A Word for Washington

The National Cathedral in Washington DC is sometimes called “America’s Church.” It was chartered by Congress in 1893, built on the highest point in the city. It’s the cathedral where funerals of presidents are held, where prayer services are convened during national calamities.

I was stunned to be invited to preach at the Cathedral in early 1999. With the invitation came the text I was to use. It came from the Sermon on the Mount as retold in the Gospel of Matthew, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.” Being no expert in righteousness, I ended my sermon on a topic I know: evil. 

Reading the sermon recently, I said to myself, “I could preach that one again.”

…Matthew’s text reminds us we need to “be a light” to the world, that we need to be “righteous” – more righteous than the religious leaders of our day, or we’ll “never enter the kingdom of heaven.” 

Well…I’ve craved a lot of things in my life.  “Righteousness” has not been high on the list. The closest I came to liking the word “righteous” was dancing to the music of The Righteous Brothers – who, as it turned out, weren’t. 

When someone says “righteous,” I hear “self-righteous.” I think of hypocrisy, frankly.  I think of people who use religion only when it is convenient, who dress up in confession only as a last resort when every other alternative has been exhausted. I hear so-called leaders describe their opponent’s adultery as “bestiality,” and his own as “youthful indiscretions.”

One word we should not be unwilling to use is the word “evil.” When all individual behavior is reduced to psychology, and all group behavior is reduced to sociology, there’s not much room left for evil. He killed his parents “because he was a troubled child.”  They massacred their neighbors because of “years of hostility.” We assassinate our opponent’s character because “it’s politics.” Another explanation for these things would be “evil.”

We need both the courage and the clarity to call evil “evil” when we see it; else we – as individuals, as a church, as a nation – will never know the value of being righteous.

Somewhere in our political battles in this nation, we need to draw the line closer to civility, because when we stray across that border we flirt with evil. And the church, God’s family, must say so.  Else “the salt” has already “lost its savor,” and we have lost our purpose.

When we tolerate bias and prejudice as the basis of our public policy, we are not merely “following the polls.” We’re following evil. And the church, God’s family, must say so.  Else our light has gone under a bushel, and we’ve lost our value.

When we say those with cancer deserve research, those with heart disease deserve funding, and those with AIDS got what they deserved – we are not speaking “candidly.”  We are speaking evil. And the church must say so. Else we have no integrity, and no courage, and no righteousness.

But if we do pursue righteousness, according to The Great Sermon, we come to a place where our hostilities and our fears and our anxieties are put to rest.  We arrive at a place where we can – in the words of Habbakuk the prophet – see God coming across our barren fields, arms outstretched, assuring us of His love. We hear the words of Jesus’ Great Sermon: “Don’t be so anxious about your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink, or what you shall wear.  Look at the birds sailing above the Cathedral: they neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns; and yet your Father feeds them….  Seek first his kingdom, and his righteousness, and all these things will be yours as well.”

It’s hard not to be anxious.  When our relationships are torn, when our careers are at risk, when we watch the virus having its way with us…it’s hard not to be anxious.  But here’s a word for those of us who are anxious: Our father knows us, and what we need.  If he will feed the birds, he will cradle his children.

We come together for worship. And then we go home, you to your struggles and I to mine. But having seen you here; having looked across this great sanctuary and having felt the power of your prayers; I will go home encouraged that common people can be uncommonly good.

I will tell Max, when he sees his mother’s sick bed and remembers his father’s deathbed, that if desperate times come, and he is all alone, there is a community of faith where he can take refuge. And I will tell Zack, when he grows silent and frightened, that there are righteous people who will defend him.

If, in fact, I should need to leave, I look to you to tell my children that I have not left them; I have only gone a little ways ahead. Tell them you know I saw God coming across the field, because you heard me say, “My God…!” Tell them that they will rejoice again, laugh again, roll on the floor and be silly again – because if he will feed the birds, he will cradle his children.

And know that, as you speak to my children, I will be offering this benediction: “Grace to you, and peace.”

Embracing the "We"

I was born in Louisville, KY, so it was a special honor when the University of Louisville and the Louisville Community Foundation gave me their “Victory of Spirit Award” in 1994. With the Award came an invitation to offer a lecture on some aspect of ethics. I recently stumbled into a script of the lecture I gave and I realized that I could give it with little change today.

It was a cool autumn day (October 19, 1994) when I issued a call to see humanity as a single family. Here’s part of what I said:

…I truly do not know what it was, exactly, that motivated White Americans to hide slaves on stops along the Underground Railroad. Neither do I know why Dutch Calvinists risked their lives to hide Polish Jews. Religion was an important ingredient in the recipe for some courage. And I suppose that there was this: A person whose life was not at risk saw a person whose life was, and said “It could be me.” In that one moment of clear thought, someone realized, correctly, that we who are human are, all of us, one.

The division into “us” and “them” is deadly. It justifies slavery and its fills ovens with Jews. It enabled America to believe it had nothing to fear from AIDS because the majority is heterosexual and we, the majority, were convinced that this was a gay man’s disease: theirs. Only when the virus began infecting the majority – people like “us” instead of “them” – did our conscience awaken.

Even today the consequences of homophobia mark the AIDS movement. Legislation is named not for one of the hundreds of thousands of gay men who have died, but for Ryan White, a charming young and heterosexual teenager. These are acceptable: Arthur Ashe, Elizabeth Glaser, Magic Johnson…and Mary Fisher….

But now and again someone sees the truth. A man comes by who hears the cries of an Argentine child, imprisoned for her parents’ politics, being tortured by her jailers. “It could be my child,” says the man, and he launches a crusade toward justice. Or a man on campus is held down in the shower room and abused with a broom handle by a laughing football team because he is gay until one of you rises up to say, “It could be my brother.” In such moments, the spirit of ethics is no faint abstraction. It is a blindingly clear reality, a demanding plea, a cry you must answer with, at least, your life.

For those who walk it, the road to AIDS grows long. The vigor with which we start our journey withers. We discover fellow travelers whom we love, and then we lose them, losing a part of ourselves as well. My children are too old to forget their final memories of their father, and too young to know how to understand their loss. I, who hugged Brian as he drew his last breath, am really no wiser than they. And so we go down the road together, often laughing, occasionally crying, sometimes very, very quiet.

And then I come here, and see you. Some of you are young enough to have your whole lives before you; others of you, like me, have lived a while. Whatever our age, when morning breaks again, we’ll be called to make decisions, ethical decisions, about how to cash in the energy and time we have been given.

If any are looking for ethical role models who might be worthy of imitation, do not look to me. I was dragged into this crusade kicking and screaming, wanting – desperately – not to play this role. But others came by choice: doctors who gave up practices with high profits to care for patients with low blood counts and no insurance; nurses who set aside stigma to give wasting men not only a vial of medicine but a long hug of courageous affection; lovers and parents, sisters and friends, people who became caregivers when the court of public opinion ruled against any care at all – these are the heroes who should take home awards, and there are plenty of them here, today, in Louisville….

My Voice

For a very long time, I thought I had nothing to say. I was intimidated by people with degrees and high positions, experts. Early in my career, I specialized in being quietly creative as a TV morning show producer, a presidential “advanceman,” and an event planner. The emphasis should be on “quietly.”

By the late 1980s I’d found a way to express myself through art. But my art didn’t make a sound. It wasn’t a voice.

Ultimately, I found my voice in a collaboration. I was able to express my thoughts and feelings, and my collaborator would suggest words that turned my silence into sound. I learned in scores of speeches, keynotes, interviews, and sermons that I did have a voice others could hear.

The power of voice reverberates through everything written by Joy Harjo, the first (and current) Native American US Poet Laureate.  Joy once said she felt a responsibility to represent “all voices, all women, all of my tribe, all people, all earth.” Writing, she said, “frees me to believe in myself, to be able to speak, to have voice, because I have to; it is my survival.”

I’ve wished, lately, that I’d be invited to speak in public more often. I don’t need to be seen or recognized; it isn’t about fame. It’s about using my voice to speak for the voiceless, especially women and those who are powerless and mute. Joy’s reason for speaking out in poetry and song is the same as my reason for taking the podium or the pulpit: “I have to; it is my survival.”

In one of Joy’s anthologies of Native writing she quotes the Apache poet Margo Tamez, now a professor in Indigenous Studies at the University of British Columbia, who understood what it means to have voice. Read this slowly, out-loud:

I come in many forms

Because of me people think differently

Because of me people pray differently

Because of me people sing differently

Because of me people speak differently

Because of me people plan differently

Because of me people live differently

Voice I am

Sacred voice I am

Sacred voice this I am

I’ve never met Dr. Tamez but I know her voice. I recognize it in my own.