Parish Hall if you will but take five minutes to do it. You don’t have to be a member of this congregation to do it. Imagine if everyone sitting here sat down to write a letter—what a powerful social justice action this would be! Isn’t it amazing that helping to repair the world can be done by the simple writing of a letter?!?
While you are writing your letters today, I hope you will hold in your heart the famous words of the Prophet Amos (5:24): “…Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.” (And, of course, we ended our service with the hymn “We’ll Build a Land.”
Short Version
Your name
Your address
City, State, Zip
Date, 2005
Senator Edward Kennedy
315 Russell Senate Office Building,
Washington, D.C. 20510
AND/OR
Senator John Kerry
304 Russell Senate Office Building,
Washington, D.C. 20510
Dear Senator Kennedy, (or Dear Senator Kerry,)
A human tragedy is unfolding in the Darfur region of Sudan. If you have not done so yet, I urge you to co-sponsor the Darfur Accountability Act of 2005 (S. 495).
An estimated 1000 people a day are dying from violence and the effects of displacement in Darfur. Despite the fact that the United States Congress has condemned these actions as genocide, we have taken no action to prevent them. More must be done NOW to stop the genocide. Failing to act effectively is unthinkable to a just people such as we are. Again, please support S. 495.
Sincerely,
Signed Name
Printed Name
