What Dream Today?

Rev. Grace H. Simons

Readings:

From Barack Obama:

I believe we can be better. Those who died here, those who saved lives here - they help me believe. We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another is entirely up to us...

If this tragedy prompts reflection and debate - as it should - let's make sure it's worthy of those we have lost...

We need to broaden our moral imagination; sharpen our instincts for compassion.

From Fred Rogers:

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." To this day, especially in times of "disaster," I remember my mother's words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers - so many caring people in this world.

From Martin Luther King, Jr:

There are some things in our society to which all of us should be maladjusted.

Sermon:

What a sobering week it's been! The tragedy in Tucson has shocked and saddened our nation. Our hearts are torn open. In these days when we still struggle to understand that this is real and not some bad dream, we send our hopes and prayers for those affected: 6 dead, 14 wounded, uncounted family members, friends and neighbors. Indeed, we are all a part of that circle and deeply struck by this sudden act of violence. Our prayers also go out for the deranged young man who committed these acts, and for his parents. We can hardly imagine what personal demons afflict Jared Loughner or the devastation felt by his parents. We try to make some sense of the senseless, listen for words that help us to deal with such a violent act. Some of those words have helped - others seem far off the mark.

We continue to ponder and to search the details for reassurance. We have learned some things of the victims - their passionate interests, their work and service to others. We've heard of the dreams of a 9 yr old girl, of a young man just engaged to be married, dreams cut off in a fleeting moment. We've been introduced to older victims and their community involvement and caring spirits. We mourn their passing. Those who struggle for healing also have our compassion. May their minds and hearts heal along with their bodies.

Especially coming so close to the MLK holiday, this tragedy raises echoes of other American shootings: the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King Jr, himself, of the shootings at Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Fort Ross. Now Tucson is added to this sad list. And once again, we hear claims and denials around topics that have become too familiar. The debate about gun control is raised, and also the tenor, conduct and content of our political debates and differences. Russia and China find this an occasion to talk about the dangers of excessive freedom. One topic I hope will gain some traction is concern for the services and treatment available for mental illness. We have made strides in this area, but it also seems to be one of the first services cut when budget shortfalls loom.

None of these topics, by themselves, presents a straight line of cause and effect in violence like this. We humans live in such complicated webs of influence and experience that hope for a magic remedy, some pill to fix this, to prevent such events from ever happening again, is simply unrealistic. Of course, we would like to find a simple solution. It would be wonderful. But it's not going to happen. I agree with President Obama that there is no causal link to a single source of word or action in our society. And I also agree that we can be better. We can take more responsibility for the ways we interact with others, whether we agree with them or not. We can be better in ways that honor the lives and expectations of those who died in Tucson.

And I believe that dreams need not die with the individual who has held them dear or articulated them for many. Certainly it is true that Christina Taylor Green will not be the first girl to play major league baseball. But her ideas about the importance and potential for involvement in the democratic process are ones we can strive to achieve. And sadly, Christina's dreams are not the only ones to be abruptly ended. We remember the dreams of others who have died in attacks like this one. Some are held and carried on by friends and family members, and others are so well known that they inspire people across the country and around the world.

This weekend - and in the weeks following Monday's observance - we will again be reminded of a very famous dream. The words and cadence of the Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr's "Dream Speech" have become familiar to most of us. His images inspire us to believe in a day when everyone is judged by the content of their character rather than immutable traits like skin color or sexual origin. Our nation has come a long way since 1963, and we rightly recognize the changes. However, King's story is often told as if the March on Washington and his Nobel Prize were the last events of his life and that his work was done with the Civil Rights Act and other legislation. I can assure you that Martin Luther King, Jr was not resting on his laurels between 1963 and his death four and a half years later. During those years, he took up issues and positions that are still controversial today. I'll talk about some of them in a moment.

First, I want to tell you that I believe that when we tell of the steps toward racial equality that Dr King led, we must also remember, and tell, other, less positive parts of the story. The March on Washington was no picnic on the mall and the Civil Rights Act was not passed right after the Dream speech. It was approved by Congress only after Dr King's assassination. And today, with all the successes of the Civil Rights era, and even with the 2008 election of an African American President, we must still admit that racism and prejudice are alive and well in the United States of America. New cases of racial profiling seem to appear every few months. Studies show that sentencing is more severe for racial minorities convicted of crimes. If you are a black male, chances are a little over 1 in 4 that you will be in prison sometime in your life, probably for a drug offense. (Let me note that while an estimated 15% of American drug users are black, they account for 57% of those sent to prison for drug offenses.) Before the current recession, blacks and Hispanics were about three times as likely to live in poverty as a white American. It's worse now. Hate crimes against our GLBT community are increasingly common.

When confronted with the claim that a law could not change people's hearts and minds, Dr. King said, "It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me and I think that's pretty important." It is important. But I'd say he was almost right. The law can punish you for lynching and even for housing or workplace discrimination. These days investigations are usually launched, and that's a deterrent. But for true equality to be the practice of the land as well as the law, we need hearts and minds that judge a person's character rather than their differences. We need Americans who see diversity as a source of richness, offering a grand variety of ideas, tastes and perspectives. Those attitudes are not yet the norm. That work is ours to share.

And moving beyond the embarrassing statistics, I believe that the reason so many accounts of King's life and work, so many of the speeches and essays that mark his holiday, skip from his Nobel prize to his assassination is that he began to talk about even more complex problems in American society. These issues are just as live, just as deeply rooted today as they were when King addressed them. And they are just as controversial as they were 40 years ago.

In the last years of King's short life, he began to see that race was not a stand-alone problem in our culture. He identified the interwoven demons of racism, militarism, materialism and poverty. In addition, he said that Western arrogance prevents us from seeing the world situation in an unbiased way and makes us unable to learn from other countries and other cultures. You may remember that Dr King opposed the war in Viet Nam. He gave seven reasons for that, including the fact that poor families provided most of the troops and suffered most of the casualties. He believed the teachings of Jesus call us to be peaceful. He said that being a Nobel Peace Prize winner impelled him to advocate for peace. But even as he opposed that war, he looked to a time beyond the conflict, saying, "A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast between poverty and wealth. ... A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just."

I won't dare to guess what Dr. King thought or hoped when he said it would be "soon." But I will say that the dream he described in this 1967 speech was broader than the famous dream he called for on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. We forget this wider dream too easily and too often. It certainly hasn't arrived yet.

In the intervening years, the reach of those four inter-related flaws has been extended. When I look at the world today, I think they are at the root of many of our most significant problems. Besides the wars, I believe our embrace of these demons has resulted in the broadening of the gap between rich and poor till it has become a chasm. They have caused many of our leaders and public voices to ignore scientific evidence and deny global climate change. They have encouraged us to pretend that the level of our dependence on petroleum is not really a problem. They have argued that moving jobs overseas has raised the global standard of living with no concern that the cost of this has been born by the destruction of the American middle class while corporate profits have soared. And they have dismissed concerns for environmental degradation as no more than impractical nuisance. As King wrote, "there are things in our ... system to which all of us ought to be maladjusted."

So what to do with all this? As I said earlier, no simple solution will take care of our problems. If Dr King's larger dreams are to be realized, or even approached, ordinary people must take up pieces of that dream and act on them. We must refuse to be satisfied with lamenting the actions of the powerful. In that same 1967 speech, Dr King said, "... when the issues at hand seem as perplexing as they often do in (this) case ... we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty. But we must move on." And so we must.

Now, just in case you are thinking that there's nothing you can do - or that you have no idea what you could do - let me offer a few starter suggestions. Next Saturday, Van Jones will be speaking at the MJC auditorium. He electrified our 2008 General Assembly as he challenged us to think about ways we might begin to govern differently. He is a strong advocate for the potential of development of so-called "green jobs" to address energy conservation, reduce petroleum dependence and bring people out of poverty. I'm sure he will have ideas about how to move toward this vision.

Jim Hightower, a former Texas Secretary of Agriculture, puts out a newsletter for activists. One of his repeated recommendations is that ordinary people take their money out of the big banks, the ones involved in the risky schemes of investment banking, and deposit those funds in local banks and credit unions. This would mean that we stop supporting their abusive practices. It also responds to perennial calls to do business locally, so that the money circulates in our own communities. Considering the economic plight of our area these days, the need for locally circulating money has never been more urgent.

I know that many claim that writing to our government representatives is a waste of time. And I won't try to convince you that a letter from one of us will change the mind of any one of our officials. Yet, if there's a lesson to be learned from the Tea Party movement, it's that a group of vocal, angry citizens can make a difference in political climate and policy. One letter or phone call or visit to a representative won't cause the change you'd like to see. But together? Well, that's different. And "together" nearly always starts with a single person deciding to do something and to talk to others about doing something. Maybe you remember Jody Williams. She started talking about the dangers of land mines left behind after conflict when no one seemed at all concerned about that. In less than a decade, an international agency had been formed and shared the Nobel Peace Prize with her. Thousands of mines have been found and removed and many countries have promised to stop using them. Closer to home, you might want to talk to Carol Lackey about her visits to Modesto's Neighborhood Preservation Unit and the way she enlisted the support of her neighbors to address a problem.

My examples may or may not appeal to you, but I hope that I have convinced you that we do have influence, and power, if we choose to use it - when we choose to use it. As Dr King said, "We must move..." Standing still and complaining does no good. If a dream is ever to be realized, it must be pursued.

In a passage I found recently, Dr King advised, "Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted." In the face of last weekend's tragedy, we need to do better than reactively blaming those who disagree with us or promoting a new law aimed at the characteristics of this particular case. We need to be better - better listeners, better community members, better role models, better activists. We need to take steps that draw us nearer to the dreams of these lives so tragically cut short. We need some constructive, creative maladjustment. Maybe we need a lot of it. And it's up to us. Just how creatively, constructively maladjusted will we be?

January 16, 2011

Rev. Grace Simons left us a collection of her sermons when she retired in October, 2011. We have a brief biography of Rev. Grace, and the last edition of Grace Notes, a column she wrote for our newsletter.
We also have sermons by Rev. Joe Cherry, our Interim Minister.
Our Guests, who include visiting clergy, lay people and one rocket scientist.