There is no fight quite like a fight between siblings. Not that I ever fought with my siblings, of course. But I hear, second-hand, of course, that sisters and brothers know exactly where to hit you, know where all of your buttons are located, because they watched as they were installed, had their own buttons installed by the same craftspeople. Proximity produces ferocity.
And while all war is terrible, civil war seems particularly vicious. Not at all civil, but rather a war within the civitas, Latin for “the body of citizens,†civil war has produced the Reign of Terror, the Killing Fields, Guernica, the Republic of Suffering.
Domestic conflict, civil war, is a term that could be used to describe the relations between the two halves of the fractured Davidic Kingdom, sibling nations birthed from a single state. What Saul, David, and Solomon had built could not be sustained. Citizens of the northern half, called Israel or Samaria, were damnable heathens, worshiping at ancient Bethel rather than at that beautiful new Temple built in Jerusalem, capitol of Judah, by the famously wise king. The Northern Kingdom had different holy books, illegitimate priests, a phony king of on an illegitimate throne. At least that’s what those in Judah told themselves.
So it took something for the prophet Amos to cross that border, leaving his home in Judah to denounce economic injustice in the capitol of Israel, Bethel. He declared “Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land.†Today he might have mentioned payday lenders, sub-prime auto loans bundled as derivatives, and in recent weeks, Wells Fargo. For many years, trying to explain the courage of Amos, I would say “Imagine if a Canadian came to New York and protested on Wall Street.â€
Then, in 2011, the Canadian anti-consumerist/pro-environment magazine Adbusters called for a protest against Wall Street. We can debate the particular policy positions of the Occupy movement, but civil disobedience and public protest have had an honored place in American history, from those costumed thugs that occupied a cargo ship and threw tea into the harbor to a woman on a bus that just said no. Disobedience and protest have an honored place in our own faith tradition, the very name of our movement contains the word “protest.â€
I am particularly enamored of one of the ongoing projects that grew out of the Occupy movement. While John Oliver got a lot of publicity for purchasing and abolishing $15 million dollars in medical debt, it was not an original idea. Those grungy disreputable Occupy folks created Rolling Jubilee, borrowing the term jubilee from God’s command in Hebrew scripture. Like John Oliver, Rolling Jubilee buys debt for pennies on the dollar, then forgives it, freeing Americans from debt bondage, often debt bondage caused by illness. With just over $700,000 raised, they have abolished over $31 million in debt. Debt forgiveness may be one of the most cost effective ways to help the impoverished. Imagine us raising money and purchasing medical debt in our region, liberation of near biblical proportions, for jubilee is biblical for freeing people from excessive debt.
Economic justice was a core value in the Hebrew faith of the Ancient Near East. It doesn’t fit quite as well with our current faith, Social Darwinism dressed up as free-market capitalism and wrapped in an American flag, but it was the religion of Jesus, an uncredentialed reforming Jewish rabbi who would have gotten along quite well with Amos. In fact, while we have myths and legends from before the time of Moses, it is the Exodus from Egypt, an uprising against power led by a fugitive murderer, that marks the real start of Judaism. The ancient Hebrews were at their best not when they had the splendor of the Temple, priests covered in jewels. They were at their best as a people when they were fighting for justice, when they faced adversity.
Jesus spoke of personal righteousness, and personal righteousness is one of the other core trajectories in the Judeo-Christian tradition, along with communal righteousness and, often neglected, economic and social justice. Jesus fed and healed people directly, but he also called out corruption where he saw it, engaged in a brazen act of civil disobedience in the Temple. He was an uppity man with brown skin challenging those with power, the elite of his own people and the brutal occupation.
Like the Hebrew tradition, Christianity has loses itself when it has earthly power, imperial power. This is true not just of Rome and popes. It is true for us as well. Before there was a United Church of Christ, before there were Congregationalists, we were Puritans, bright-eyed idealists seeking to build a holy city on the hill for all the world to see. The Puritans were the temporal power in the Massachusetts colony. And they became corrupted. Later fictions like The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible are reflections of actual cruelty, the latter a dramatic reenactment of the will to do violence in God’s name. It was only after the Puritans lost control, relinquished power in an increasingly diverse colony, that they were able to once again become prophetic, as they spoke out for slaves, for women.
Yes, like Jesus, like Jesus instructed, we must feed the hungry, heal the sick, cloth the naked.And we must be careful to do so in ways that empower rather than debase, must turn our back on old forms of toxic charity that perpetuate poverty and secure our own privilege. Like Jesus, like Amos, we must also the causes of injustice. Teach a person to fish rather than simply giving them a fish is fine, but we might to find out who keeps stealing the fishing poles.
Do justice. That is God’s word. When a mentally ill person with an automatic weapon slaughters dozens, thoughts and prayers are worthless. Are we willing to ask why ten mentally ill people are incarcerated for every single treatment bed in this country? Why people so dangerous that they are not allowed on an airplane are still allowed to buy an AK-47?
It is our job to change lives. Yes, that starts with our own lives, the slow process that our Reform tradition calls sanctification, as we put on Christ and shed old ways. We do this together. Following Jesus is hard, it is sacrificial, we were not meant to do it alone. We are called to change the lives of others. We don’t tell people about Jesus for our own power. We tell them because we believe, right or wrong, that the Way of Jesus will make them happier, will help them reach their full potential, will make the world a better place.
Four movements came together to form the United Church of Christ. It was from our own heritage, the Congregationalists, that we took our passion for justice. We call it the work of Justice and Witness, a ministry currently led at the national setting by the Rev. Traci Blackmon, a prophetic voice and the pastor of a local church in the St. Louis area, a woman who knows what it means to place her brown body on the line to speak out for justice, to decry the extrajudicial executions of one African-American after another.
Hundreds of United Church of Christ congregations are involved in changing lives. Most contribute to Neighbors in Need, an annual collection that supports direct mission activities. We will soon collect for Neighbors in Needs ourselves. Hundreds of churches host hunger ministries, support and recovery groups, provide space for non-profit and advocacy groups. They take leading roles in both faith-based and community-based programs that address poverty, organizations like the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization and our peninsula’s own Community Compass.
We look for who stole the fishing poles, still speak out, still make people mad when we confront the powers and principalities, just like Amos did, just like Jesus did. Jeremiahs in the street and in the city council chamber, we put our faith and our bodies on the line on issues like mass incarceration, the construction of pipelines across fragile and sacred lands, the plight of the Palestinians, racism and homophobia in our own nation. We have been taunted, threatened and arrested. We were at Selma, laid out quilts on the Washington Mall, held signs in Zuccotti Park. This is what patriots do. This is what Christians do. We love our nation, we love humankind enough to dare to dream what we might be. We love the creation and the mystery of life enough to want to protect it.
Everything we do, every single thing, is about changing lives, first our own lives, so that we can reach our potential as wondrous beings created by a Divine and Mysterious Artist we name as God, then changing the lives of others, as we seek to do justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly with our God. Thy will be done on earth. That is what we pray.
Changing lives through direct action and prophetic witness is our way. It is the second mark of our United Church of Christ faith. When we do it, boldly act-up and speak-out, dare to dream, we attract to our churches other dreamers, others who can see what is good in the world, see the potential of an African-American teen in a hoodie, of a girl named Malala, of a three-year old boy in a tutu.
May we be the prophets their mothers warned them about. May we change lives.
Amen.