Something’s got you down
Got you chained and bound
Well break it…
The power for liberation and for transformation is ours to claim.
“nothing’s gonna change if you don’t change it”
Dolly Parton as theologian.
Amen.
Last Sunday, we recognized the pain of the pandemic, the losses we have all felt, and the blessings we have found (to our surprise some of us) in the last year. We also began naming how clearly the operation of privilege has been highlighted for us all.
This morning, our attention shifts from inspecting what we have lived through…toward what may lie ahead for us.
What may lie ahead. Life transitions are almost always complex. As our reading said, “it takes time to get used to the rhythms of a new beginning…to learn to breathe in this new space.”
This transition is also both personal…for each of us…and collective. It is thus doubly complex. If you are feeling tender…remember to give yourself grace and to ask for it from those you love.
I hope this morning can be part of your own process of preparing to “re-open.”
Beginning to look toward what may lie ahead.
We will be helped, as we were last week, by the voices of congregants whom Tom and I asked, first, about what promise they were catching glimpses of, what hope they were sensing in themselves as we begin to emerge into whatever our new normal may become.
Yes, we know this pandemic is going to end. The news keeps getting better and better. Vaccinations up, infections down, day after day.
And, yes, there has been a rebirth of kindness and caring in the few interactions we have allowed ourselves. “Have a good day” was the greeting I used to hear most often. Now it’s “Stay safe.” This is a small thing, I know, but more caring seems to be coming through.
And we do glimpse the possibility that we might, just might, all get free…just might find liberation and embrace that renewed life…centered on human thriving and the abundance in which we could all begin to live.
The promise these congregants described was so hopeful.
But we also asked what fears were present for them as they looked to the future.
And there was such a pairing of the hopes and the fears…almost mirroring one another…such clarity about what has been broken…such fear that we will not find the will or the way to repair it.
We know that we will not return to the world as it was. This pandemic…this forced time out…has changed things. Perhaps it has even changed us. But the shape of what we will come to know as normal is still far from clear.
As we sense ourselves turning toward the unfolding, the opening of a post-COVID future….
There are spiritual issues that need attention.
How do we, as individuals, make this transition well?
As religious people, what vision will increase the odds that we can move toward wholeness? What intentions should we voice? What commitments should we make to ourselves and to one another?
I heard from those congregants hopes that went far beyond Building Back Better.
I heard the hope of addressing the unfairness that we have seen so clearly …
The hope that divisiveness would not persist or deepen…that kindness and concern for one another might become the new normal. That we might finally find some grace.
I heard the hope for a real turning in the world and in our spirits …away from fragmentation and toward health and wholeness…
I heard a hope that both justice and mercy might be in our future.
I heard a hope…I hold a hope that we might all get free.
Do we dare, as we turn toward the future…do we dare to suggest not only that real change is needed…
Do we dare to center our attention and our intention on finally building the world we dream about?
What is holding us back from going where we want to go? What do we need to let go of to get free?
I heard the voices of those congregants speak of glimmers of hope and glimpses of liberation but also fear that our momentum will flag and that we will fail this time…as we have in the past
That place of knowing where we need to go…but not trusting that we will get there…
I feel it in myself…
It is as if we want proof before we commit. As if we are looking for some guarantee to justify our confidence.
I believe it is ultimately then a question of whether we can have faith…and whether we can sustain our faith.
Part of the problem, I have come to believe, is that we have been on the defensive for too long…in the world around us.
It is hard to claim an open-hearted and embracing vision…from a defensive crouch.
What do I mean?
Look at the failure of gun control legislation, the chipping away at reproductive justice, the skewed tax policies, the shredding of the social safety net, the stonewalling of changes in policing, the refusal to truly incentivize clean energy…
Our goals have narrowed to preventing further worsening of what we know, in our hearts, is already a disastrous trajectory. We have developed the habit of smaller visions and modest dreams.
So, we advocate for reasonable background checks for gun purchases. Now, universal background checks would be a good thing. But we know that what we need is a ban on assault weapons, to put a registry for gun ownership in place, just like driver’s licenses, and to reduce the number of guns on our streets.
We organize to resist cutting back early voting and the elimination of vote by mail. Resistance is needed. There are now 250 bills in state legislatures designed to keep Black and Brown people and young people and poor people away from the polls.
We need to resist them all. But if we were to defeat all of them…our success will earn us only the flawed system we began with.
What we need is universal vote by mail and universal DMV voter registration. We need passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
We are gladdened by the $27 Million dollar verdict for George Floyd’s family…at least I am. It is a good thing that killing black folks is getting more expensive.
But what we need is a guilty verdict in the criminal trial and the elimination of Qualified Immunity to make police murder of innocent black folks personally dangerous…to the police responsible. Until we make that change, the enormous civil judgments just mean that we all pay more to keep the current system in place.
Yesterday was the anniversary of Breonna Taylor’s murder. March 3rd was the 30th anniversary of the Rodney King beating…and we still have not made those fundamental changes.
Reproductive justice, tax policy, minimum wage…example after example, where the majority of Americans…often a large majority of Americans…are clear that we need to change course…
But our politics won’t allow it.
On all of these issues and many more, it is our politics and not our people who are holding us back.
And let me be clear. These are not radical policies. This is not socialism.
This would be majority rule. This would be democracy.
We need to reclaim a more hopeful vision and if our politics need to change, let’s change our politics.
If we need to let the filibuster go, or severely limit it…what do we have to lose?
Did the presence of the filibuster encourage bi-partisanship, did it preserve the role of science or the rule of law these last four years?
As religious people, how are we called to show up as the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel continues to brighten?
How do we need to prepare ourselves to make this transition a journey toward wholeness?
Here are a few…preliminary…thoughts.
First, let’s bring forward with us the grace and the gratitude we discovered during this pandemic… our recognition of how much we need one another…and the kindness and respect that we have begun to see more of…
First, let’s not lose the blessings we have found.
But beyond that, and the relief we will all feel as our sense of safety returns,
Beyond that, let’s recalibrate our moral compasses so that they point us toward Beloved Community.
Let’s keep our eyes on that prize.
We need a reset and a recommitment as we re-emerge.
It has been so obvious just how far out of balance…just how far toward fragmentation and away from wholeness… we have allowed our world to become.
Let’s not allow that knowledge to recede as we begin to view this pandemic in our rearview mirror.
Staying awake and aware is central to the preparation we need as increasing safety and comfort invite us to accept what we knew as normal…as being what is right and good.
So let’s state our intentions clearly…to ourselves and to one another…
Let’s ask who is not yet at the table and be about the business of invitation and hospitality…
Let’s let go of those habits and those structures that have been holding us back and holding us down.
Let’s exercise our spiritual muscles by claiming a vision and a goal we actually believe in.
And let us remember, always, that compassion for ourselves and for those around us is where compassion for our world begins.
As the pandemic cloud lifts, let’s re-gather this community with intention and with love…
So that we can finally…all of us…get free.
Topics: Intention