[Thank you for inviting me to be with you today. It has been a while since I have spoken like this, so I can only hope that I present you with something worthwhile this morning.]
The theme of this month is Courage. That is a tall order, but I believe that facing each day takes a sort of courage. I wish to center in on the courage to take a stand, not for what people want or expect but for what is right.
Sometimes courage can be simple act of doing the right thing while ignoring the personal consequences. Or perhaps just not thinking of consequences. I think back to a couple of acts of courage in my life that I did not perceive as courage at the time I did them.
When I was a student at Duke Divinity School, it was a time of turmoil in our political scene. One thing of concern to me and a lot of other people was what became the voter rights bill of 1965. As the head of the social action committee of the school, I recruited three of my friends and we headed off to Washington DC to talk with our congressmen. And most importantly we were to talk with our Senators.
We left Durham and headed North. After a while we were in Virginia and realized that nature was calling, so we pulled into a service station along the highway. This was before many of Interstates were completed. When the first one of the group went to the restroom, he reported there was a sign that said “White Only.” But one of group was a young black man, Matthew. Rather than leave and try to find a more friendly station, the remaining three stood guard at the door as Matt went to restroom. We did not think of courage, we just knew that something had to be taken care of at that moment, so we did it. One of that group went on to be a professor at Duke, and Matt became Head of the Chaplaincy Corp and a General in the United States Army.
After I finished school and took my first church appointment, I was at a social event and heard comments that struck me as far from Christian, and I felt that something had to change. I served a church that had a morning radio spot monthly. It was disheartening to listen to people say the a Christian pastor named Martin Luther King, Jr. should be killed, so I went on the air and said so, reminding people that murder was not a Christian act no matter how much you disagreed with someone’s point of view. It seemed like a simple statement which I did not equate with courage. I was only stating what I believed to be Christian point of view.
It was not seen that way in 1965 as the station was flooded with death threats and bomb threats. Bombs for that station, death for me. Obviously, I survived. And today a major street in the town is named Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive.
As a campus minister in the mid 70’s, I sought to develop a good relationship with all the students on the SAU campus, regardless of perceived status on campus or color or any other condition. The result was fairly positive and opened many doors for service to students. In return, students sometimes attended one of the rural churches I served on the weekend. As they visited one of the small churches, one of the students was black and the students were all treated with appreciation.
They enjoyed the experience and wanted to attend another of the churches, so on the next Sunday the same group attended. But on this visit, no one in the church acknowledged or spoke to any of the students. I was very disappointed. But little did I know that was only the beginning. The next Sunday when I arrived at the church, it was locked and no body was there. I used my key and went in and no one showed up for the service. I called some members and in each case the phone was promptly hung up. So being the nosey person that I am I went to one of the member’s home. The door was opened, but not the screen door and I was acknowledged with two sentences. “Preacher, we don’t allow ‘darkies’ in our church.” The second was: “We will not be sending you your salary any more.” And the door was slammed and the blind was closed. I was taken aback as the expression goes. Way back in some regards, by having heard the term “darkies”, which I had never heard used before in my life. I knew I was in an unusual situation. But for the next six months, I went every Sunday to that church and stayed for the normal length of the service.
College students have strong wills and curiosity so they wanted to find out about my third church. The same group with several additions showed up one Sunday unaware to me. The moment they walked in, some people got up and walked out of the building. Then during the service, during hymns, some remained seated, in fact it seemed that the only people singing were the students and me. Following the service, one of the women told me that they did not allow black people in their church. I replied that it is not your church or my church, it is God’s church. When I said that, her sister grabbed her arm and said, he is not listening to you. I was stunned by what happened. There were some acts of courage on the part of the people that stayed and by my District Superintendent, but that is another story.
In none of these cases did I think I was acting with courage, I was simply doing the right thing. And basically that is all courage is, doing the right thing without regard to the personal consequences.
Having followed this path thus far, I want to discuss the courage it takes to seek redemption. For some this may sound like an evangelical plea, and it is, but not the way so called “evangelicals” want us to think. This is why I have chosen the words of Paul in Romans 8.
Romans 8:18-25
“I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility not of it’s own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now; not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we are saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what se do not see, we wait for it in patience.”
In the passage redemption is couched in terms of an event involving the whole of creation. Redemption is bigger that something one can claim as a personal prize or achievement. And this is where we run into the obstacle which some call personal salvation. These are the people that ask “are you saved?” The answer in the context of Paul and the letter to the Romans is “No“. Salvation, or redemption is couched in a much more universalistic setting. Redemption of the one depends on the redemption of the whole. And not just people, but the creation itself. That is significant. Paul speaks of the creation groaning in travail. It was not unusual for Biblical writers to see things in context with nature and the universe as they saw it. In a sense, that is what the story of Noah was about. Redemption involved the earth and it’s creatures as much as it involved Noah and God. In the same vein,
the Crucifixion brought earthquakes according to Matthew. Like many other religious, Christianity speaks of a relationship between people and the universe in which they live.
Take a look at the world today. We hear of climate change and know we see extreme weather patterns unlike anything before. Animals are becoming extinct. Geography is changing. We read of earthquakes in areas where “fracking” has taken place, the earth itself is expressing displeasure with mistreatment.
Individual redemption can not take place under this conditions, yet people talk of individual salvation and do little or nothing to change the conditions that are causing our earth to cry out.
What does all this have to do with courage? Again, we have to do the right thing, without regard to the personal consequences. When people recycle and assume some personal responsibility for their own actions, not much happens to change the rape of the earth. Not that we should do this, we should, real action has to be bold and large, holding politicians and big business responsible and accepting nothing less than a total change in the status quo.
Oil companies can not be allowed to say we must consume more and that we need more oil. And the automobile industry resists stronger emissions control and increased fuel economy. Oil is a limited resource and much of it has already been used up. Now we frack for more oil and gas. That term alone tells the story of what is going on. There was no such word as frack, until the oil companies started using it to avoid what the word really means. Fracking is fracturing. Fracturing simply put is breaking the planet. But that sounds bad so we call it “fracking”. The reality is brushed under the rug, and the fracturing keeps happening in more and more places. Just how much fracturing can we do the earth before it is broken beyond repair?
And here we run into the evangelicals who say nothing is wrong as long as a person is saved. But Paul says we can not be saved unless the creation itself is saved. Do you have the courage to tell these people that they are not saved, by a long shot.
We are told that we are created in the image of God. Mark Twain once quipped that man has returned the favor ever since. Obviously part of that image is the human brain. We have the curiosity to seek new knowledge. It is part of the way we were created. With the mind we can understand the problems that the world faces, and with the mind we can tackle those problems. With this said, we uncover another problem. Some people don’t accept the facts. We have to have the courage to say to them that facts are important. We cannot accept a situation where people say that science and it’s fact contradicts faith.
We would not have been endowed with a brain by our creator if were to blindly follow a set of historical rules. Times change, understanding changes, the world evolves, interpretations of God even change over time. The books of the Bible were determined by a council of men centuries ago, but our minds have enabled us to know that the manifestations of God are not set at a point in time or by one group in the past. And while I respect the Bible as a starting point I do not believe it is an end point. When I read Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” it was just as moving and inspired as any letter from Paul. Even though some words are not in Bible, scripture is still being written.
As long as ice shelves keep falling off of Antarctica, as long as the ground trembles from being fractured, as long as another animal becomes extinct, as long as the oceans continue to rise, as long as long as we experience extreme weather, as long as we pour toxic gases into the atmosphere, as long as we poison our bees, as long as we do not honor our home, the earth, there is no redemption for human kind.
As long as one person is hungry, as long as one person is homeless, as long as one person is denied rights because of race, gender, social status, sexual orientation, or any other human condition, as long as one child is bullied, as long as one person cannot receive medical care, as long as one person spews hatred, as long as bigotry in any form exists, there is no redemption for human kind.
Perhaps this sounds like doom and gloom, but things can and must change and each person must have the courage to act to make that change happen. What can one person do? One person can write a letter to a congressman stating that policies must change. One person can vote for people who seek reasonable solutions to these problems. One person can confront someone when they hear a voice of bigotry or hatred. If someone posts a derogatory concept on social media one person can reply by saying that is unacceptable.
Some years ago at the Pink Tomato Festival, a man came up to the Congressman from that district and told him that he was destroying American values by voting for funds to AIDS research. At the time, I was serving as the Area Director for South Arkansas for the American Cancer Society. I had been visiting with the Congressman and asked if he minded if I shared something with this man. I told the man that these dollars were important in the study of the human immune system. In the past we had studied diseases and their symptoms, but now because this disease was one of the immune system, we were examining the root cause of disease and the results have been important to cancer research and heart research in ways that were new. The Cancer Society supported this new federal funding because it was opening new ways of looking at things. Suddenly, this angry man thanked the congressman and said he was pleased to get this new understanding. Sometimes courage is opening a new path to understanding.
Redemption is a process. And we must have the courage to be part of that process. And yes, it is a large process involving the whole of creation and every living being. I have sought to point out a sound theological basis for involvement in the process and at the same time give examples of what each of us can do. It is a big job, but the preservation of this earth is as important as any human rights issue because if we have no place to live, rights as a term becomes irrelevant. And perhaps the best part is that we are not alone. When we act together, courage grows and change happens. In the words of the adventurer and philosopher, Captain Picard, “Make it so.”
Amen. 4 June 2014