We could have tried to organize some New Orleans-style church music this morning
– “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” “When the Saints Go Marchin In,” “Down by
the Riverside” – and maybe we should do that next week or in the foreseeable
future. Spud Hilton, son of retired clergy in our conference Bruce and
Virginia, and with his father part of the Joyful Noise Jazz Band, leads off
an article in the Chronicle this week – “It’s a town that celebrates living
more than any other – a direct result of New Orleans having mourned longer and
more often than most. “No other metropolis has the close, almost loving
relationship with death that New Orleans has. It is home to renowned cemeteries,
deeply haunted neighborhoods, a history of grisly cruelty and its own unique
brand of funeral ceremony that grieves with an exhale and exults with the next
breath.”
So in some ways it’s not just the people of New Orleans I worry most about in
these moments. Just as the people of San Francisco recovered from 1906
and the people of New York City are recovering from 9/11. I worry most
about how the rest of us respond -- how deeply we are willing to ponder and
wonder about what is happening to us, the extent to which we are causing and
enabling what is happening to us – how we might keep from rushing to judgments
and fixing blames (as we are still trying to find whom to blame for 9/11!) --
lest we remain in denial and compound the deep and growing tragedy of our shared
situation. They say if the only tool in your box is a hammer, every
problem becomes a nail.
There is, believe it or not, perspective of religious peoples everywhere.
By “religious people” I mean the diminishing numbers of us, in our culture,
at least, who belong to “organized religion” and go to go “public worship” regularly.
What we know is we are a “body,” made up of many “parts” – we are connected,
we are related, for better and for worse. We have to say in moments of
such deep disaster, it is likely to be “organized religious” people first and
last who respond. We share awareness, first, of the need to confess our
own complicities in the tragedies of our lives -- I mean, the very same warm,
gentle waters of the Gulf Julie and I just basked in for three weeks in luxurious
Naples, Florida, contributed to the re-gathering of the storm that swamped the
poorest of New Orleans!
We also are aware of the need to see ourselves in the perspective of a youthful
and impetuous species -- often at adolescent odds with our Creator. Religious
people must call for a serious “time out” -- a serious time for reflection,
a time to recover essential respect for rightful roles of good government and
fair taxation in shaping a just life together -- and a time to stop picking
and choosing among scientific data and the best minds and hearts of our generation,
wherever they are in this world – so that we can stop fighting not only Mother
Nature but also our own best natures – so that we can rededicate ourselves to
the conviction that we are all – of ever class, color, tongue, nation --in this
life and world together!
So we are sticking with our theme and music for Labor Sunday. Our sermon
title remembers both the “stony road” of slavery, of forced and unpaid labor,
and the organizing way of Tom “Stoney” Stoneburner – a giant for worker rights
and common justice in our community – who was with us last Labor Sunday, among
other occasions, and whose memorial after his sudden death took place here during
last Lent. Our title further recalls a book of some fifteen years ago
by labor lawyer Tom Geoghagen, entitled Whose Side Are You On? Trying
to Be for Labor When It’s Flat on Its Back. Not only labor but many
of us are feeling this collectively in the face of so many appearances of systemic
violence and indifference. We try to stand for some kind of vision
of shalom -- for justice and peace in communion with all of God’s children,
all of God’s creatures and with Creation herself – yet find ourselves mostly
knocked down and out. Stoney would say, It’s time to organize once again
– to organize love for each other – our connectedness, our relatedness
-- as Paul and Jesus preach it here.
We do not need to make arguments about either global warming or global warring,
or attribute guilt and blame. (Though we may well imagine right now the
perspective of many National Guard troops from Louisiana and Mississippi looking
on helplessly from Iraq!) Instead, we proclaim that life in this world
-- as we become aware of it through the eyes of more and more people -- presents
all the challenges we ever need for organized application of our every capacity
of thought, feeling, word and action. It may be enough just to try to
meet life, and nature, on their own terms, with courage and with compassion.
It may be all we can do to work together to anticipate tragedy and to prevent
and reduce what we can of it -- then to alleviate, share it and grieve it together,
when it happens even in spite of our best efforts. Then we may hope to
be led to go with the rhythms of life, and of nature -- the ebbs and the flows
of what Spud Hilton means by a “New Orleans style” response – grieving with
exhale, exulting with next breath!
We need to believe it is possible for us, in Paul’s words this morning, to fulfill
our biblical command to love our neighbors, all our neighbors, even as we love
ourselves – as connected and as related to us! As members with us of one
body, one blood – together! We call it the “body of Christ” in the church,
but it’s also the “body of life” in all the world! In Wesleyan tradition,
before we ask what good we might do, we ask what harm we may be doing already
– consciously or not! We have got to stop every death and destruction,
every war and oppression we possibly can! There will be plenty of tragedy, even
terror, to face, without creating our own! Only then can we serve life
and creation, justice and liberation. What makes it so challenging to avoid
doing harm to one another is the very same interconnectedness, interrelatedness
that brings us together! Everything we do or fail to do -- our sins of
both commission and omission -- touches somebody else and often with implications
for all! This is specially true in our lives as producers and as consumers!
Every dollar we earn, every dollar we spend, connects and relates to the very
well-being of persons all over the world!
That’s why I say, playfully but pertinently, if we have to buy gas at all, buy
Citgo – which goes toward the good of the Venezuelan people! That’s why
we support the intent of the Conscious Community Business Network to highlight
small and local producers and providers. That’s why we are relieved that
the commission on base closings, to the consternation of the Pentagon, insists
on looking at social and economic impact on local communities. That’s
why we insist upon local accountability by all the mega-stores and –institutions
of our lives. These are decisions and actions we all can take part in!
By the time we finish washing up and eating breakfast each morning – much less
driven anywhere! -- we already have connected and related to local economies
all over the world! We need a “love ethic” in our everyday lives – not
only in our personal and inter-personal relations, though that’s where we start
-- but also in the systems and structures of everyday life for all people!
How to love not just my neighbor but my Wal-Mart? How to build Paul’s
“love” into how we govern and how we tax?
Jesus here says, in effect, sometimes love works one-to-one, sometimes it works
through small groups, and sometimes we have got to involve the whole community!
Jesus, like Moses long before him and Paul and so many after – all the way through
Mother Jones and Joe Hill, Dorothy Day and Cesar Chavez, to Stoney and most
recently to Brother Roger (murdered in worship a few weeks ago), founder of
the Taize Community of prayer, work, and hospitality, – even as the Israelites
were bricklayers, David a shepherd, Amos a farmer, Paul a tentmaker, Jesus a
carpenter – who called upon peasants and fisherfolk of Galilee, yes, but also
upon doctors and lawyers, tax collectors and prostitutes!
We are reminded that we as a congregation and a conference are employers as
well. Jesus directs us to practice justice -- which is organized love,
love-in-action -- in everyday dealings – not only at home and at school, at
work and at play – but also in church! We are expected to take seriously,
even boldly, our connections and relations to one another as members and parts
of the one body of Christ! We are being encouraged to do this right now
and in this season – Please respond to the mailing from SPRC asking each of
us to evaluate our pastoral staff and our congregational life and work!
(I am sure copies can be available.) Please come to Homecoming two weeks
from today to hear about, show interest in, and even commit to church groups
and activities! Please plan to host or attend a meeting in geographical
clusters to look at “This Old Church” in light of where and how we are gifted
and called by the living God for the future!
We’ll have to spend more time when we can with this care Jesus takes to spell
out our responsibility – that is, our ability to respond – to one another in
love. If we are aware of harm being done -- to us or to any member of
the bodies of Christ and of life we share – we are obliged to point the harm
out to those who are doing it, and/or to those in position to do something about
it! That is a big risk to take, a mess to make – especially without a
“Stoney” here to back us up! Jesus knows that! But how else do we all
come to live and to learn and to change and to grow – together?! If we
cannot do it in families, and in congregations, and in our local communities,
how can we even begin to imagine it happening in our state, nation and world?
Sometimes, for some things, it works for just one person to go. Cindy
Sheehan, like Rosa Parks and many others, show what a difference one person
can make. Many biblical movements begin with the call to one person –
who then gathers more. Other times, with other things, only a group --
as we know by many “recovery” groups – can help us. And sometimes, with
some things --especially that are so pervasive as the problems, the questions,
the challenges to deep reflection and change that we face today, here and around
the world – it takes all of us to respond!
How do we organize ourselves for that kind of love, for that kind of justice?
Not only to give a hungry person a fish, not only to teach them to fish for
themselves, but also to make room for them at the pond? To see that resources
of God for the children of God are produced and provided equally, equitably
for each and for all of God’s children? Come! Let us learn from
communion! Comm-UNION! One body, one blood! One loaf, one
cup! Produced and provided for all!
Amen.
P.S. I did not find time or place to add the following –
The United Methodist Council of Bishops’ “2005 International Workers
Day / Labor Day Message” lifts up farm-workers here and around the world.
(Farm-workers are pictured on our bulletin cover and our Call to Worship
comes in words of Cesar Chavez.) Three-fifths of migrant and seasonal farm-workers
in the U.S. live in poverty and suffer lower life expectancy and higher
rates of malnutrition, infant mortality, chronic illness than the rest of
our country’s people. Globally, more than 175 million workers are
migrant workers.
The UM “Social Principles” read – “Very person has the right to a job
at a living wage.” How exciting is that challenge – what a different
“war” that would be! Our bishops specifically rejoice in the ending
of two economic boycotts enacted in behalf of farm-workers by the 2004 General
Conference. They are agreements of Mt. Olive Pickle Co. in North Carolina
with FLOC, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee; and of Taco Bell, Inc.,
with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in an unincorporated, largely disenfranchised
and disempowered area of the very same county of southwest Florida Julie
and I just left. We were there because my grandparents bought a small
condo and lived there years ago. In fact, 25 years ago this summer
our family stayed there six weeks and worked with Habitat for Humanity in
Immokalee. We visited for the first time since then two weeks ago.
Many things stay the same. Our church and community colleagues there
are long since gone. But improvements have been made. Changes
are possible – even in what seem to be such impossible, intractable situations.
Rev. John J. Auer
