by Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

CALL TO WORSHIP

Good morning!

As we come together this morning,

Let us know once again

That we are not isolated beings

But connected

In mystery and in miracle

To the universe,

To this community,

And to one another.

Come now, and let us worship together.

The early settlers who risked life and limb to come to this land—a land strange and unknown, but full of promise—these early settlers had a dream.  That dream included freedom to worship as they wished; it included the opportunity to prosper, if they were willing to work hard; it included the possibility of owning their own land, plowing their own field, not being the landless servant or serf they would have been in the Old Country, where class systems were rigidly enforced, and your life was absolutely locked into place by your rank and by your birth order.

They had a dream.  And although that dream promised much to the individual, it was a dream grounded in holy covenant, with God and with one another.  Hear the words of Governor Winthrop, given even before his people disembarked from their ship to set foot in this Promised Land:  he said, “We are entered into Covenant with <God> for this worke.  Wee haue taken out a commission.”  And he continues a bit later:  “. . . wee must be knitt together, in this worke, as one man.  Wee must entertaine each other in brotherly affection.  Wee must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of other’s necessities.”  And then he moves to the responsibility of this new settlement to the larger world:  “For wee must consider that wee shall be as a city upon a hill.  The eies of all people are uppon us.”  A statement of manifest destiny:  we shall be a shining example to the rest of the world, a moral light that will guide others into ways of mercy and justice.  The date was 1630.

This was an amazing dream, the political piece of which was further articulated and refined in a document which came some 140 years later, a document which made a heretofore unimaginable claim:  “All men are created equal, they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.”  All people have precisely the same rights?  Unheard of!  This was the American dream.

Granted, all people did not fall under the purview of the dream at that time—women did not, slaves did not, men who did not own property did not.  Native Americans did not exactly get a fair shake.  But the ideal remained, and through the centuries we have worked to enlarge the scope of that dream, and that work is still underway, calling us to righteousness and justice.  The dream was set before us, and still remains there.  But that dream has been shaken and changed.  What has happened to the sacred covenant, of ourselves with our God and ourselves with one another?  What has happened to that noble experiment, to the country that was to be as “a city upon a hill,” leading other nations to righteousness and to justice?

We are a nation where freedom has now been interpreted to mean that the strong don’t have to care for the weak; we are a nation where one family has three homes and four cars, and other people die homeless on our streets (in Portland this past year, in fact, nearly 100 perished on our streets); we are a nation that stinks from the corruption at the top, which dresses itself in God-language while pandering unashamedly to the rich; we are a nation hated and reviled by many other nations and at best grudgingly tolerated by those who would be our friends.  We are far from that “city upon a hill,” that moral compass—rather, we have decided to make war, to build empire, to control the resources of the world, so that a few might flourish, while many perish.

And so I am here to say today, that our national sins, our greed and concupiscence, the evil-doing that has taken us to this point, is going to catch up with us—and the time won’t be long in coming.

It was only after WWII that the United States became a world power, and we began to move toward empire.  We had military bases all over the world, and we became one of two major world powers.  In many ways these three decades after the war were a kind of Golden Era of Western capitalism.  Workers of limited education and skill could make a wage to support a family, for there was a huge and seemingly endless demand for consumer goods: automobiles, televisions, refrigerators.  Corporations created vast armies of white collar workers, and middle-class parents and some working class parents could see that their sons (though not at first their daughters) would be able to climb a career ladder to a better life than they themselves had.  The breadwinner—at least the white male breadwinner—could earn a living wage for his family. 

Following this, in the 1980s, came the rise of the corporation on a scale never before seen, merging, restructuring, downsizing at will, endangering the jobs of the middle class and of the working class.  Companies no longer were loyal to workers, nor workers to companies—there was no covenant, no social contract between the two.  “Outsourcing” was the word of the day, and manufacturing was moved overseas, and there has since been a “race to the bottom,” to see which countries could provide the cheapest labor force. 

The market is now the measure of all, and countries are without boundaries, economically speaking. There is little job security, and wealth is rapidly being transferred from the public to the private sector.  This situation has created not only an insecure middle-class, but a growing and increasingly desperate underclass that has no function at all, and so makes up our huge prison population, the largest in the world today. 

Where is the government in all of this?  Well, since the market has become God, the sacred function of government is protecting the share-holders and making sure that the world is safe for American business.  Human life is sacrificed in wars of aggression, and the health and well-being of the earth itself is sacrificed to this false god. 

Where does this situation leave us personally?  Where does it leave our families? 

We are working harder, working longer hours, for less money.  The average male worker puts in around 50 hours on the job, the female, 42, and yet the real median household income declined 3% from 2000 to 2004.  About two-thirds say they live from paycheck to paycheck.  The average credit card debt for a U.S. citizen today is over $9,000. 

Richard Oden of Conyers, GA, married, with five children, worked in the beer industry for 23 years.  Last year, he developed pneumonia and required major surgery.  When he was unable to return to work on a given date, his company terminated him at age 54—even though he had a perfect attendance record and no performance problems.  He has had to dip into his retirement fund to support his family.  “This was very stressful,” he says.  “Everything has gone up—except wages.”  He adds, “I do believe I will recover financially, and that I will realize a decent retirement.  But the traditional American dream?  For most Americans, it’s still a dream—a pipe dream.”

And what’s happening to our families, to our children?  Recent studies suggest that dual-income couples find only 12 minutes each day to talk to each other.  Parents, you can actually buy cards to leave for your children in the morning, apologizing for not tucking them in at night and for leaving for work before they wake up.  A Houston mother recently recounted with pride a scheduling breakthrough with her six- and eight-year-old sons.  Their after-school and evening schedules were already crowded with sports and music lessons, but Timmy needed tutoring for reading and Matt had trouble finding time for his homework.  Her solution was creative: she found a tutor who would meet with Timmy at 6:30 a.m. while Matt did his homework outside in the waiting car.  This allowed for efficient use of early morning hours and no interference with after-school and evening activities.

A six-year-old gets her first daily planner—and then asks her mom if she can schedule in time to play.  A nine-year-old makes a wish list for his birthday, and number three on the list is “more time at home.”  Since the late 1970s, children have lost 12 hours per week in free time.  A large national study of American teenagers found a strong relationship between regular family meals and academic success, psychological health, and lower rates of drug and alcohol use.  Yet there has been a one-third decrease in the number of families who say they eat dinner together regularly.

So what could the explanation be for these under-connected families?  Could it be that the competition of the marketplace has invaded the family—the place where we should be most secure, the place where children should be able to evolve at their own pace, in an atmosphere of love and acceptance?  As one parent said, people no longer brag about the size of their house or the model of their car—they brag about how busy their family is, about how much they pay for equipment, classes, coaching: parenting has become a competitive sport. 

It appears that the new American Dream is something like this:  work on your resume, starting at about age 2 or 3, get into a good elementary school, get into a good high school, get into a good university where you will make the right connections, graduate, get a good job, or a series of them, get married, buy a nice house, have 2.3 children, work hard and consume a lot (buy a lot of toys), and die.  This is not a dream worthy of our lives.  This will not render a life that will model anything worthy for our children.  The emptiness of it will become apparent, as they try to reach out for meaning in a society in which the parents serve an economic system that no longer serves them, a system that is no longer grounded in communal and spiritual values.  No wonder so many of our young people seem lost, floundering in a world that offers them no compelling goals, nothing worthy of sacrifice.  There is no greater pain than the pain of an unlived life—a life empty of meaning.

And if this is what the American Dream has descended to for individuals, what about the larger world?  Not only has this country failed to be the “city on the hill” but we have become the bully in the schoolyard of the world.  We have snatched the lunch-box and belongings of those weaker than ourselves; we have intimidated those who would speak out against our arrogant ways; we have grievously assaulted, either economically or literally, any who would not feed our greed upon demand.

The fact is, though, that all bullies and all bully nations will at some point be brought down, and our time may be coming soon.  The chickens are coming home to roost, as we Southerners say, for there is a convergence of situations now that suggests that the American Empire may be coming to a close.  And we are not the only ones who will suffer. 

What are these situations I speak of?  First, there is global warming—if you haven’t seen Al Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” please don’t walk, but run to your nearest theatre and see it.  Climate change, for example, is likely to cause coastal areas to be flooded and more fierce storms to arrive.  Katrina is just the beginning. And then we are running out of oil, and we have no practical substitute for all of the many uses of fossil fuel—not just gasoline, but everything from fertilizer to plastics.  Some people say we have enough for 10 more years, 30 at the outside.  China and India are both industrializing rapidly, and they have huge populations.  One of my congregants visited China ten years ago, and on a 10-lane road saw 9 lanes of bicycles and one lane of cars; he visited again last year and saw 9 lanes of cars and one lane of bicycles.  China and India want oil, too.  Wars are likely to be fought over the remaining oil—and over sources of fresh, clean water, which may be even more valuable than oil, as the world population continues to grow, demanding more and more resources.  People will likely not just go quietly into that good night, and civil unrest may erupt in various places around the world.

What can we as individuals do?  We have to be brave enough to look at this crisis, and not pretend that life is going to go on as usual—not for us, and certainly not for our children and grandchildren.  Technology will not make all these problems go away.  We must try to mitigate the worst of the fall-out, and prepare for this new world.

This post-Empire world actually will have its merits—I imagine that there will be no suburbs, with people driving home one by one in their SUVs each day.  We’ll be living together, in largely self-supporting towns and villages.  We won’t be able to import food 1,500 miles—we’ll grow our own, or buy from farmers we know.  The transportation will be public.  We’ll get to know one another as friends and neighbors once again. 

I’ve heard people use the words “meltdown” and even “die-off” recently, and I’ve heard the word “apocalypse”—not just from fundamentalists, but good liberals, mind you, and perhaps the word is appropriate, for when I looked it up in the dictionary, I found that it means “the destruction of evil and the triumph of good.”  I don’t think there’ll be a die-off, as in the day of the dinosaurs, but I think we may have to rebuild from the shards, or the broken pieces, both of our lives and of our society. 

I want to suggest that we start now, and not a moment later.  I want to suggest that we begin a revolution—not a revolution of the gun, but of the spirit, which is the only revolution which ever lasts.  Let us begin by living the change we want to create.  Let’s lead from the bottom up, a radical democratic shift that starts internally, that is manifested in how we live and relate to others and to the earth, a way that becomes the norm through practice and that is institutionalized through our civic life.  An example of this kind of leadership is the meeting of 300 mayors of U.S. cities in June of 2005, not to debate whether or not climate change was an important issue, but to decide what they could do in their cities about global warming.  California has taken the initiative as a state.  Go where you have control and make change there, from the bottom up, and others will notice your efforts, and reforms will spread. 

Notice what is life-denying and resist it—just say “no,” for your own sake and your children’s sake.  Live with the moral authority that comes from compassion and non-violence.  Form communities of people who will sustain you in living as you wish to live, whether they are study groups, or alternative living arrangements, or socially responsible businesses.  We need to re-imagine our lives, re-imagine our economy.  Now we structure our lives to serve the economy—what would an economy look like that was structured to serve the people?

Today I want to offer you groups that are starting in our church—they are groups designed for people who want to live out of their highest values, and who want support in doing that.  These groups are called “Sustaining Circles,” and the theme of these groups is “Changing Self, Changing the World.”  Each group of eight will have a trained leader and will last for an initial six weeks, with the option to continue, should the members so desire. 

There are other groups in our social justice program which are vital and alive and are making a difference in our world—some of those are our Peace Action Group, our Economic Justice Action Group, our End Corporate Personhood Group, and our Education Task Force.  You will find representatives of these groups who will give you more information, and you may sign up for these or for the Sustaining Circle groups in the Parish Hall downstairs after the service today.

You know, I think of that old Chinese blessing:  “May you live in interesting times.”  Our generation has a mission, a clear and evident one; we have a compelling moral purpose which can direct our lives and our energies—literally, we are about saving the world.  These days of challenge call us to put aside our pettiness and our little quarrels and to focus on the larger issues. 

The idealism that caused John Winthrop to say that we have a special destiny, and that destiny is to be as “the city upon the hill,” is not dead in this country—I see it in certain young people, who are quietly living in a sustainable fashion, deeply respecting our earth; I see it in so many of you, who have a vision of the good, way beyond the popular mind.  I know that wherever the human spirit is willing to join with that larger Spirit that new dreams can be dreamed and whole nations can be moved.  We saw that with Gandhi, we saw it with Martin Luther King, Jr., we saw it with Nelson Mandela. 

I am convinced that what is life-denying, what is repressive and false, will be known as such, and people, who are basically good, will follow a new way.  Let us be some of those who step out and lead the way, who dare to once again be the Light that blesses the world.  So be it.  Amen.

PRAYER

Spirit of Life, it is that very life that we pray for this day.  Help us see clearly the good that we must do, and the new ways we must adopt, and give us the courage to change.  Awaken us to the new, awaken us to possibility!   Let us leave our petty ways, the little quarrels that have so often captured our attention and our energies, and let us give ourselves to the task at hand, to our good earth and her people, that we might live and flourish for years to come.   Amen.

BENEDICTION

Go now, my people, and love one another and love the earth—as you go through your days, let that light of the Spirit shine through your living, that others may be greatly blessed.