|
Back to Sermon Archives
September 2, 2007
The Rev. John Auer
Scripture: Jeremiah
2:4-8, Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16, Luke 14:1, 7-14
“Solidarity:
Putting the ‘Union’ Back in Communion”
Welcome to Labor Sunday! We are a congregation
in labor – a people filled with new life, fresh hope – trying to give birth to
ministry and mission to and with all others! Remember the “curse” upon Adam and
Eve as they left the garden? The curse of labor? One into child birth, the
other into the dust of the field?! We are all meant to labor! Our God is a
laboring God, an always-creating, producing, providing God. God’s shift is six
days on, one day off. We are also meant to rest from our labor. Do we make
sure we get our “sabbath time?” The land we work gets six years on and one year
off. The land is meant to rest as well. The community and culture, the systems
and structures, we create get seven times seven years on and one year off – the
year of, what? Jubilee!! A time of rest and restoration, of starting over, of
renewal of resources for all the people!!
Thanks for saving my place here! I have been
out of the pulpit the past three weeks. Thanks to those who preached here, led
worship and special music, gave care to the congregation. I have always tried
to see myself less as a “professional” in my work than as a colleague, a peer,
church and community worker among other laborers – of the kind the Bible finds
worthy of hire. Paul always felt he should find wages outside the church -- so
the church did not feel they controlled him and what he preached. That is
partly why United Methodist clergy belong to the conference, not to the local
church. Clergy may be “set aside,” as we say, by particular training and for
particular forms and functions, roles and responsibilities in the church. But
we remain parts of the body of Christ – no higher, no lower than anyone else.
As per Jesus’ instruction for years I sought appointment among “lower” churches
-- until one day the Bishop asked me if I wanted to go up “higher” – like 4500
feet higher! To Reno! Uplifted!
I have longed for clergy to be less an
“executive club” and more a kind of “union” among those whose primary work in
life is to serve the church as the church serves the world. I prefer a basic
salary plan where clergy do not compete for bigger and more prestigious
congregations. I do not want to entertain guests who may prosper me. I prefer
to support one another’s ministries equally. The only variables might be costs
of living, numbers of dependents, years of service. It would be more like the
example of the early church, where everyone gives all they can and receives all
they need. But I have benefited enormously by guaranteed appointment and by
health care and now a pension to look to. If we look at the list of our own
congregational employees, most are not clergy. How do we see that all who work
for the church in every capacity get that support?
Julie and I got a taste of community like that
at Pilgrim Place in Claremont, part of LA, where missionaries, seminary
professors, and fulltime local church workers live in retirement with one
another. We also visited the Museum of Tolerance in LA. We saw the exhibit
“Finding Our Families, Finding Ourselves” – as we see by the poster tracing the
immigrant histories of such persons as Maya Angelou, Billy Crystal, Carlos
Santana, Joe Torre. If we look back far enough, we find nearly every one of our
families came here by boat, voluntarily or by force. Rev. Jesse Jackson is fond
of saying, “We all came over in different boats, but we’re all in the same boat
now!” And our boat is in desperate need of repair.
We are a nation of immigrants who have forgotten
and neglected our pasts, our roots, our origins and our traditions. So God is
forever reminding us all, we were once slaves in Egypt! We would have gone
nowhere, become no people without God’s help. Who heard our misery when we were
but unorganized, hopeless bricklayers under pharaoh? Who got us organized
enough to escape and to survive through years in the wilderness? Who brought us
into land full of fruits and good things? We know by faith what it’s like to be
strangers and sojourners, aliens and exiles! So we must always treat them as
if we are still part of them.
This is what the author of Hebrews means here.
Live in mutual love – loving others as we know ourselves to be loved by God in
the person of Jesus – loving others as we want to be loved by them. Be ready
with a meal or a bed – you may be visited by a stranger/angel any time! See and
imagine the lives of others – like those in prison, those who are raped and
tortured – as if in their shoes, in their very bodies and minds and hearts and
souls. Our Words for Meditation today say, “Show love to our fellow workers,
love to our employees, and love to our employer!” “Create and train people for
good jobs.” “Challenge those who earn too much to find new ways to share.”
“Stand with workers who don’t earn enough.” “Lift up workers who are organizing
to improve wages, benefits, and working conditions.” “May the work of this
congregation, the work of each person of this congregation and the workers that
serve this congregation be blessed.”
This is what the New Sanctuary Movement to shelter the undocumented -- most of
them workers -- calls “prophetic hospitality.” God speaks of being the God
of strangers and sojourners, aliens and exiles over a hundred times in Hebrew
scripture. For example, Leviticus 19 – “The stranger who dwells among you
shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him or her as
yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Jesus, in turn,
simply ignores distinctions of who is “legal” and who is not. Is there any
such thing as an “illegal” human being, really? And is anything human
“alien” to the God who makes each one in God’s image, then numbers the very
hairs on our heads?
Our own Bishop Shamana says of the New Sanctuary
Movement, “It’s an issue where churches can take the lead. We are taught to
follow Jesus and risk transformation – and risk changing the status quo.” Julie
and I served a student pastor about 1970 in a Chicago church where community
activists offer free breakfasts and health care programs. One of those
activists eventually went on to seminary and now pastors the Adalberto Memorial
United Methodist Church. For the past year sanitation worker and
congregational lay leader Elvira Arellano and her son Saul have been in
sanctuary there. Her deportation would have meant separation from her son
born a citizen here. Just the other week she was arrested and deported
from LA for bearing witness to the plight of all workers forced to choose
between work and family, work and full community.
This past Sunday Julie and I dropped in to
worship at San Rafael First UMC where we served seven years before coming here.
Fijian Methodists began attending while we were there. Many have now become
members while keeping a language worship as Tongan members do here. Fijians in
Marin County provide exemplary services of home health care and personal
attendance to elderly and disabled. July 10 a member named Neomai
(Knee-yo-Meye) -- meaning Naomi, the biblical “foreigner” who would not leave
her mother-in-law but swore, in the very words of God to us, “Wherever you go, I
will go,” – was stopped by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) while
taking her son to high school. She did not know her rights. She had to show
her passport. Her visa was expired. She had been trying to keep her family
together and send money back to family in Fiji. She was handcuffed, taken to
jail, held on $20,000 bail for eight days – with nothing but her biblical faith
to sustain her.
She had no idea that the fledging New Sanctuary
Movement was organizing support-persons to stand with her at her hearing –
letting her know, as God promises all, she was not alone. Her bail was
reduced. Her court dates will not go unnoticed but will be well attended and
prayed for. But she has lost both the jobs she held. There are lawyers to
pay. Two others of the congregation have since been arrested. We as a
congregation may want to relate to sisters and brothers in the Conference
creating what they call a “Ministry of Presence” to those who have to go to
court. Bishop Shamana adds, “I applaud and support the ministry of San Rafael
First as they move from solidarity to a new kind of pro-active ministry that
will help change the immigration system.” Not only care for the person in need
but change the system! And after the English-language worship last Sunday,
unbeknown to the congregation much less to us, Neomai fixed and served an India
curry lunch as her way of thanking the whole congregation for their support and
sustenance.
This is what’s called “solidarity” – when God
first hears our cries in bondage and decides to come down from heaven and stand
with us and comfort us and take us by hand and walk with us. Solidarity is
treating each other like sisters and brothers no matter how different we are.
Churches and unions are organizations where members intentionally call one
another brother and sister. We remember the “Solidarity” movement and labor
hero of our times Lech Walesa among shipyard workers in Poland. Who else would
be labor heroes of our time? Cesar Chavez and Delores Huerta? Chico Mendes in
Brazil? A. Philip Randolph? Walter Ruether? Frances Perkins? Joe Hill?
Mother Jones? Eugene Debs? Not to mention those who labor in sweatshops even
today. Mine workers. First responders to every kind of disaster. Day
laborers. Those who join military services because they need work and/or
education for work . . . .
We don’t remember many by name. But they have
given us the history of 8-hour days and 40-hour weeks, fairer wages and safer
workplaces, child protection and Social Security, and through it all the right
to organize – the human necessity to participate and to practice decision
-making in our work and all the vital public arenas of our lives. Churches help
keep that organizing spirit alive. We believe no one can be reduced in meaning
to the job they may find or even the work they may do. Folksinger Charlie King
reminds us, “Our life is more than our work, and our work is more than our
jobs!” We believe, passionately and compassionately, in the sanctity, the
sacredness, the sanctuary, the solidarity, the sustainability -- of the whole
person, the whole union and communion, the whole community and cosmos of persons
all known and valued by God who gives every life, therefore every work, and
therefore even every last job. Solidarity forever! Amen.
top of page
Archives
|
