There is a lot of fear within and among us today. There’s anxiety and disbelief, cynicism and rage, too. Everyone I’ve talked to in the last week seems to feel overwhelmed. Just keeping up with the news feels like trying to take a sip from a fire hydrant. As colleague and former minister of this congregation, Rev. Ellen Jennings shared on social media yesterday, “every day now is a Pearl Harbor of the soul.”
It’s easy to feel dejected, like we should just give up, give in. And yet, here we all are, sitting or Zooming into one of the most powerful spaces there is for change. Because, as Valerie Kaur said in this month’s chapter of her book See No Stranger, there are a lot of things that wouldn’t have been possible had churches not made their basements available for communities to reimagine the world.
In 2016 I joined hundreds of other clergy from around the United States at Standing Rock. Along with other religious leaders I was asked to go so we could bear witness to the abuse police were inflicting on water protectors protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline. Organizers did a lot of work to coordinate religious leaders from so many traditions, and all of it happened in churches, temples, and sacred spaces created by tribal leaders. In the end, our protest didn’t stop Big Oil from building the pipeline. But the movement to protect water never gave up, and never gave in. It learned important lessons from its work, and moved ahead, ready to try new things to create the world we long for.
Two years later, in 2018, I joined clergy at the nation’s southern border. Asylum advocates asked us to join them, to help draw national attention to the mistreatment of asylum seekers and the cruel policy of separating families. It was religious organizations that provided the space where that protest was coordinated. Though our efforts drew the attention desired, even after Trump left office the first time, President Biden’s administration continued separating families, and now the border is more militarized than ever. But the movement for humane immigration policy never gave up, it never gave in. It learned important lessons from its work, and moved ahead ready to try new things to create the world we long for.
Last April I was invited by a Unitarian Universalist colleague to join them and the Christians for a Free Palestine group in an act of civil disobedience. Washington City Church of the Brethren hosted us and served as our training venue and day-of staging area. At that point in the conflict, Palestinians were starving to death for lack of food and dying of preventable diseases because Israel was confiscating Gaza-bound medical supplies. Since the purpose of our protest was to draw attention to the plight of Palestinians, the demonstration was held inside the dining room of the United States Senate Building. We wanted our elected officials to send food to Gaza, not bombs. And if Palestinians couldn’t eat, neither would our Senators and their staff that day.
While about 50 of my colleagues were arrested, I couldn’t risk it because my son’s birthday was the next day and I had to bake his cake. Sometimes clergy have to make tough choices to balance parenthood and ministry. Of course, now, a couple months shy of a year later, Gaza is nearly uninhabitable after being carpet bombed with weapons the US provided to Israel. And our new president has plans to develop it into the Riviera of the Middle East. I don’t know what this means for the long-hoped-for two-state solution. But I know that those of us who yearn for a world free from apartheid can’t give up and we can’t give in. We must learn lessons from the way this unfolded, and move ahead, ready to try new things to create the world we long for.
Just two Thursdays ago I joined 115 other people in advocating for the Maryland Just Power Alliance’s policy priorities. The Maryland Just Power Alliance is now the name for the various different county-based organizations like Action in Montgomery that have chosen to work together for state-wide goals. Asbury United Methodist Church was where we ate breakfast before and lunch after our hours inside the offices of state delegates and senators. It was an invigorating and reassuring day, especially when I learned about everything the people working on my behalf are doing to protect immigrants and trans people in the state of Maryland, and their support for the Housing for Jobs Act, Good Cause Eviction, and the ReNEW Act. Will all of these bills pass this year or ever? No, of course not. But does that mean we will give up or give in when it comes to our values? No, of course not! We will learn lessons from the way things unfold, and move ahead ready to try new things to create the world we long for.
I share all of this because it reminds me of something that American theologian and Serenity Prayer author, Reinhold Niebuhr, wrote:
“Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love.”
There is a lot of disappointment in the work to make real, lasting change, the work to create the world we long for where all people can flourish. It’s slow. It’s messy. It rarely happens in a linear way. Some people here will know I talk a lot about the “speed of church.” If you think that’s slow, let me introduce you to the speed of countries.
Well, churches have time for slow. We are institutions, a fact that brings its own inherent challenges. But institutions are also generational. And in a lot of ways that is a strength. Through thick and thin, through good times and bad, this church has been around for over 70 years. And if I have anything to do with it, we’ll be here for at least 70 more.
Along with our call to speak truth to power, I think it’s this longevity that has placed faith communities at the center of social change for so long. Congregations have physical space to offer, for meetings and larger gatherings. And in congregations like this one, people forge deep relationships, learn to be generous, develop skills for undertaking long-haul work. This is how faith-based space becomes so powerful for communities to “reimagine the world as it ought to be,” as Valerie Kaur writes.
There are lots of examples of people and institutions and even some politicians working very hard right now to resist the harmful policies of the current administration. Two Thursdays ago in Annapolis, Maryland House Majority Leader, David Moon, told a group I was with about all of the work legislators are doing with the governor’s office to protect immigrants and trans people in this state. Then there’s the flurry of court cases brought against the administration for their more blatantly illegal executive orders. People are taking to the streets in fits and spurts in cities around the country to protest.
But you want to know my favorite form of resistance so far? You know those email addresses and phone numbers the administration is creating for people to report their immigrant and liberal neighbors? My favorite are all of the people who have signed those email addresses up for spam mail, who have called into those phone numbers to report members of the administration themselves. Sometimes the resistance looks like signing ICE up for spam.
I’m glad to see the resistance pick itself back up again, and yet I find myself growing more and more concerned about our effectiveness. As I’ve shared with several people over the last week, our present situation feels like the administration has flipped the chess board over and taken out a gun while the rest of us argue over which would be the best opening move. We can’t win a game by following the rulebook when our opponent has thrown in out and lit it on fire. Intersectional feminist and civil rights activist, Audre Lorde, put it far better when she wrote that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.”
Our theme of the month for February is generosity. One of the ways UUCSS can practice this virtue is by providing space for the community not just for weddings and memorial services and retreats, but to organize and strategize, to teach and train, to coordinate advocacy work and even civil disobedience. Because the courts are now stacked in favor of consolidating the power of the executive branch, and the powers that be have adapted to the protest tactics of yesteryear. So, people are going to need spaces like the one we are in right now to begin to reimagine not only the world as it ought to be, but the tactics we can try to get it there. We can’t give up, and we can’t give in, but that means we need to open ourselves up to trying new things, developing new strategies, employing completely new tactics. We have to be willing to try everything.
In times when my fear overwhelms me, I try to remember this. There was a time when no one could imagine how the world could ever function without monarchies. There was also a time when even most people who longed for the abolition of slavery couldn’t see how it would ever happen. But both did. Change is hard, it takes a long time, and it rarely progresses from A to B to C in a neat, orderly line. It is one of those things worth doing Niebuhr wrote about that can’t be achieved in our lifetime.
Friends, in these bleak days, please don’t allow the overwhelm to make you forget that a world without oligarchy is possible. A world without billionaires is possible. A world where the needs of the many outweigh the whims of the few is possible. But to get there, we can’t give up, and we can’t give in. We need to be willing to try everything.
And as we do, let us remember that much like “there is no way to peace, peace is the way,” we create the Beloved Community by living as the Beloved Community. It begins right here, with one another, and with the Flaming Chalice, symbol of commitment and sacrifice, as our guide. It begins right now, practicing how to learn, grow, and change in this community where the stakes are lower, so we’re equipped and ready should our values call us to take a risk in an all-too dangerous world.
It begins now, as we live Beloved Community into being.