Desperate for Air

A Meditation on Amos 5 ~ "Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream!"

Desperate

Legend has it that a young disciple once asked his teacher, "Sir, please tell me how I can see God."  And the old teacher said, "Come with me, and I will show you."

He took the young disciple to a lake, and both of them got into the water.  Suddenly, without explanation, the teacher pressed the disciple's head under the water.  After a few moments, he released him and the disciple raised his dripping face and stood up.

The guru asked him the obvious question: "How did you feel?"

The disciple said, "Oh!  I thought I would die; I was desperate for air!"  And the old teacher said, "And when you feel like that for God, then you will know you haven't long to wait for his vision."

Now I want to promise you that, when we gather on the beach down here to baptize friends into the mystery and grace of God, we are much more gentle and accommodating.  No one's ever been hurt!  Just the same, this old legend reminds us of the passion, the longing, the desire at the very heart of Christian life.  "I was desperate for air!" the young disciple says.  And the old teacher: "When you feel like that for God, then you'll know, you haven't long to wait."  Everything we do in this place - all the classes, all the worship, all the choir practices and prayer circles and support groups - everything intends to stir passion and longing and desire in our hearts.  "Seek the Lord and live," says Amos.  Seek the Lord and live.

I think Amos might have appreciated the old legend about the disciple and his teacher.  There's a kind of desperation in Amos' words, in Amos' ministry in Ancient Israel.  He comes along at a time when Israel's peaking in prosperity and influence.  The market's strong.  Startups are taking off.  Housing prices are rising.  Even so, it's hard to miss Amos' anger around his people's public life.  "You push aside the needy in the gate," he wails.  "You trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain...You abhor the one who speaks the truth."  Israel has turned inward.  In its rush for national security, it tramples the poor; in its drive to balance budgets, it pushes aside the needy in the gate.  And Amos is convinced that this national selfishness has consequences - disruptive, divisive consequences.  "Therefore, because you trample on the poor, you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not live in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine."


A house divided, said Lincoln, and Jesus before him, cannot stand.  This national selfishness has consequences.  Sure, Amos uses the strongest language available to him.  He comes across as strident, angry.  But he's desperate, desperate to turn his people around, desperate to turn their hearts to love.  "Hate evil and love good," he pleads, "and establish justice in the gate; and it may be that the God of hosts will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph."  Amos is like that young disciple with his head under water.  And he's desperate for air.

And this, this is the way of the prophets.  There's a kind of urgency, a divine urgency, in their preaching.  God's not kidding around.  Justice requires our participation, our investment, our commitment.  And soon.  Without our participation, our investment, our active commitment, the needy are shoved aside in the gate, the poor are trampled, and by and large, the children are forgotten.  Amos sounds the prophetic call, and he sounds it urgently.  God's no longer swayed by fancy festivals, by solemn assemblies, by burnt offerings and soul-full songs.  God aches only for justice and love.  So "let justice roll down like waters," Amos cries.  "Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream!"  Being a part of God's movement - in Amos' time, in Jesus' time, in our time - being a part of God's movement means getting wet!  Participate.  Invest.  Commit.  If we're not getting wet, if we're not getting soaked along the way, we're not in it far enough.

Total Immersion

A couple weeks ago, I'm driving around when I hear a wrenching piece on NPR about a San Francisco woman and her perspective on the Civil Rights Movement.  She's something like 86 now, a veteran of the Movement - and she tells her own story a San Francisco story, from the late 1940s.

She says she'd always wanted to be a fashion designer, a maker of clothing and beautiful things; and she'd applied back then and received admission to a San Francisco design school.  That first morning, she got herself all dressed up for the first day of school and walked down to the building where the school was located.  She was super excited for the beginning of a great adventure.  Her dream was coming true.

Looking back now, all these years later, she describes getting onto the elevator that morning and riding up to the school on the tenth floor.  She describes a middle aged white man, the elevator assistant, and how he seemed so excited for her.  He asked where she was going, what she’d be doing there.  And he wished her well on that first day of school.

With great anticipation, she stepped off his elevator and into the foyer of the design school on the tenth floor.  And in no time, an administrator pulled her aside and asked what she was doing at the school.  Was she there to clean?  No, she told him, she’d been accepted into the design program.  She was ready for the first day of school.  But the administrator only scowled in reply.  You must be mistaken, he said, we don’t accept coloreds at this school.  And he sent her away.

       

Devastated, then, broken, the young woman stepped onto the elevator a second time, on her way down to the street and home.  The same white man greeted her and asked what was wrong.  When she told him – when she told him she’d been sent away because she was black – he expressed disappointment, anger.  How could they do this to you? he asked.  How could they treat a lovely young lady this way?  She appreciated his kindness and went on her way home.

      

So I’m listening in my car and I half-expect this to be the end of the story; heartbreak and a sympathetic white guy.  But the old black woman continues.  She has something more to say.  When she went home that afternoon, beaten up by a hateful world, she stewed some more over the school and its policies.  She wrote them a letter and protested their bigotry.  But, in her mind, she kept coming back to the warm, bright-eyed elevator operator.  She just couldn’t shake his face, even more her strange disappointment.  “You see,” she says now, 60 years later, “I didn’t need a whole lot of sweetness back then.  I didn’t need him to feel sorry.  I needed white folks like that elevator operator to fight back, to feel the injustice and to fight back with us.”  As kind as he appeared to be, he struck her as just another collaborator, another well-meaning white person without the nerve or faith to join the movement.  I have to tell you: I didn’t sense this coming when she began her story.  And I find it deeply unsettling, even now.  And then the old woman, speaking to a whole nation perhaps, repeats a line we’ve probably all heard: “I tell my grandkids,” she says, “if you’re not part of the solution, you’re sure enough a part of the problem.”       

      

You see, that’s Amos.  That’s the prophetic edge of the Hebrew Bible, the prophetic edge that Jesus surely takes up for himself.  “Let justice roll down like waters,” cries the prophet, “and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream!”  Let justice roll down like waters!  Participate.  Invest.  Commit.  Risk.  If we’re not getting wet, if we’re not getting soaked along the way, we’re not in it far enough.  If we’re not part of the solution, we’re sure enough part of the problem. 

        

What we celebrate with this year’s Amos Award is prophetic participation, prophetic investment, prophetic commitment.  We honor one woman and her discipline, her determination; and we also remember our own prophetic calling.  As individuals.  As neighborhoods.  Especially as churches, as synagogues, as communities of faith.  All of us.  We are called to total immersion.  We are called to daring love and disciplined commitment.  Let justice roll down like water!  Righteousness like an ever-flowing stream!  Meg, you remind us of our prophetic calling.  Not to be loud.  Not to be brash.  But to be loving.  And to be disciplined.  And to be persistent.  If we’re not getting soaked along the way, we’re not in it far enough.   

We Need Lovers

The great French aviator, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, once wrote that: “Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking together in the same direction.”  Think about that for a minute: “Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking together in the same direction.”  Wow.  How we need lovers these days!  How we need lovers and prophets who insist on bringing communities together, on weaving stories and needs and energies together in powerful way.  Meg Campbell answers that call, COPA with her.  But it strikes me this morning, on Valentine’s Day, that such love, prophetic love, is disturbingly absent from most of our national discourse.  We seem disinterested, at best, or incapable, at worst, of “looking together in the same direction.”  Love has had very little do, of late, with the debate around health care reform.  It’s had just about nothing to do with our discussions around climate protection and greenhouse gases.  And love seems not the least bit relevant to Tea Party protests and school board cuts and social service slashing.  Blame’s the game.  Pride’s the language of politics in America.  But where’s the love? 

In our time, I think a huge piece of the prophetic task involves seeing the whole, appreciating the connectedness, bearing witness in many ways to our interdependence.  We take this prophetic task seriously when we insist on the health of communities – all the ways your health enhances mine, all the ways healing in one family makes other families strong.  And we take it seriously, very seriously, when we resist the politics that divide and blame and sneer and mock.  If we are to be a nation, if we are to fulfill any kind of destiny, any kind of promise as a nation, we’ll have to return to a profound sense of connectedness and wholeness.  In our own time, the prophetic task has everything to do with that.        

Last week, I received this unexpected package in the mail.  I find it both stunning and bewildering.  And I want very much to share it with you; because the letter’s addressed to all of us.  And it has very much to do with our total immersion, with our discipline and prophetic love.

Dear UCC Santa Cruz, [she says],

        I wanted to send this gift to the church to show I keep you all in my thoughts quite often and always dream of going back to Santa Cruz for the love of this congregation and the peace I felt whenever I attended the services.  I miss the beautiful voices in song and the…musicians, the gorgeous sun on the highway as I’d drive up on those early mornings.  I also miss the words of those who spoke the word of God that I needed to hear.  I miss the friends I made and the people I had conversations with each time I came.

        For those of you whom I never met, I used to drive up with a very good friend of mine from the Defense Language Institute about 45 minutes south of Santa Cruz.  You have no idea how much it meant for me to have some place to go to escape the stresses of the military.  With policies like “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in place that don’t allow gays to serve openly, getting through my year and a half tour down there was emotionally difficult.  Simple joys such as getting away once or twice a month to attend a service would be all I needed to keep my heart and mind in this and get through and continue living life.

        I know how liberal the town of Santa Cruz is and, trust me, a lot of us in the military can be just as free-minded.  A lot of us are not for the wars that we are in right now, but we signed up and we will protect this country with all we have to sacrifice until we are told to come home.  I’m proud of what I’m doing, and, hopefully, we’ll be out of these contingencies soon.  I presented the church with a ceremonial coin once, before my departure from California; and now I present this flag that was flown in my aircraft over the skies of Iraq.  If the thought of the war is too much, don’t think of this flag as supporting bad things.  This flag, in my opinion, is for all of us who have greater dreams, better dreams for our nation and a better future forward.  With our new President, many of us are still hoping for a brighter tomorrow.  Many of us still have faith change is coming.  I hope to see you all again soon; and I’ll be back to put on my name tag from the basket.  You’re in my thoughts and prayers always.

       

        Love,

        Jillian Williams

 And, along with the flag, is this certificate, which reads:

The 362^nd Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron presents this certificate to “First Congregational Church – UCC – Santa Cruz.”   This is to certify that this American flag was flown over the skies of Iraq on a combat mission in direct support of “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”  Flown in an MC-12W Aircraft.  On the 25^th day of December, 2009. 

I know that many of you remember Jillian and Joy and their warm presence among us throughout that year and a half.  Their eyes lit up when we began to sing each week; and I’ve rarely seen folks so grateful, so moved when receiving the bread and cup at communion.  They needed God, Jillian and Joy, and they needed us.  “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” meant nothing here.  We loved them and we cherished them. 

Now I’ve never received this kind of a gift before, not as a gesture of gratitude, not as a testimony to Christian community.  But Jillian was clearly touched, inspired, healed by her time among us.  And I want us to take that so seriously.  I want us to recognize the power of our loving and our caring and our extravagant welcoming.  For some of us, for folks like Jillian and Joy, for some of you this morning, that power makes all the difference.  This flag, you see, is nothing less than Jillian’s heart and soul, nothing less than her dream of a better future.  Do you see that?  Do you feel that?  Over many years, you’ve opened your hearts, your minds, your homes; over many years, you’ve immersed yourselves in God’s love, God’s grace, God’s passion.  Amos means something here: Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream!  And you, my friends, you get wet.  You continue to get wet, to soak yourselves to the bone in the mighty waters rushing towards, tumbling towards, the kingdom of God.  It’s not always easy.  But when Jillian and Joy needed you most, when they needed you like that disciple who needed air to breathe, you were right here, soaked to the bone, ready to love.

This Flag

Don’t we want, don’t we need this flag to mean something in 2010?  I sure want it to mean something to my kids.  I want it to mean one nation, undivided.  I want it to mean one nation, many races; one nation, many languages; one nation, many colors, many faiths, many ways of loving.  If we are to be a nation, if we are to fulfill any kind of destiny, we need this flag to mean something.  It has to.  It has to mean something like we need each other to be free.  Something like we’re only as strong as our most vulnerable parts.  Something like we’re only as strong as our capacity to love and care and make sacrifices for one another.  We need it to mean something more than a Blackberry in every hand and a flat screen in every living room.  “This flag,” writes Jillian, “is for all of us who have greater dreams, better dreams for our nation.” 

This morning, we cherish Jillian’s dreams.  And we celebrate Meg Campbell’s vision and commitment.  This morning, we again say a most emphatic “NO” to the politics of division and blame in our country.  We are better than that.  First Congregational Church is better than that.  Jillian Williams is better than.  Meg Campbell is better than that.  “In the twilight of our lives,” wrote St. John of the Cross hundreds of years ago, “in the twilight of our lives, we will be judged on how we have loved.”  Amos would have liked that.  We will be judged on how we have loved.  Amen.