“I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.”
I have been driven many times upon my knees.
It was Abraham Lincoln who made that confession.
On Our Knees. When I selected this morning’s sermon title…months ago now…I guessed that this congregation might need one of two very different messages on the Sunday after the election:
One possibility was that we might be forced “to our knees” in gratitude for new national leadership. I could imagine a collective sigh of relief as we sank down…metaphorically…relief that a time of national nightmare, for many of us, would be coming to an end.
I thought there could be a possibility of celebration…a wave election that would be a clear repudiation of our recent past. Did you celebrate yesterday? I even imagined a quiet “halleluia,” a word of hope and praise rising among us. That was one possibility that might have us on our knees this morning. Relief and gratitude.
But I knew that there was another very real possibility: that we might be “forced to our knees” because we had to look forward to four more years of that nightmare.…
And worse yet, have to accept that a majority of our neighbors…the American voters…wanted to…choose to continue on that path. I saw the possibility that disappointment …and disbelief…might also force us to our knees. How could this be?
You know I approach this from the progressive side of the aisle. I have to confess that even I dared to hope for that ringing repudiation of the lies, the corruption, the callous disregard for human life…and the racism. And for me, it was the racism that I wanted most to have this nation turn away from…finally. And I’ll return to the racism piece…in a moment.
Have I touched on any of the things that you have been feeling? Not to mention the celebration that broke out…the pent-up need to have leaders we might be willing to follow. Have I mentioned any of the things that you are feeling now as we gather this morning
But here we are. Yesterday it became clear that we will inaugurate a new president in January. All the ballots are yet to be counted and the results are close enough so that at least one, perhaps more states will have to go through a recount. It will probably take weeks to sort through all the lawsuits and we do not yet know what the transition will look like or what may happen on the streets across the nation…and here in Portland…between now and then. The election drama still has several acts before it draws to a close.
Many of us are relieved today. Not on our knees, perhaps, though the sense of relief from those I’ve spoken with seems profound.
But the election provided no “blue wave.” We will almost certainly have divided government…stalemated government is likely…government by executive order rather than by legislation.
The reality of the deep divisions among us remain and trouble our spirits.
How could almost half of American voters…after 4 years…with a pandemic out of control and our economy in deep recession…how could almost half of American voters still choose the lies and the corruption, the childish bravado and the transparent racism…
How? That is the question that I hear forcing many of us to our knees…figuratively at least…
And those across the aisle…well they are asking those same questions…in reverse…you know they are as they deal with their defeat.
These questions challenges our Universalist side…that side that takes as an article of faith that we are all…each and every one of us…even the Americans we disagree with… worthy…and even lovable?
An article of our faith that none of us are to be written off.
To quote the old Universalist saying: We’re all going to heaven, so we might as well start figuring out how to get along down here.
Every time we are tempted to demonize the folks across the aisle…to vote them or wish them off the island…the Universalist in me starts to squirm.
How do we understand where we are? Has the election offered us good news…is the celebration justified?…or is the news of the world bad, or at least problematic, as we gather post-election?
There is a story…its one that I’m sure some of you know:
There was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years with the help of his one horse and one son. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.
“Maybe yes. Maybe no.” the farmer replied.
The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed.
“Maybe yes. Maybe no.” replied the old man.
The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy for his “misfortune.”
“Maybe yes. Maybe no.” the farmer replied.
The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.
“Maybe,” said the farmer.
Maybe yes. Maybe no.
The moral? Well, you never do know whether what happens to you is good or bad in the moment. Only time will tell. So stay the course. Stay steady and truth will eventually be revealed.
Or as the quartet sang, when you’ve done all you can…when you’ve cried and you’ve prayed…when you’ve done all you can…just stand.
Here is a question, though. Should we follow that farmer’s stoic approach?
The story is from the Taoist tradition. The tradition that speaks of yin and yang…of good and evil each being always present…of balance.
But I struggle with the Tao when liberation and oppression are the opposites in question…at least I struggle with the notion that oppression is somehow necessary in the grand scheme of things. Is oppression destined to be part of our future and our fate?
As Universalists, we have to find a way to understand and welcome those with whom we disagree…even those who would do us harm…
But we are not just Universalists…we are also Unitarians…who believe in our agency…our ability to shape our world toward justice, equity and compassion. You hear me preach it every Sunday. Ours are the only hands on earth…to build the Beloved Community.
And the Beloved Community has been taking a lot of hits these past four years.
So as Unitarian Universalists, as liberal religious people, where are WE this morning.
Are we on our knees? Or are we ready to view this election as an opportunity to learn…to see our world more clearly so that our agency and our work for justice has more of a chance of success…
So that our living is not compromised by failure to see what must be seen…failure to see what this election has…once again…displayed so clearly.
…
There are three things…somehow always a trinity…three things that I am seeing that I believe we need to see…as we begin to determine how we will move forward from here. Three aspects of where “here” is that we need to see more clearly.
First…
I’ve heard from so many people that they have been shocked that so many Americans still voted for our current President. Shocked. Deeply surprised.
Almost all of those shocked folks…are white. Identify as white.
The Black and BIPOC folks I’ve spoken with…were often disappointed and even depressed…we hoped for a reckoning and a repudiation…
But they…we…were not surprised. We know how deeply racist the structure of our culture is and how thoroughly most white Americans…buy into that culture. Most..not all. But most.
I know that I probably lost some of you with that last statement. I know that some of you believe I see the world too completely through the lens of race.
But try to understand what it is that I see.
We know that our current President is explicitly racist. That is not a close call. The Central Park Five, “Birtherism”, the Border-wall, his fetish with reversing every single thing that Obama achieved…
Just look at the places where the President wanted the voting stopped…Milwaukee, Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta…what do they have in common? Come on. We can be honest. These are Black majority cities.
I can even argue that his response to the virus would have been different if Black and Brown people were not bearing the brunt of the deaths. What if middle class white Americans were disproportionately effected. I know, some of you are rolling your eyes…but think about it.
We know who our current President is. The question is who we…the American people…who we are?
Do you know that more white Americans voted for our current president this year…than voted for him in 2016? Despite his incompetence and his offensive behavior and language, despite his willingness to sacrifice our democracy…more white Americans, including more white women…voted for our President this year than four years ago.
The majority of white Americans voted their whiteness far more than their commitment to democracy.
This is why our politics have become so tribal…I believe…
The decision making is not about policies or economic self-interest…it has become about racial solidarity and the embrace of an impossible dream of returning to a past that never existed, when white dominance was unquestioned…except in communities of color.
Tribal…Make America Great Again…a desperate rear-guard action against a pluralistic, multi-cultural future for this nation. A future that we, as religious people, embrace as our vision for the Beloved Community.
Racism is a primary shaping force in our politics and our culture and we must dismantle it before we can move forward. That’s the first thing to see.
Here is the second.
This election cycle has been twice as expensive as 2016, which was up till then the most expensive election by far in our history. We just doubled the spending of 2016.
The Campaign for Responsible Politics estimates that $14.4 Billion were spent…and we know that not all the “dark money” ever gets counted…
It is an obscene amount of money to spend to elect our leadership. 4 Senate races cost more than $200 Million …each.
Do any of us really believe that that much money can be involved…without expectation of a return…
Money in our politics allows political leadership to vote…over and over again…against the express will of the people…
Whether the issue is gun control legislation…or drug pricing…or reproductive justice…or tax rates…or despoiling our environment…
Money speaks more loudly that the voices of the people…at least it has thus far.
The final issue I want to ask you to pay attention to is greed. It is clearly not unrelated to the question of money in our politics. In fact, it is not unrelated to the role of race in our politics and in our culture.
But we need to be able to see not only that wealth has been massively concentrated in the hands of the very few…and that this has been a process over decades…
Our current president has only made widening income and wealth inequality more blatantly transparent. That is why just going back to where we were four years ago is nowhere near an adequate religious response to the current moment. No where near.
What ties these three concerns together is the question of who benefits.
Race has been used, since early in the days of slavery, to end the possibility of class solidarity and maintain control of economic and political systems. Read 1619…please read it.
Since the 1970’s “race as a national issue …has broken the New Deal ‘bottom-up’ coalition—a coalition dependent on substantial support from all voters…Black and White…below the median income.”
I’m quoting Thomas and Mary Edsall…scholars who have studied the intersection of these concerns for many years.
“The upward redistribution continues,” they go on, “and racism is still being used to keep poor and working class blacks and whites fighting over crumbs.”
And the tribalism…keeps us…most of us…from being able to even talk about who is benefitting…and who is paying the price…because almost all of us…White. Black. Indigenous and People of Color…all of us are paying the price.
So, that is what I am seeing. And what I think we need to see as religious people.
I don’t expect all of you to see things the way I do. But try to understand the way I see things. We all need to hone our capacity to understand how others see the world.
It is our capacity for that compassion that offers hope in our deeply divided world.
Because…at issue here… is not who is right or who is wrong…
The issue here is how we move forward…from here. How we understand the problems do we need to address. And how we understand what stands in our way.
Our new leaders understand what is at stake and the need to invite all of us to the table. But those across the aisle must be willing to take part. They must be called to greater compassion as well.
More important than any of those questions, however…as I see it… is what vision we will hold…what vision of a hopeful future we will stand for.
In the world of politics…we will have a new President…and a glass ceiling demolishing Vice-President…on January 20th of 2021. We will live through many changes between now and then…I’m sure. But we will have new leadership soon.
And just to be clear…to make it plain…the good news that we have a Black and South Asian, female-identified V.P. of recent immigrant stock…does not mean that our work on race or gender or immigration is complete.,,any more than Obama’s election transported us into a post-racial world.
But our new President will not…cannot deliver the Beloved Community to us…on a silver platter…by some magic of executive order. That is not going to happen.
He can stop most further harm. And that is no small thing. We need to remember that. Because much harm has been and is being done.
But the new administration cannot re-shape our culture. They will, most likely, not even be able to reshape our health care system.
The reshaping of our culture…the decentering of whiteness and the decoupling of race and privilege …the reclaiming of a genuine populism…not populism as a front for greed and oligarchy…
The re-shaping of our culture…that is our work…here in this congregation and here in Portland.
Historian Heather Cox Richardson:
“I am excited about our democracy and our future. Democracy is rising…she writes…and “with our country free again, the future looks wildly exciting, full of different voices, races, religions, foods, gender identities, perspectives.”
She is describing the Beloved Community. Or, at least, she is describing a vision for Beloved Community that can hold us all and offer us all hope.
So, what are we called to do now? Stay on our knees? The election did not give us a complete victory…there are no triumphal victors here.
But the election also did not leave the harm unchecked.
Is the news good?
Maybe yes. Maybe no. It depends. It very much depends on us…on all of us.
…“we’ve never been more tightly tethered, because we’ll only weather this unknown together. So get to work. We mend. We don’t break even when we bend.”
I want to associate myself with Amanda Gorman and the millions of Americans who are ready to see things more clearly…and ready to do the real work of building relationship, the real work of accountability. The real work of putting our tribalism in its place. The real work of Beloved Community.
“We are the coming of the Common Good,” the poet proclaims.
Perhaps I might say we can be the coming of the Common Good.
If we ‘dare to care” and “to be hope sighted.”
We get to work. Grounded in our vision of an America that has never been yet…but yet can be.
Halleluia and Amen
Prayer
Will you pray with me now?
Spirit of Life and of Love. Great mystery that we know in our hearts
But struggle to name.
We do know relief and gratitude today.
It has been a long four years
and much has been lost.
Spirit, we also know that we do not
Know what the next 10 weeks will bring
Nor all that may be required of us as
The leadership transition takes place.
Help us be present, with eyes open
And ears ready to hear.
Help us stand…take our stand…for
A vision of Beloved Community that
Has place for us all.
Help us stand for that most Universalist
Of hopes that we can all be known and seen
as children of life itself.
And help us stand for that most Unitarian statement
Of faith…that ours are the only hands on earth
And that we can make love real by the choices we make
And the living of our lives.
May we listen carefully to discern what calls us and
Allow that call to lead us to those places that we
Are willing to stand for…
May we see what needs to be seen…with all the clarity
We can muster…and all the help this community of accountability
can offer…
And may we commit ourselves, on bended knee if necessary…
To shape our lives and our world for love’s use.
May that be so.
Amen.
Topics: Prayer