Social Justice & Civil Liberties¹

As we continue to experience the Word of the Lord together, Let us Pray. Gracious God, you care for us no less than any of your children. It is also true that You care for us no more than any of your children. Guide us to be your instruments of care and compassion, so that your will may be done, here on earth, as it is in heaven. If these words are not Your Word, may they be forgotten and come to naught. But if they be Thy Word, may they adhere to our hearts, forever transforming us from glory into glory, into the creatures you would have us be, Thou who art our Rock and Redeemer, Amen.

Today, I am continuing the sermons that are inspired by the William Sloane Coffin book, Credo. We delve into Social Justice and Civil Liberties today. One note before we get to the sermon. The last time I preached a sermon inspired by this book, it received more interesting looks and conversation than what I typically get in a year full of sermons. Good. I want you thinking. I want you talking, amongst yourselves, to me, to God, about stuff that makes you think. As part of the theology of sermons, we have long believed that you don’t have to agree with everything that is said up here. It is why I pray the same thing every week, “if these words are not Your Word, may they be forgotten and come to naught. But if they be Thy Word, may they adhere to our hearts, forever transforming us from glory into glory, into the creatures you would have us be, Thou who art our Rock and Redeemer.” What I want you to do is to think. And I love is when you bring those thoughts to me. So, feel free to engage me in some sort of discussion, about any sermon, including this one, if you like.

With that, hear now The Word of the Lord as it comes to us in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Listen. Galatians 3.26-29. The Word of the Lord…Thanks be to God.

We are all children of God through faith though the work of Jesus Christ. That part, as found in verse 26 is definitely true. And verse 28 is true because it reads that, “There is no longer Jew nor Greek, there is no longer slave nor free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Verse 28 is also true because of what it doesn’t read. “There is no longer poor and rich, no longer those who can afford the good life and those who can’t afford to live, there is no longer two different sets of the justice system, for all are one in Christ Jesus.” See, there is still poor and rich, those who live the good life and drive by those with signs that read “Will work for food,” still a difference in the justice afforded to those who can afford it.

Sidenote, or tangential remark, whichever you prefer. My problem with the last sermon from this book is that there was no sense of, “So, we know the problem now, here are some steps to fix it.” There won’t be steps in this one either, and I don’t like that. Isn’t it comforting to hear the one delivering the sermon say that he or she has problems with it? The problem is that there aren’t quick steps to fix it. There aren’t currently solutions to these problems, not anything that is practical or that can be done or started by the 70 or so of us in here. And so normally I wouldn’t give a sermon where I raise the problems without offering some ideas for solutions. It makes us more comfortable that way. ‘Sure, there’s a problem, but let’s roll up our sleeves and fix it, together.’ The goal is not to get us to fix these things. Which is odd, I know. The goal is to get us all to take our heads out of the sand, if just for a moment. We don’t live in Utopia. We don’t yet live in the realized kingdom. {} But we pray for it. Every time we say, “Thy Kingdom come, on earth, as it is in heaven,” we make ourselves aware of the fact that it isn’t the way it is meant to be, and we make ourselves accountable for moving, however slowly, in that direction.

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” That’s Genesis 4.9, Cain’s question to God when God asks Cain about his slain brother. And we ask it today. Am I my brother’s keeper? No. I am my brother’s brother or sister. Human unity is not something we are called to create, only to recognize. We all belong to one another. That’s the way God made us, and has always been invested in seeing that we stay that way. God asked Cain about it, wrestled with Jacob about it, sent prophets to talk to wayward kings, including David about it, as well as sent Christ to die about it, and to keep us that way. Our sin is that we put asunder what God has joined together.² We have been created to be the family of God. When Kayla and Murphy are older, I will get to step back more and let them interact with each other by themselves, so that they may be the sisters they were created to be. Now, when our oldest takes the toy away from the youngest as she plays with it, we have to make her give it back. For what parent wants their children to not treat each other fairly? And the goal that I want to reach is that they will do that on their own, that I don’t have to stand over their shoulders and say things like, “Give that back to her. Be gentle with your sister. How many sisters do you have? Well, then you’d better treat her well, then hadn’t you?” For a little while, we can monitor that. But, as they get older, we have to hope they will treat each other well on their own. And when they do, it will make us feel happy, proud, and experience a deep sense of reward. God has a huge family, and desires the same thing. God wants us to treat all of God’s children well, just like we want our children to treat each other well, to play with each other nicely, to share, and to treat each other as equals. Yet, we treat our brothers and sisters like Cain treated Abel, as a means to an end. “There are people and things in this world, and people are to be loved and things are to be used. And it is increasingly important that we love people and use things, for there is so much in our gadget-minded, consumer-oriented society that is encouraging us to love things and use people.”³

When all people have rights, when all people are truly counted and treated equal, we will not only be the country we say we are, we will be closer to experiencing the kingdom of heaven here on earth. Obviously we need to offer equal rights to women, to people of all ethnicities, to people of all religions, and those sorts of things. Now, I’m not asking you to endorse homosexuality. I’m not asking for your opinion on whether it is wrong or not, whether it is sinful or not. I have heard from many of you on this, and this much is clear: there are folks on both sides of this issue sitting in the pews today. But what we can’t be polarized about is this: homosexual people are God’s children too. They deserve the same treatment as the rest of God’s children, and deserve every civil right that you or I have.

I want to close with two quotes from the book, and they are long. But they go to the heart of the Galatians passage, which I first read to you again, this time from the Message. “By faith in Christ you are in direct relationship with God. Your baptism in Christ was not just washing you up for a fresh start. It also involved dressing you in an adult faith wardrobe — Christ’s life, the fulfillment of God's original promise. In Christ's family there can be no division into Jew and non-Jew, slave and free, male and female. Among us you are all equal. That is, we are all in a common relationship with Jesus Christ. Also, since you are Christ's family, then you are Abraham's famous ‘descendant,’ heirs according to the covenant promises.”

“So enough of these fixed certainties. If what we think is right and wrong divides still further the human family, there must be something wrong with what we think is right. Enough of this cruelty and hatred, this punitive legislation toward (any) people, (including gay people.) Peter widened his horizons; let’s not narrow ours. It has been said that a mind once stretched by a new idea can never return to its former shape. Let’s listen, let’s learn, let’s read and pray – none of this is easy – until with Peter’s conviction we can make a similar confession (to the one he made in Acts 10.34-35): ‘Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every (thing, including creed, social status, and even sexual orientation) anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”⁴

Don’t get mad at me if you disagree. You are free to. And who knows. I could be wrong. There is a first time for everything. Okay, a first time today. That isn’t even true. A first time during the last 30 seconds, how’s that? And like I said, I encourage you to come to me. But only if you are willing to also admit that you may not have all the answers either, and if you also agree that responsible, thoughtful, honest, faithful, devout Christians sometimes disagree, and that we may have to agree to disagree. But remember this. Again, I’m not talking about homosexuals and ordination here. I’m talking about affording the children of God who are homosexual the same civil rights that you and I are due, as are everyone. I’m talking about socially and civilly treating people fair, no matter what our differences. We can talk about ordination another time.

Last quote.

“‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.’

“Let me suggest that for over two hundred years the great social struggles of America have aimed to make the Constitution more consonant with the Declaration of Independence. Counting the first ten, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution now has twenty (seven) amendments. The eleventh, passed in 1795, is about federal judicial jurisdiction; two are about Prohibition and its repeal; three others deal with the presidency – election, limitation, and succession (and the last one is about the compensation for Senators and Representatives). The other twenty – every one, whether it be granting freedom to slaves or votes to women, outlawing the poll tax or instituting the income tax, lowering the voting age or giving residents of D.C. the right to vote for the president – every one mandates an extension of democracy.

“I believe one significant cure for what presently ails us lies in extending yet further our democracy. We need more women’s rights, not less, until they are genuinely equal to men’s rights. We need more gay rights, more rights for immigrants, for children, for the more than one million of our citizens in jail. We need to recognize that affirmative action is good for all of us, as the ex-presidents of Harvard and Princeton have recently reported. And given the vast wealth and power that have accumulated in the hands of a small and self-serving corporate elite, which pays itself proportionately more and pays workers proportionately less than in any other industrialized democracy, we need to democratize the market economy of America. I can still remember…(what) Franklin Roosevelt (said), ‘My fellow Americans, progress is not measured by how much we add to the abundance of those who already have a great deal, but rather how much we do for those who have too little.’”⁵

Amen.