Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ

Preached by Winton Boyd on July 29, 2007
Acts 11:1-18

I recently had the privilege of attending the 50th anniversary General Synod of the UCC. About 9000 people gathered for several days of inspiration, worship, education, business, and fun. It was my first such experience, and it was clear from the agenda and program that this Gen Synod was to be a celebration – with a focus on inspiration and education and not on business or the many challenges facing the UCC today (like all mainline churches).

The highlights of the week were many:
• Stunning and inspiring plenary speeches by Bill Moyers, Barak Obama, Marian Wright Edelman and dozens of others in smaller venues.
• Amazing music and visual arts during worship;
• An exhibit hall that included ideas for involvement and action in almost every area of church life imaginable.
• Connecting and reconnecting with others in the UCC – including former pastors Jack Jackson and Roger Knight, as well as former member and now pastor Briget Nicholsen (who all send their greetings).
• At www.ucc.org, there are dozens of talks and events available for viewing or purchase.

Today, I would like to share just two of my many impressions and reflections on what it means to be a faith-full, open and affirming, justice seeking denomination in the 21st century.

Before sharing those, however, I want to say a word about our Scripture passage from the book of Acts, chapter 11, and how it informs and guides some of these reflections. The key line in this story of Peter’s dream is verse 5-7. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven (read – from God)…As I looked at it closely I saw four footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air.” After being told to kill and eat these things, Peter responds, “by no means Lord, for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.”

Do you know why he is complaining? Do you know why this dream is even in the bible? Everything Peter ever knew about being a Jew is being challenged. His training as a Jew would have required him to make clear determinations between that which was clean, or kosher, and that which was profane. To just go and eat any and everything would be unthinkable. God responds (in the dream) What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” In the bible, this story is what prompts Peter to reconsider his resistance to Gentiles, non-Jews, becoming followers of the Jewish Jesus.

However, reading it serves as a reminder that what we have always known as sacred and true may in fact be changing. The ways we have been trained and the assumptions that have guided us may in fact be shifting – and the voices we hear to think and live in new ways, may in fact be coming from God, even if it feels counter to what we think God “should” or “would” say to us if we were to hear her voice.
…

1.
With this backdrop, I was first proud and impressed that in the face of declining membership and shrinking budgets, the leaders of our wider church chose to focus not on our problems, but on our strong and defining heritage. Rather than speaking in anxious ways about the unknown future of the church, we celebrated and lifted up the historic and unique heritage of our church as a body that has sought to be faithfully ahead of the curve on social issues in this country for over 200 years.

Many of the “UCC firsts” were recited – the first to ordain an African American person, the first to ordain a woman, the first to ordain a gay or lesbian person. We remembered a previous UCC General Synod’s suspending business in order to send a delegation to march with farm workers in California (in the 1970’s). We celebrated being the first to raise the issue of equal access to the public TV and radio airwaves in the late 50’s as the civil rights movement began; the first group anywhere to use the term and concept “environmental racism.” Even in our presence in the outdated Hartford Civic Center this summer was the result of our unwillingness to cross picket lines of union workers at the more modern and up to date Hartford Convention Center.

We are not a perfect church, but we have a great heritage and a great heart. It was summed up well by our founding pastor, Norman Jack Jackson. During the evening celebration of the denomination on Saturday night, Jack was “interviewed” in front of the entire assembly and asked if he was proud to be UCC. “We have always had a great vision,” he said. Sometimes our courage to live out that vision has not matched the vision itself. Nevertheless, every now and again, some individual, church, or group within the UCC sees the gap between our vision and our reality – and steps into that gap – pulling all of us a little closer to our grand vision. It has happened often enough and consistently enough, he said, that yes, I am proud to be UCC.”

2.
On the other hand, however, I was troubled, not by the vision, but by the strategies offered to live into that vision. It struck me that one of our great challenges is the extent to which we are using our imagination to live into that realm, I was keenly aware that many of those celebrating our social vision cut their activist teeth in a very different time and circumstance in our country. They offered many pleas to speak to our elected representatives, to make our collective voice heard through protests and marches – there seemed to be little acknowledgement of the role of big money in politics and the ineffectiveness of most public protests and church resolutions.

While Jack Jackson was right when he said we need courage – it was more and more clear to me that we need imagination and an honest assessment if our actions are designed to simply make noise, or if we are really committed to creating change. Like Peter, we face a future that is not only unknown, but may be quite counter to what we have taken as sacred truth to this point. We may need to listen to new voices, unconventional and even unknown voices to guide us into the future.

I would like to offer a few examples of efforts at social change, most of them faith based, that I think are like lighthouses on a foggy night – offering us a vague glimpse of how we can really affect change into the future.
a. Both Michael Moore and Al Gore have used major market movies in recent years to change the tenor of conversation in our country around issues that matter. Jim Wallis, editor of the magazine Sojourners, evangelical social activist, and author of “God’s Politics” a couple of years ago, pointed out that politicians like to lick their finger and stick it up to see which way the wind is blowing. The job of activists, he said, is to change the direction of the wind. Moore and Gore have recognized movie ticket sales and discussion groups in schools and churches and neighborhoods are all part of the way you change the direction of wind. Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” was carefully crafted to be a movie that sparked conversation. Anyone who wanted it was given access to the movie ahead of time with discussion starters – as long as they committed to gathering a group together.

I am convinced that as we become a more visual people – it will be increasingly important that our work for justice include visual aspects – the making of films, the use of the internet with technology such as social networking sites (Facebook), You Tube, Video Games (a former Israeli soldier has now created a video game about creating peace, and human art. At General Synod, about 2 dozen youth offered a human sculpture to accompany their reading of Scripture. I confess I did not understand it – but was grateful that we were being stretched to think visually and creatively.

b. During the Synod, I was also reading the book, Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School at a Time By Greg Mortenson. It is the story of one man’s effort to work with the people of Central Asia (mostly rural and remote Pakistan) to build schools. Mortenson and his Central Asia Institute believe that the road to peace and justice in that region of the world is less about politics and more about the education – especially of women. Their efforts include building schools (58 to date); training teachers, offering scholarships to over 24,000 students, as well as many other community based technical projects.

Of course, this idea is not new to the UCC – as we started many schools, now known as “historic black colleges” shortly after the civil war to education African Americans. It continues today with wonderful, even if scarce, campus ministries like the Crossing, in which students are invited into service based learning – encouraged to offer their gifts in the service not just themselves, but also others – both locally and internationally. Again, the future of justice will include the marrying of experience and education, service and learning, ethical decision making as part of the objective curriculum and the targeted reaching out to those currently dis- empowered through a lack of knowledge or experience.

c. Over the last 20 years, we have seen significant gains in locally based economic strategies that create new opportunities to help people move out of poverty around the world. When we started our fair trade sale over 20 years ago, we were at the very beginning of what is now a growing and powerful worldwide movement. According to the Christian Science monitor, sales of Fair Trade Products in England alone have reached $500 million, with over 1500 fair trade items available. In the US, Fair trade sales have gone up 20% every year since 1990. All of this began because local churches like ours started selling crafts, coffee, and chocolate in their basement. Walk the streets of any city in England today – of any size – and you will see fair trade products and stores. This matters because the money put into fair trade products is really money put into relationships – as growers and craftsman are given a significantly higher price for their work.

A nature magazine, Orion, recently chronicled the organizer of a church based community garden in Cedar Grove, North Carolina, sponsored by a UM church. The garden has been a key way to build relationships with the rural poor.

“Don’t waste time fighting the empire, or trying to make it a little less evil,” he said, “opt out. Step around it and go about your business. Grow your own food for instance.”

Building fair economic relationships locally and around the world is what churches can do. We are, and should continue to explore relationships like our Wisconsin-Nicaragua Partnership, Community Supported Agriculture farms; socially responsible investors, and Palestinians producing Olive Oil and other projects.

By putting our vast financial resources into alternative economies we create justice in small, but significant ways. While it sounds crass, we can literally buy our way to “heaven here on earth.”

Clearly, the work of social action and justice will be require the marrying of several generations. What institution is better situated than the church to combine the heritage of justice work with the creativity and imagination being pioneered by our young people? How will we be encouraging and engaging mentors and good listeners and learners at the same time? How will we resist the ever tempting and conserving attitude that suggests we have been there before and we know it all – while engaging honestly and hopefully with those who have the skills and aptitudes to teach us new ways of living? How will our faith and our trust and our hope be a source of grounding and grace for those entering the struggle for justice for the first time?

It will begin with us…