The Four Freedoms

For the health of our nation.
Voices, rich in color and tone.
Voices diverse in thought and concern.

Sure, conservative voices are a part of the mix.
And so, too, progressives of all stripes and flavors.

We're in trouble now.
Because we had a single-tone choir.
Only certain voices.
Only a narrow band of sounds.
Limited ideas.

It won't help if suddenly progressives take it all.
Though I'd love to try that for awhile.

But we need balance.
Not the kind of balance that goes nowhere.
But a balance sufficient.
That every voice can be heard.

Yet, like so many things
It has to move along.
It can't just spin in circles.

Conservatives have made it clear.
They don't like change.
Nor diversity.

They're white and don't like color.
They're afraid of gender questions.
And they don't trust women.
On anyone out of their small sense of "ordinary."

Let their voice be heard.
But, for heaven's sake.
Let's get one with the program.
America on the progressive road.

Rights, they're called.
The four rights of FDR would be just fine.
To head the list.
On top of the program.

The first is freedom of speech and expression.
The second is freedom of every person to worship god in his own way.
The third is freedom from want.
The fourth is freedom from fear.

Let the conservatives offer their own set of values.
Their vision for tomorrow.
For sure.

But as for me and my house.
I want a progressive America.
A nation that exalts in liberty for all.
And justice, too.

A nation that trusts women in all regards.
A nation not afraid of Transgendered people.
A nation that despises the symbols of fascism and slavery.
A nation determined to provide for all of its citizens:

There's much we can do.
And we need everyone's voice.
Not to shout at one another.
But to seek a harmony of sorts.

And to move the song along.
Perhaps some will slow it down a bit.
Others to keep it going.

We need the conservative voice.
But more than that, we need
The progressive voice.
To look to the future for its advice.

And the future always speaks.
It beckons us to leave behind.
And so to press on.

And in the doing,
The brave will find hope.
The world some peace.
And people, everywhere, the four freedoms.

Using Our Imagination

Conservatives lack imagination.
All they can do is look backward.
Like Lot's wife.

And we know what happened to her.
Or to anyone fixated on the past.

Because God is forward looking.
To a new day.
A new way of faith, hope and love.

God, always inventing.
Coming to terms with.
Making fresh arrangements.

Putting it together, anew.
Never interested in making the Kingdom of God Great Again.
But in sustaining the greatness of love.

There is no "again" in God's vocabulary.
As if the past held some clue to the future.
There is only a profound grace.

The Kingdom of God is at hand.
Here and now.
And then and there.

Yes, it was in the past
But the past is gone.
As it should be.

Like a marker along the road.
Many more miles to go.

It's the Spirit who rends the heavens and comes down.
Who drives the Son of God into the wilderness.
To know hunger and thirst and sleepless nights.

To fashion a being who can carry the cross.
Who can embrace the world.
Who can give life for life.

Now, that's imagination.
That's creativity.
That's the anchor of tomorrow.

The anchor pulling us along the way.
Into another day.

And maybe Lot's wife can have another chance.
Let the rains melt salt and wash away the resolve.
To yearn for the past and its meager offerings.

Maybe Lot's wife can have another chance.
To find her imagination.
To journey ahead and along the way.

To a new land.
A new place.
A new being.

I think that's how God would have it.
For all of us and the animals.
And especially the children with their songs.

Can we not imagine something beyond yesterday's offerings?
Is there not more to be had in God's pantry?
Time to unlimber the imagination.

To my conservative friends, Don't be afraid.
There's more to life than MAGA.
The Kingdom of God pushing us ahead.

"No Good Deed Goes Unpunished" - a sermon by the Rev. Rebecca F. Harrison, April 3, 2011

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

The Rev. Rebecca F. Harrison

New Bridges Presbyterian Church; Hayward, CA

April 3, 2011

Text:  1 Peter 3:13-22

I was brought up –

as I suppose you were too –

that one always did the right thing,

just because it was the right thing to do.

And by “the right thing,”

our parents meant

being nice to other kids,

even if they were mean to me;

helping people who needed help,

like opening the door

for someone carrying two big sacks of groceries;

giving up my seat on the bus or the train

to a pregnant woman,

or someone who was disabled,

or the elderly.

(Now, elderly folks, I understood,

were people who were,

oh, maybe forty or fifty years old.

Today, I think a little differently.)

Over the course of one spring,

when I was perhaps seven years old,

our sleepy little town was visited

by a number of hoboes, as we called them.

Now, I think, they’d be called homeless people.

Nonetheless, they were there,

and they were needy.

Our family never had much,

as we were growing up,

but we always had food to eat,

and a place to sleep at night.

These people had neither.

Our mother made sandwiches,

and together she and one or two of us children

would go out on the sidewalk,

where the hoboes could be found,

and would feed them sandwiches.

We did this frequently, throughout that spring.

Other people said the hoboes marked our house

as being people who would feed them,

so we shouldn’t.

But we did, anyway.

After all, our mother reasoned,

they were human,

and they were hungry.

They deserved their daily bread, too,

just like the rest of the world.

As we got a little older,

doing the right thing

took on new dimensions.

When I was in elementary school,

in the 1950s in Arkansas,

I didn’t understand why Mary,

my friend from around the corner,

couldn’t go to the same school I went to,

just because her skin was a different color.

We went in completely opposite directions

when we walked to school.

So when our father wrote a letter

(I found out, when I was much older,

that he was only one of many clergy

who signed that letter)

when our father wrote a letter

to the Governor of Arkansas,

saying that he believed the schools

in the entire state of Arkansas

should welcome all children,

regardless of their skin color,

why, I knew, he was doing the right thing.

And he was proud,

mighty proud

(which was unusual for our father;

he didn’t get proud very often)

that Governor Orval Faubus,

in responding to that letter,

called him a Communist.

I didn’t know what a Communist was,

except that it was obviously something

Governor Faubus didn’t like.

When I learned later, in junior high school,

what a Communist was,

I thought it was pretty funny,

that Governor Faubus would call my father

and all those other ministers

a bunch of Communists.

I guess nobody bothered to tell Governor Faubus

what a Communist was,

or maybe he just didn’t care.

I suspect the latter.

Our father was doing the right thing,

because it was the right thing to do,

and if it meant being called a Communist,

well, that didn’t hurt so very much.

For my brothers and sisters and me,

our father’s behavior in this situation

was an example of doing the right thing,

because it was the right thing to do.

It never occurred to us,

as it probably didn’t to you,

when you were young,

that sometimes, doing the right thing

came at a cost.

It was only when we were older,

when once again,

our father

(and our mother, who completely agreed with him)

took a stand against racism,

that we saw the cost;

indeed, that we felt it ourselves.

It was only then

that we began to see the truth in the phrase,

“No good deed goes unpunished.”

I don’t think our parents

ever really thought of themselves

as “good-deed-doers,”

to quote the Wizard of Oz.

They just believed,

and they taught us to believe,

that sometimes, doing the right thing

means taking a stand,

a difficult stand,

one which may result in some people

or perhaps many people

disagreeing with you,

calling you names,

making life extremely difficult.

I was a sophomore in high school,

in a small town in Kansas.

This time, it was the church itself,

not the government,

which was acting

in what can only be called

a racist behavior.

They owned a home, fully furnished,

which was intended to be used

by families in the community

who couldn’t afford a place to live.

This house had been used by several families.

But now, an African-American family needed that home.

The Session of the congregation –

the people who made decisions –

made a decision.

They decided that this family,

whose skin was a different color

than most in the congregation,

this family could, indeed, live in the house.

They just couldn’t use the furniture.

They would have to find furniture of their own,

or do without.

I suppose having a roof over their heads

was of some benefit,

but how they were supposed to live

at all comfortably

with no furniture –

well, I guess that Session decided

that they just didn’t care.

Or maybe they were afraid

of what the congregation would think

or say

or do.

Maybe, the people on that Session

had even been threatened

by members of the congregation

or the community

if they did the right thing

and let that black family

live in that house

and use that furniture.

So they didn’t do the right thing.

But our parents did.

That Friday afternoon,

our parents picked us all up after school,

with a bag packed for each of us.

(And by now, there were seven children in our family.)

They said, “We’re going out of town for the weekend.”

Which was unusual, because,

as you may know,

pastors NEVER

go out of town for the weekend.

And when we got out of town, they said,

“Oh, and by the way,

we’re not going back.”

Our parents decided that

my older brother and I

were old enough to understand

some, at least,

of what had happened.

They told us about the Session’s decision.

They told us that our father needed to make a decision, too.

His decision was that,

if the church was unwilling to welcome

and care for

all God’s children, regardless of color,

then he could no longer be their pastor.

So our father wrote a letter to the Session,

with a copy to the Presbytery,

resigning.

Effective immediately.

Which, if you know the way

Presbyterians do things,

NEVER happens.

We moved to a neighboring city,

about two hundred miles away,

in Missouri.

The Presbytery in Kansas decided

that our father 

must have severe emotional problems

for him to leave that way.

It never occurred to them that perhaps

that congregation in Kansas

had the emotional problems.

So the Presbytery initially required our father

to undergo months of counseling,

before they would allow him

to be a pastor again

in another church

in another presbytery

in another state.

While he was receiving counseling

and awaiting the presbytery’s permission to move on,

Dad worked not as a pastor,

but as the janitor in the nearby elementary school.

Or so he told me,

though until recently,

my mother had never heard him say that.

But that may have been

a way for Dad

to save face with one of his children.

Little did he know,

in our eyes,

he was about the biggest man around.

He didn’t need to save any face

whatsoever.

During that time,

we lived on food stamps

and government surplus food.

Life was not easy.

But it was easier,

having done the right thing,

than if our parents had simply given in,

had simply abided by the decision

of that Session in Kansas.

No good deed goes unpunished.

We learned, my siblings and I,

the hard way.

Our parents, through their decision,

through their actions,

committed a good deed,

a righteous deed,

and that deed was punished.

Even so, it was the right thing to do.

“For it is better to suffer for doing good,

if suffering should be God’s will,

than to suffer for doing evil.”

Doing the right thing,

even today,

can still be a difficult decision.

Sometimes it’s easy;

you prepare a meal for a family in crisis;

visit the sick and aged at the local care facility;

give to a deserving charity.

But then there are the other times,

the times that call upon 

all the internal fortitude,

all the Spirit you can muster.

You march for an unpopular cause,

and onlookers curse you, and throw things.

Your employer’s practices go against your beliefs,

and you resign your position,

having no promise of another.

You see an injustice being perpetrated by the government,

and you risk arrest to participate in civil disobedience.

You discover an injustice being perpetrated by the church,

and you risk losing your ordination

to take a stand and act in favor of what you believe to be the truth.

No good deed goes unpunished.

At least, not in this life.

But when we do the right thing,

because it’s the right thing to do,

even though we know 

there will be a price to pay,

we have faith.

We have the promises given to us by Jesus:

Promises of God’s eternal love,

of a heavenly home waiting for us

where there will be

life 

love

light.

And that says nothing, of course,

about the promise of forgiveness, freely given,

when we do the wrong thing,

which sometimes means

not doing the right thing.

There are, unfortunately,

no promises that life will be easy.

But we can look to the examples

that have been set for us

by the early church,

by Martin Luther King, Jr.,

and by Jesus, himself,

examples of doing the right thing

and suffering for it.

By their lives, Jesus, King and the early church are reminders

that no good deed goes unpunished.

Even when doing the right thing

means we will suffer,

even then, we can know

that God’s blessing

is being poured out upon us.

And for that blessing,

we can be thankful;

thankful, too, that we have,

in Jesus Christ, 

the supreme example

of doing the right thing

because it’s the right thing to do.

Amen.

O Happy Day and Some Tough Questions

Re: the decision today of the PCUSA General Assembly meeting in Detroit to allow pastors in states where Marriage Equality exists to freely choose to officiate at same-gender weddings without fear of ecclesiastical reprisal.

Adam Walker Cleveland, Designer

And sent to the Presbyteries an overture to amend the Book of Order by changing "man and woman" to "two people" in the marriage section.

Here's something I wrote a few moments ago and have posted in various news outlets:

I'm a PCUSA pastor (now retired), and I'm rejoicing ... I now that some sisters and brothers are lamenting right now. Well, I've lamented plenty over the years as our church failed, as I see it, on this matter. After many such failures, I believe we have made some vital mid-course corrections. Clergy in states where Marriage Equality is the law can no officiate at a same-gender marriage without fear of ecclesiastical reprisal. Over the years, I didn't leave even when my heart was heavy and I believed that the church was failing Christ. I have always practiced the Larger Loyalty that transcends the pain of the moment. Many of my conservative sisters and brothers exercise a loyalty to dogma that trumps loyalty to one another; in their hearts, they believe this is loyalty to Christ. But how can one love Christ and walk away, often with bitterness and denunciation, from one's sisters and brothers. Tough questions, for sure, required by difficult times when the pull-of-the-past is at war with the pull-of-the-future.

How One Looks at Poverty

One can look at poverty in the United States and blame the poor as victims of their own failures, inadequacies or general lack of "get-up-and-go." 

It's handy to do this, because the observer is conveniently slipping off the hook of responsibility - the kind of human, humane, responsibility that sees the deep connections between the poverty of many and the systems of the few. And that's the rub. Even a marginally successful person, if telling the truth, will have to admit to many "lucky breaks" and "free lunches" all along the way, as the system tilted favorably toward them. 

To understand poverty, from the inside, is to see how profoundly the system fails millions of Americans; not only failing them, but fighting them. And if one is on the wrong side of the system, all the spunk in the world won't work. All the drive that human beings possess naturally to make something of life will fail, and in the end, the system we presently have condemns millions to poverty. 

Some blame the poor, wash their hands of it, and walk away with a peaceful soul, thanking God for their blessings and quietly patting themselves on the back for their "success." 

Others look at the system and see how irrational and hateful it is. How evil it is, and work to transform it - transform the system, yes; but transform the soul of the nation, and the soul of those who wash their hands and congratulate themselves for what they have. 

To be devoted to this transformative work brings great satisfaction, but also the disapproval of many. 

How people look at poverty is the great divide in human history.

The Presbyterian Layman ...

From my Presbyterian Outlook blog, posted 11.1.10 ...

I'm in a good mood this morning, so I decided to pick up, with trembling hand, of course, the latest screed on the decline of all things PCUSA (The Layman) ... and, of course, the rising stars of the PCA and EPC, and all such related groups. 

Well, I'm still in good mood, doubly glad that I'm not in their camp. It has to be mighty difficult for them, living in a world threatened with PCUSA evils ... sort of like living in the Poltergeist 1 home.

What I don't understand is the lack of joy in The Layman ... just so much anger, bitterness ... and the constant drumbeat of PCUSA's sins ... and a bizarre gleefulness over every perceived "failure" or "fault" in the PCUSA. 

As I read the letters to the editors, I was impressed with the depths of hatred therein. I get the feeling that The Layman and the FOX Network are strolling along, hand-in-hand.

Amazing.

Whatever else this is, it's not healthy.

Of course, it's all defended in the name of Jesus, whom they're defending, or so they think, as if Jesus even needed our help. The Layman clearly illustrates the adage, "With friends like this, who needs enemies?"

There are times I wonder if it's worthwhile to say anything. But as long as The Layman continues to shout is blasphemies, I'll shout out the grace of God in Christ. As long as The Layman continues to claim to have the upper hand on God's truth, I'll protest. As long as the Layman claims to have the moral high ground on life, I'll point out how immoral their mindset it. 

Anyway, I'm delighted to be where I am, and who I am, and I thank God for the grace to be here.