Social Action
- Details
- Created on Sunday, 15 March 2009 01:00
- Written by Angela Herrera
{player 2009-03-15-9am-sermon.mp3}
Last week I made a tearful phone call. I told my mother I was very sad…that she wants to move to Kyrgyzstan. She’s leaving by the end of the month, with my stepdad. Leaving New Orleans, which is not close to Boston either, but going farther away—as far as you can get, I think, not that I’m taking it personally!
She’s moving to mountainous Kyrgyzstan, which borders Tajikistan, which borders Afghanistan. On a map, Afghanistan looks about one hop and a skip away from where they’ll be. It’s 70 miles, as it turns out. It makes me a little nervous but what can I say? They’ve been sent by Mercy Corp. There is a famine looming, and they can help. They can’t imagine not going. I can’t imagine stopping them.
So personally, it’s an interesting time for me to preach about social action. It’s very moving to talk about the motivation for and the results of taking our faith outside into the world. It isn’t as easy to talk about the costs, even though they are worth it. That’s partly where my mind is at the moment.
Over the years I have volunteered as a Spanish translator at a food pantry and in an ESL classroom. I’ve worked at a soup kitchen, stood up to an abusive police officer, and performed in a play to raise money to prevent violence against women. I’ve visited inmates in a prison. I’ve donated, canvassed, studied community organizing, and I’ve almost, almost become an ordained minister—I’m so close now, thanks to you!
Some of these things were small, one time events. Some were big. Some made an immediate difference. Some felt utterly useless. I never feel like I am doing enough. When I began to write this sermon I wondered how I could speak about social action when I had done so little myself, which is what prompted me to make this list. I quickly realized what a ridiculous thought it had been, but it also speaks to the fact that there is so much to do, it can make you feel very, very small. That’s one of the costs, I think. Besides the chance that social action will lead us—or our loved ones--into unfamiliar territory, it’s also true that when we decide to look up from our own lives, in which we have the most power, and we see our place in the interdependent web of existence, and we take responsibility for the condition of the rest of the web, we have to face the fact that we are small.
Small, but not powerless. Not by any means.
Of the condition of the world, the theologian George Fox once wrote: “I saw that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but also an infinite ocean of light and love which flowed over the ocean of darkness and death. And in that also I saw the infinite love of God.”
Once, when I was applying for a scholarship, I had to explain why I wanted to become a minister. I thought it might sound a little naive if I simply said it was to help heal the world. It’s too much work for one person. So I explained: “I know there is injustice in our world and that this has been true for all of the generations. As long as there has been injustice, so have there been highly motivated, loving people to correct it,” I said. “I wish to join those ranks.”
I learned this from being raised as a Unitarian Universalist. I know it is the overwhelming sentiment in this room.
“An ocean of light and love.”
One of the hallmarks of our liberal faith is the belief that the work of love and justice, “God’s work,” has to be done by human hands. When we pray for an end to poverty, it’s really a prayer that we recognize the resources we already have to end poverty, and that we do it.
When we pray for an end to racism and oppression, it is a prayer that joins the voices of millions of people over generations …but must resonate loudest inside our own hearts where the task is close and specific, where it ceases to be a cry and becomes the discomforting work of looking, and seeing, and challenging and unlearning the way racism and oppression shape our own lives and identities.
And when we pray for an end to violence, it is a prayer that we move from a “’thing-oriented’ to a ‘person oriented’ society,” in the words of Martin Luther King Jr. …beginning with ourselves. A prayer that begins with ourselves, and leads us out the door to spread the hope and the work around.
We can’t do it in one flying-solo leap, but we can ask ourselves, as Gary Smith asked me in another context once, “What would it look like to move one inch in that direction?”
What would it look like to move one inch toward recycling more, sharing economic power, making education accessible, making cities healthier, ending racism…
And the thing is, that when one small person takes a step, that domino effect can happen. We heard about it in the children’s message.
Do any kids here remember a couple of months ago when I preached about heroes? And I talked about a guy named Leon McLaughlin? I told you about how he shines shoes for a living, and somehow he helped a village in Bolivia get clean water when they didn’t have any. Okay, here’s an interesting example of a domino effect:
After I preached that sermon, about four weeks later, I got an email from Leon. Now, you have to remember that I never met him before. I heard about his story on TV. And Leon lives 3046 miles away from here, in Seattle. I have no idea how he heard about my sermon—maybe someone in the sanctuary today knows the secret—but somehow he did, and he wrote to say thanks for sharing his story.
By coincidence, I was going to Seattle the weekend after that. I thought I might get a chance to meet him in person. It didn’t work out, unfortunately. But he has kept me on his email list and I keep getting messages about all the people who want to get involved in a social action like his. It turns out I’m not the only one who picked up his story. Yesterday a woman emailed him from a conference in Istanbul. That’s 6,054 miles from Seattle. You just never know.
So many in this congregation have also “moved an inch,” and so much more. Thank you to the folks who shared their stories this morning. Who knows how the domino effect will play out? You could be part of that! Did something catch your ear? Stir your passions? The insert in your order of service has information about getting involved. Then be sure and tell your ministers about it! We’re curious about that domino effect, too.
But there is one effect that is harder for others to see. That’s the effect of social action on your spirit.
As I think about the costs, the challenges, and the deep spiritual reasons for social action, I think of the words of Tennessee Williams, who said, “Once you fully apprehend the vacuity of a life without struggle, you are equipped with the basic means of salvation.”
We need to do “God’s work” on earth, not just because God needs us to, or we need each other to, but also because our souls need us to. Our souls need to reach out, to be part of that ocean that goes over the ocean of despair, they need to struggle with it, to pay some costs, to grow from it, and to be part of something big, challenging, joyful, and meaningful.
There is a reading I shared with the spiritual autobiography class last week; a little story retold in Dan Wakefield’s book, and it goes like this:
Daiju visited the master Baso in China. Baso asked, “What do you seek?”
“Enlightenment,” said Daiju.
“You have your own treasure house. Why do you search outside?” Baso asked. Daiju inquired, “Where is my treasure house?”
Baso answered, “What you are asking is your treasure house.”
And Daiju was enlightened!
This reminds me of a theological image I heard somewhere along the way on the path to ministry…I can’t remember who said it now, but it went something like this,
God is everywhere. God is even already within us. When we pray, it is like God longing for God’s self. In the very act of praying, God is already there.
[Pause]
How do we heal the world, O God?
“The question you are asking IS your treasure trove.”
How do we heal the world?
“In the act, it is already there.”