From the Inside Out

Rev. Peter Friedrichs

September 21, 2008

Hate is alive and well. Hate is alive and well right here in Delaware County. We experienced the stinging pain of hatred right here in our own front yard two years ago, when our rainbow flag, the symbol of our commitment to diversity and a beacon to members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, was mutilated and burned. I was reminded once again that hate is alive and well in our community just last week. I was driving up Baltimore Pike into Media when I pulled up behind an SUV. The back window of the truck was adorned with a large sticker displaying the emblem of the Marine Corps - the globe and the anchor. Nothing wrong with that. Then I noticed the truck had two bumper stickers. The one on the right said, "If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you can read this in English, thank a Marine." Turning my attention to the other bumper sticker I read, "The Marines: Travel Agents to Allah." As we inched our way up Baltimore Pike and I stared at those two bumper stickers I became, well, let's say, increasingly agitated. To put it mildly. It might be more accurate to say that my blood began to boil. By the time we got into town I was ready to jump out at the next stop light and do something. I don't know what. And then I thought, "That's not very ministerial of you, Peter. Violence only begets violence." But truth be told I wanted to beat some tolerance and respect into the driver of that truck.

Hate, and its frequent bedfellow, idiocy, interrupted my enjoyment of a Philadelphia Phillies game last week when reared its ugly head in the stands at Citizens Bank Park. As the television camera panned the crowd at the game, it lingered on a fan who was apparently simultaneously supporting the Phils and the Eagles in its upcoming game against the Dallas cowboys and their quarterback is named Tony Romo. Noticing the camera was on him, the fan proudly pointed to his shirt, where he sported the team logo for the Eagles, below which were printed the words, "Romo is a Homo." I couldn't believe my eyes, and fortunately the director had the good sense to cut away from the shot quickly.

Hate is alive and well throughout the land, and it touched the wider Unitarian Universalist community last July 27, when a man armed with a shotgun burst into the UU church in Knoxville, Tennessee and started shooting. After killing two people, he told police that he blamed the liberals for the fact that he couldn't find a job, for "tying the hands of the military," and for generally ruining our country. If you watched Bill Moyers Journal a week ago, you heard about how conservative radio "shock jocks" are spreading this doctrine of hatred over our airwaves, and apparently Jim David Adkisson took their advice to heart.

Then, just this week, as if God were saying to me, "Don't be such a smug and self-satisfied liberal. You think that the right-wing has the corner on hate? Let me show you otherwise," I encountered hate in the guise of one of my fellow lefties. Some folks apparently missed the sarcastic tone in my letter to the editor that was published in last Monday's Philadelphia Inquirer. Perhaps they saw the "Reverend" in front of my name and assumed I was an evangelical pastor (which I am, but not the kind they may have thought), perhaps we've completely lost the ability to appreciate nuance and subtlety in this age of shouting, perhaps my letter was just not that well written. But for whatever reason, a few liberal readers thought I was endorsing Sarah Palin's nomination on the Republican ticket. And they let me know that they disagreed. In no uncertain terms. One particular Obama supporter sent me an email that was every bit as venomous, as vile, and as hate-filled as any right-wing shock-jock's rant could be. It was so bad that I'm not comfortable quoting any portion of it to you here today. So, I'm sad to say, it appears that hate has gained some kind of universal value in our society, and civility, it seems, has been rent from our civil discourse.

The fact that hate, and hate speech, are so comfortably ensconced in our society may come as a shock to some of you. For others, you may be reminded of it daily. For those of us who are members of the dominant culture - the white, straight, educated, able-bodied middle class - it's easy to forget, because we don't face it every day. Our image of America is vastly different from that held by most African Americans, Latinos and Latinas, Asians, of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered persons, of immigrants to this country, both legal and illegal. For us, for me, it's easy to forget that the skin we wear is a passport to the halls of privilege and power and possibility because it's always been that way. Like a fish that's oblivious to the water it swims in, the culture of white privilege is invisible to us. So when we occasionally encounter hate, we're shocked and offended. I would venture to guess that those here of a different skin color or sexual orientation than mine probably look at the bumper stickers and the flag burning and the shootings and the offensive tee shirt and the vicious emails as some kind of condition of normalcy, as confirmation of what you know and live with every day. You don't need reminders that hate is alive and well in America. Hatred and oppression and prejudice is the water you swim in. In our reading today you heard the voices of some of the people for whom the American dream is a delusion or a mirage. They are the voices of pain. They are the voices of anger. They are the voices of urgency and activism, even of revolution and rebellion.

As you might imagine, I've given much thought to what I want to say to you today about the issues of racism, oppression and hate. As Unitarian Universalists we know that it's wrong to discriminate against someone because of their skin color or ethnic background or sexual orientation. We cherish the integrity of each individual. That's at the top of the list of our seven principles, and it's the one we point to most often when we're asked what our faith is all about. We believe we are, and we are, good people trying to do the right thing. We're aware of the disparities and the divisions in our society, the widening gap between the "have's" and the "have-not's." We want Martin Luther King's dream to become a reality, and many of us are working out in the community to help it come true. We support outreach activities like the NAACP Scholarship Fund, and I am so grateful that we as a faith community have made this commitment to the education of future community leaders. So what more is there to say or do when it comes to race, except to say and do more, because our voices are never loud enough and our bodies are never spent enough until we've all reached that promised land? Would I be correct in guessing that a few of you, upon learning the topic for today's sermon, seriously considered skipping today's worship? We know what Rev. Peter's going to tell us: Unitarian Universalism calls us to work for equality among all people. He wants us to do more social action. He wants to start another task force. Yada, yada, yada. For those of you who thought that and still showed up, I thank you for giving me the benefit of the doubt.

Yes, Unitarian Universalism calls us to work for equality among all people. But here's the kicker. Most of us aren't ready. We're not properly prepared. Sure, we can go out and volunteer to tutor students in West Philly. We can offer our time and talents to the Chester Eastside Ministries. We can write letters to our state representatives, urging them to pass reasonable gun regulations. We can work our fingers to the bone to help lift up those people that some would have lift themselves by their bootstraps, except for the fact that they don't even have any boots. And I don't want to discourage anyone from doing good deeds. We are a faith of deeds. I will never belittle even the most meager efforts applied toward building the Beloved Community.

But here's the thing. Where does that desire to "do" come from? What's driving us to do the good works? And more importantly, what's holding us back? For all our good intentions, all the breath we spend bemoaning the state of the world or our own neighborhood, why aren't we doing more? Why aren't we more effective advocates and allies to those who need access to the halls of power, when we're the keepers of the keys? As a denomination, our work toward racial equality has been only in fits and starts. We have a pretty checkered history when it comes to welcoming people of color into our ministries, into our Association, into our churches. Why are our social justice efforts often sporadic and short-lived, populated by the same few dedicated souls rather than sustained for the long haul by the entire population of the church? That, to me, is the critical question. And here's my answer: I think it's because most of us haven't done the internal work, the work of personal and spiritual transformation, the foundational work on which monuments to love and acceptance and celebration can be built. We do (or we don't do and feel guilty about it) the work because we know it's the right thing to do. But that knowledge, that intellectual commitment is simply insufficient to move us to become, as the Cuban feminist theologian Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz calls it, "co-creators in the kin-dom of God."

And I think that this is where Unitarian Universalism lets us down. You know that I say this from a place of deep, deep love for our faith. I've dedicated what I hope to be the latter half of my life to it. But I'm afraid our faith is sorely lacking in this area. The principles of Unitarian Universalism call us to affirm and promote justice, equity and compassion in human relations, to work for the creation of a world community with peace, liberty and justice for all. These are appropriately lofty goals toward which we should all aspire. But what Unitarian Universalism fails to provide is an answer to the question: Why? Why should we give our time, our talents, our treasures to these ends? Why should we give our sweat, our tears, and even our blood? Is it enough to say, "Because it's the right thing, morally and ethically, to do?" I'm afraid not. I'm afraid even our seventh principle, by which we acknowledge our interdependent relationship with all that is, isn't sufficient to support us in the struggle over the long term. Rev. Dr. Ken Oliff puts it this way: "We can only articulate anti-racism work in terms of "shoulds," but we are unable to express why working on behalf of anti-racism goes to the depths of who we are as a people."^[1]

What this work takes, what we need to keep doing this work over the long haul, is a clear and systematic theology. Those aren't words you here much in a Unitarian Universalist church, so let me clarify them. And in true UU fashion, I'll tell you first what I DON'T mean. I don't mean that we need a creed. I don't mean that we need to develop a single set of beliefs that will apply to everyone across the board, that will serve as a litmus test for whether or not you can be considered a Unitarian Universalist. When I say that in order to support ourselves and others in our social justice work we need a clear and systematic theology, I mean that each of us needs to work through what I call "the Big Questions" and come up with answers that satisfy and sustain us. We don't all need to have the same answers, but we all need answers. To questions like, "Why am I here?" "Who or what created me?" "What is my relationship to others now living and yet to be born, and to the cosmos?" "Are there forces at work in the world that are beyond my understanding?" "Who or what is God to me?" "Does evil exist?" "What is sin?" "What is salvation?" You know, simple questions like that.

Did you know that Martin Luther King, Jr. considered becoming a Unitarian, and even attended Unitarian churches in Boston? But he ultimately turned us down. According to my colleague Rosemary Bray McNatt, King's widow Coretta told her why. She said that she and Martin realized they could never build a mass movement of black people if they were Unitarian.^[2] How's that for an eye-opener? In his writings, Dr. King made clear why this was. After praising liberal faith for its devotion to the free and open search for truth and meaning, he said,

"Sentimentalism," "false idealism" and "superficial optimism." Stinging indictments, for sure. And I'm afraid that these words are as pertinent to our faith today as they were when King wrote them nearly half a century ago. We are an easy faith to join. We have very low barriers to entry. And if we want, we're an easy faith to be a part of. We allow each other to circle in our own private orbits, free-floating in space. Untethered and ungrounded in a formal belief system, as long as we're tolerant of others and we join a committee or teach a religious education class. But this also means we're an easy faith to leave, and it's one of the reasons we are struggling for survival. And, "devoid of the purifying power of faith," we simply cannot sustain a powerful and concerted social justice effort.

We here at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Delaware County are embarking on a long-term, intentional program to become an anti-racist, anti-oppressive, multi-cultural congregation. You can see in your Order of Service all the events and activities that have been planned by a dedicated group of volunteers, and I encourage you to take full advantage of them. Some have questioned the so-called "inward focus" of the program and asked why it doesn't include more interaction with those beyond our walls, why it doesn't include active involvement in the community. My answer to that is that we've got some serious internal work to do, some true "soul-searching," as individuals and as a church. We need to grow in spirit, in faith, and in spiritual maturity. We need to discover the link between ourselves and our deeds, between who we are as people of faith, people of this faith, and the work that we are called to do. Our social justice work needs to be grounded in a serious, unsentimental faith. If we are optimists and idealists, let us claim those aspects of our being. But let us anchor that optimism and idealism with firm and fully-matured beliefs in the nature of the Divine, of humankind, of good and evil, and the workings of the Universe. This is the arduous work of building the foundations and pouring the footings that will bear the weight of the bridge we wish to build to the Promised Land, the Beloved Community, the world we dream of.

Mind you, this isn't a question of either/or. It's a "both/and." We need to keep doing what we're doing. Keep volunteering for the Interfaith Hospitality Network. Keep bringing food for the Media Food Bank. Keep feeding the homeless through the Hunger Task Force. Keep working with Chester Eastside Ministries and supporting the NAACP Scholarship Fund. Keep working for justice and equality and freedom at every turn. But don't just do justice. The Hebrew prophet Micah said there are three things we are called to do: We must do justice. And we must love kindness. And…and…we must walk humbly with our God. To do all three, as Unitarian Universalists we must discover for ourselves who or what our God is, and what it means to walk humbly with him, her or it.

The fact that those bumper stickers on that SUV made my blood boil, that they moved me almost immediately to a place of anger and violence, tells me that I still have some serious spiritual work to do, too. Believe me, we're in this together. I'll confess to you that I followed that truck as it turned off Baltimore Pike and it parked up by Veteran's Square. I was seething and I was frustrated and I wanted to do something but I didn't know what. I watched the driver get out and go into a building and I took a ride around the block. Circling back to the truck, I pulled into the empty parking space beside it. And I decided I needed to give that driver a piece of my mind. So I reached into my glove box and took out a scrap of paper. On it I wrote, "I find your bumper stickers offensive and despicable." (I probably should have left off the "despicable" part, but my hand seemed to have a life of its own.) I continued, "I thank the Marines for protecting our freedom, but it's not a freedom to hate." And then I sat there with my note, thinking. Should I or shouldn't I? And finally I decided I would. I signed the note with my name and I invited the driver to call me. I left that note on the truck's windshield, and I haven't heard from him yet.

^[1] Soul Work, p. 113.
^[2] Soul Work, p. 27.
^[3] Soul Work, p. 28.

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