by Rev. Thomas Disrud

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

I don’t remember in my lifetime a political season quite like this one. So much seems at stake and I feel a great deal of tension around me that comes out in all kinds of ways. I hear in talking with people a lot of fear about what might happen and feelings of helplessness and anxiety.

On Friday morning I turned in my ballot and I have to say it felt a little anti-climactic, because the election really isn’t over with yet. But I also left with a good feeling of already having turned it in and being one step closer to being done with the bitterness of this campaign.

But then on Saturday I got a reminder that what is happening in our state and country is very serious business and that some of the seeds that have been planted will be sprouting well past Nov. 2. On Friday I noticed that my No on Ballot Measure 36 sign was gone. I didn’t think much of it, I figured somebody wanted a sign and they were too lazy to get their own.

But then yesterday I looked through my mail and right on top was a letter addressed to resident at my address. It looked strange because it was addressed with a typewriter. There was something about it that made it look like something that maybe I shouldn’t open it. It had been written with a typewriter and there was no return address. And I was probably right.

I opened it to read all kinds of hateful things about wanting me out of the neighborhood, about wanting all people to meet the fate of those in the Holocaust. I don’t need to go into any more detail. I was startled by the letter, particularly by the fact that the writer included his name and address. He lives just a couple of blocks away.

I have to say that the letter was unsettling. Receiving such a vengeful thing from someone who just lives a couple blocks away was frightening.  I filed a police report, which was an important thing to do. It took me a little while to get over the surprise, but once I did, I also came to realize that I felt safe on my street. That I really didn’t feel all that afraid. I know my neighbors and I know that they are with me. That was an important thing to know. It was interesting, in my neighborhood, if I had to guess, there are 10 or 20 “No on 36” signs for every Yes sign. That is not scientific, but that would be my guess. It may be that my letter writer is feeling pretty outnumbered.

I want you to know that I’m okay. But the letter also brought home in a very personal way what seems to be happening more and more in our state and country. It was an extreme example of how the rhetoric at the top can filter down to those on the margins. When leaders make it okay to demonize a person or a group of people, it opens the doors for behaviors that should be not tolerated in our society. It was a reminder that our words and our deeds do have consequences.

It was Lincoln who said our task should not be to invoke religion and the name of God by claiming God’s blessing and endorsement for policies and practices—saying, in effect, that God is on our side. Rather, we should worry whether we are on God’s side.

Those are the two ways that religion has been brought into public life in our history. The first way—God on our side—leads inevitably to triumphalism, self-righteousness, and, often, dangerous foreign policy. Sadly that is being lived out in the here and now. Just this morning is the news of almost 50 Iraqi soldiers being gunned down.

The second way—asking if we are on God’s side—leads us in a different direction—namely humility, reflection, and even repentance and accountability. In the politics of our times, we could use a whole lot more of those qualities. But sadly, in today’s political realm reflection and humility would only bring on another attack ad.

And I know in myself that I can be pulled in either of those directions—especially in politically charged times like these. I know in my heart that I don’t like the way things are. I’m aware how easy it is for a righteous anger to rise up in me. When my candidate gets attacked I want them to hit back and not lose the momentum. All of a sudden, there’s a vicious cycle happening. And in that cycle, nobody wins.

I have appreciated this year a bumper sticker from Sojourners magazine that says, “God is not a Republican… or a Democrat.” That is an important message no matter what side you’re on. I know that one of my own learnings is to not respond with righteousness when I meet righteousness from someone else. But I can’t say that I’ve been all that successful.

It may be that it is easier to live in the place of polarities and righteousness sometimes than to live with the complexity and nuance that is so often present with just about any issue. It is easier to simply know who is with us and who is against us.

The great preacher William Sloane Coffin once said:  “It is one thing to say with the prophet Amos, ‘Let justice roll down like mighty waters,’ and quite another to work out the irrigation system.”

But it’s true that sometimes the only way we’re going to get the water is through the irrigation system. Living with the complexities of our lives is not always easy. On any given issue there is nuance and we have to be open to living with that nuance.

Things change. Ideas change. People change. Revelation is not sealed, but something that is evolving, changing and growing. And we ourselves are evolving, and changing and growing. As our lives move so does the world. Nothing is static, but always moving. Sometimes backward, sometimes forward. We cannot know how we will see any given issue five years or ten years from now. It might be very different than the way that we look at it now.

It is not one clean line that keeps moving onward and upward. I think it is something more like a spiral. But I do live in faith that things change and that we play a part in making them change. Sometimes there is a backlash, a terrible backlash, and we are called to try to put that into some larger context. And we are also open to how the spirit moves in us and among us. How we see things in a new light, how things may not be what they once were, but how we see them in a new way in a new time.

Sometimes we get a wonderful surprise. If you would have told me 25 years ago, when I was in high school, that in 2004 I would be officiating at the weddings of 18 gay and lesbian couples in one week, I would have told you that it was more likely I would be living on the moon. But low and behold that happened, and I will look back on that week as long as I live of one of the highlight of my life.

There are times when justice does seem to roll down like water, but so often it is something much slower, and we don’t always know what we will see over any given time. And we don’t always know how many steps we will take backwards before we can once again move forward. But that is where faith comes in.

Hebrews 11:1: Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Faith is living from that place of hope and being willing to stand in that faith.

Martin Luther King liked to tell the story about a little girl—just 5 or 6 years old—whom he once met at a civil rights march down South. The girl was marching with her mother, holding her mother’s hand. It was the first march she’d ever been on. All was going smoothly until suddenly the police broke into the ranks of the marchers and tried to intimidate them and disperse them. One policeman in particular confronted the little girl and her mother, thinking he could frighten them off. When it became clear that his tactic of snarling at them did not intimidate them: “What do you want?!” And the little girl looked up at him and with a five-year old’s determination she said, Fee-dom. Fee-dom.

Whenever he’d tell the story, Dr. King would sum it up by saying, “She couldn’t even pronounce the word yet, but that little girl knew exactly what she wanted.” Sometimes, when King felt like he was losing heart, he’d think of the little girl and her courage would revive his spirits. Fee-dom.

It is important that we know what we want in our lives and where we want them to go.  It is important to know the things that are most important and to live our lives from that place of knowing. It is important to keep our eyes on the vision and hold fast to that vision. Hope is believing in spite of the evidence, then watching the evidence change.

Matthew Fox writes of “the small work in the Great Work,” the place of our little lives and our little loves, our efforts towards the good, and how that work is connected to the larger life and larger love that some call the holy, some call spirit, that come call God.

We cannot know what, if any, difference we make, but we can live with the faithfulness that our actions matter, that what we do in our lives matters.

Several years ago, about this time of year, the young gay man Matthew Shepherd was brutally murdered in Wyoming. You might remember the story, he met two men in a bar and they beat him and robbed him and tied him, barely alive, to a fence post in the middle of nowhere. He was there for some days until he was found and taken to the hospital. He held on for a number of days until he died. 

It was a brutal, tragic story.

Here in Portland, like in many cities, there was a vigil in his memory. It was a cold, windy night, dark like it is this time of year. Hundreds gathered in Pioneer Square, including many people from our church. There were speeches from politicians and religious leaders and activists. I remember the mixture of emotions from that time: anger, sadness, some pride in community. Despite all the people and all the words, I somehow felt alone in my grief. I found myself going further and further inward.

I parked my car here at the church and I was walking up Broadway. Walking along, I saw a slight figure walking up the hill with the help of a cane. The figure looked familiar, but I didn’t pay much attention. But as I got closer I noticed the figure was hunched and that somehow the person was familiar. I soon realized that she was a member of the church. It was Sophie Loving, an elderly woman who lived several blocks from Pioneer Square. Sophie, I should tell you, died summer before last. In her life, she was one of the women who witnessed for peace on Fridays downtown. She also went to the Hanford Nuclear plant to protest.

On that cold evening, when I realized who this person was, my tears began to flow. All the speeches didn’t really do it for me, but somehow seeing Sophie did. I can’t exactly explain why, but it had something to do with the fact that she, an elderly woman, had made this trip out on a chilly October evening alone to witness against this hatred.

I have to say that I can’t remember much of what was said at that vigil. But to this day I can still see Sophie walking slowing up the street on that dark, cold, night. I was a gay man who felt vulnerable and alone that night, and in her witness—in her faith—I was given hope.

In our lives, we are called to be people who live in faith, faith about what the world might be, faith that the world will be more just, more loving, more compassionate. We are called to live in faith that our words and deeds matter and that we are part of all that happens, that we are co-creators with something greater—of all that is unfolding.

I have to say that one of the first things I started to think about after receiving that letter yesterday was how glad I was that I would be in church today. I was reminded that this is where I wanted and needed to be today. It was important for me to remember that I am not alone on my street, that I’m not alone in my church, but that I’m with others who are also on the journey.

Love is the spirit of this church, and service its law. This is our great covenant: To dwell together in peace, to seek the truth in love, and to help one another.

We live in times when fear is so very present. We live in times where love and compassion seem so scarce. Through all the opinion polls and through all the advertisements, through all the ups and downs, through all the seasons of our lives, may we live faithfully, that what is not seen is still possible, that in the end of it all love will prevail.  May it be so. Amen.

Prayer

Let us pray: Spirit of life, we give thanks for this day. We give thanks for our lives, and all that we have been given. Hold us in these times we live in. Grant us courage, grant us wisdom, that we might live out our callings in the world. Help us to laugh at ourselves. May others be there to walk with us. In our breathing and in our living, call us always to say yes to life. Amen.

Benediction

Let your light shine, my good people. Open your hearts in these times and bring your hope into the world. Go in love and go in peace.

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Copyright 2004, Rev. Thomas Disrud.  All rights reserved.