Giants do die. The bigger they are the harder they fall…just walk around the Jericho walls.
What a song of hope.
Does not matter how powerful the forces arrayed against you…
The power to overcome them is within you…with the help of the spirit, to be sure…but you have the power…
Just look at the Jericho walls.
Talk about faith in human agency. Our ability to build the Beloved Community despite the powers and principalities… despite politics as usual…despite even the virus.
The bigger they are the harder they fall. That could be a Unitarian hymn.
It does, however, direct our attention mostly to the operation of power and…I suppose by extension…to power as used in politics. Attention to calculations of strength…whether spiritual or political.
We are flooded with those calculations…pundit after pundit offering opinions about poll after poll…
We weary of the lies and the half-truths…weary of the constant fundraising and the amount of money in this election…weary of the constant demand on our attention…
We come here not to hear of more polls or prognostications of rounding the corner or of how much is at risk…
As this election season draws to a close and we approach election day itself, what reflection do we need? What do our spirits need to help us…not only survive the election season…but stay centered through it and what will follow…with our eyes on the prize and some reasonable hope of moving forward?
What do we need?
All the pundits agree that there is a lot on the ballot this year…not just the candidates. Health care is on the ballot. Crushing the virus…or not…is on the ballot. Economic recovery. Racial justice. The Safety Net…
So many important, specific policies, we are told, are on the ballot. And there is truth in that.
And beyond the specifics, truth, itself, is on the ballot. And trust in our system. And even what little democracy we have…that too seems to hang in the balance.
But both the Presidential candidates and virtually all the pundits agree that, beyond any specific policy, what is at stake in this election is the “Soul of America.”
The Soul of America.
There is religious language we can start with, perhaps…though “Soul”, as a theological idea, is more than a little uncomfortable for religious liberals.
But remember that the word our English Bible translates as soul shares a root meaning in Hebrew with the word “to breathe.”
In this year when the virus attacks our respiratory systems and George Floyd cried out “I can’t breathe” …perhaps we can speak about the Soul of America, the breath and spirit of this nation…perhaps we do not need to concede that language to the fundamentalists.
The soul of America. At stake is at least our identity and, I would argue, also the belief in our innocence.
And if that is not enough, what is certainly at stake is our path forward. Which path will we follow?
The choices are stark.
The question is whether we will move toward a world that we actually want to live in, that we might conceivably want to leave to our children and their children…
Who are we as a people and how do we hope to live?
I do believe the Soul of America is on the ballot this year in ways it has not been…perhaps since the Great Depression…perhaps not even since the Civil War.
Poet Laureate Joy Harjo writes: “When I think of the soul of the nation, I think of the process of becoming, and what it is we want to become. … I think we have reached a stalemate right now,” she writes.
A stalemate, Harjo says. The divisiveness is intense. It is, perhaps, a sign of the importance of the pivot point we have reached. There is a transformation that is trying to take place…a birthing, if you will.
And the old order of privilege and power is fighting a desperate rear guard action to protect their position and prevent the change…for as long as they can. That’s how I see it.
The divisiveness and the stalemate are signs of that struggle…that struggle for the Soul of America.
From Harjo again:
“Bless the destruction of this land, for new shoots will rise up from fire, floods, earthquakes and fierce winds to make new this land. …
…for out of chaos we will be compelled to remember to bless this land.”
Out of chaos.
But I am getting ahead of myself. Because not everyone…even everyone among us…has embraced the need for real change…the changing of so many assumptions, so many ways of being that we have assumed must be part of our normal.
That possible future is still in process of being revealed…”out of the chaos” as Harjo says..
But I am getting ahead of myself. So let’s go back to the 101 level…and build from there.
At this pivot point, will we turn our faces to the future…or look to the past?
Make America Great Again.
Will our decision be to reject our present and try to go back to a past that never was…a past in which America was white and Christian. No…that is not quite right, is it?
Because America has always been multi-racial and multi-religious. Always. From the day the European settler-colonists stepped foot on Indigenous American land and from the time the first Africans were brought here in chains…this nation has always been multi-racial and multi-religious.
Make American Great Again does call for a return…a return to an America that was for…for the benefit of…those who are white and Christian…and male and cisgender and able-bodied. Yes, that’s closer.
An America in which also the rich could keep getting richer…
Most of us…we can acknowledge this can’t we?…most of us find it easy to reject that vision. We know that vision is code for…a system of privilege that had no room for far too many of us. A system in which almost all benefits flowed uphill… A system supported by a narrative that kept the rest of us in fear of one another. A system that was devoted to preventing real democracy. A system that ended up oppressing even the privileged.
It is easy for most of us to reject that vision. And that backward looking narrative.
But there is too much looking backward…on the other side of the aisle as well.
That side of the debate…tends to look back 4 years and see a golden era, when the “audacity of hope” could still stir our hearts.
We see all the progress that has been rolled back…the relatively progressive tax code, the environmental regulations, the international agreements, voting rights, court appointments…we see all that has been lost…all the harm that has been done…
We see all that and our first reaction…my first reaction, too…is to be stunned that so much could be lost so quickly… I think we all may just now be recovering from a kind of shock at the magnitude of the rapid reverses.
From the tax cuts for the richest to the rollback of environmental regulation…
We see all of the harm…all of the loss… and our second reaction is to want to go back to where we were…before the losses.
And that makes sense. The first thing we need to do is to end the harm. Right?
To end the harm, we need to get more of the American people to the polls. Souls to the polls on steroids…that’s what will make the difference. Right?
And it can be done. Early voting is setting records across the country…people know how important this election is. In Austin, TX, voter registration reached 97%. In Texas.
The Poor Peoples Campaign is registering 2,000,000 poor and low wealth voters.
We know this can be done. We do it here in Oregon. Its not perfect…not at all. But registration here is relatively easy and we regularly have 80% of registered voters cast ballots in national elections.
I know that we have been working on this, many of us.
The fact that only 60% of eligible voters normally vote in our Presidential elections…that is part of the system that works against progress and change.
What would this nation look like if 80% or 90% of us voted…not 60%? Imagine that.
End the harm. Yes we could. We could indeed.
But that is not good enough.
It is not good enough to accept a return to where we were 4 years ago as normal…
Black people were still getting killed by police 4 years ago. Millions of Americans still survived on Food Stamps 4 years ago. Houselessness was still growing so rapidly. Immigrants were still being turned away at our border. Income inequality continued its steady rise. We were nowhere near carbon-neutral.
Four years ago is not good enough. We need to keep our eyes on a bigger prize.
What will we need…what do we need now…to sustain a broader, more embracing dream?
I want to point to a few things, to name some of what I think we will need. More will be revealed…there is no doubt… But here is a start.
First, and perhaps, foremost…we have not yet done enough work framing a new story about who we are. We have more identity work to do. Let me give you a small example.
We react when a candidate says he has done more for communities of color than any president…with the exception…perhaps…of Abraham Lincoln.
We put Lincoln on a pedestal…literally…here in Portland…his statue on a pedestal. The great emancipator. Savior of the Union. Lincoln is presented as a saint in our national narrative…
And what he achieved does deserve to be honored.
But Lincoln was a reluctant emancipator. It was only when the Union needed the former enslaved people to finish that war that the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.
And Lincoln was prosecuting war against Native Peoples…and executing dozens of native men…while the Civil War still raged. That is why his statue was torn down here in Portland on Indigenous Peoples Day. Lincoln was a supporter of Manifest Destiny… He wanted the Civil War over so that expansion westward could proceed…stealing native land and forcing a cultural genocide…if not an actual genocide on the native nations in its path.
And remember…Portland and this congregation were born out of Manifest Destiny.
Its heresy, I know. Not even Lincoln a saint?
We need a narrative that can hold more of the truth of our history. We cannot be satisfied with a narrative…that excludes so many of us…
That is one small example.
Part of the spiritual challenge is that reframing our story requires us to acknowledge past mistakes…and incomplete successes.
It requires a giving up of innocence and a more mature, more secure…more honest ability to know how far we have come…in truth…and how far we have yet to go.
There is real concern about the violence on our streets…and real concern about potential violence should our democracy fail in this election or in its aftermath.
The tearing down of those statues and the destruction at the Historical Society triggered real concern among us.
This church does not endorse violence…nor we do endorse or promote property damage. Let me be clear about that.
But we remain mindful of the impact of state sanctioned violence on BIPOC communities and individuals…
That state violence, repeated over and over, is what prompted and has sustained the protests on our streets…
Black Lives Matter is not yet true here in Portland or in this nation.
We also are mindful of the state violence that would crush our right to assembly and to free speech…our right to protest.
Dana and I, just this week, were present for the hearing in the legal action we joined with the Western States Center. That suit asks for injunctive relief to prevent federal troops and federally deputized agents from general police action in Portland…called “plenary policing”…limiting them to protection of federal property.
So much of the violence on our streets has been the result of the militarized and federalized police response to constitutionally protected speech and protest.
The judge pressed hard on the responses by the government’s attorney. And our attorney presented the case so clearly. I was encouraged.
Though the judge did not rule on the injunction…he has promised a ruling next week…prior to the election…so that the limits of federal engagement will be clear…whatever follows election day.
So, there is indeed a lot on the ballot in this election. The resistance to a vibrant pluralistic future is strong and well organized and unconstrained by moral limits or the requirements of truth-telling.
We need to continue to show up…open to more complete stories of who we are and where we are going…
Open to broader, more embracing stories in which more of us see ourselves…see ourselves mattering…and making a difference…
So…please…vote…if you haven’t already.
And there is a great deal to vote for:
As our reading said:
“I’m going to vote right now
For the power of a free people
To actually be free…
I’m going to vote for truthfulness as the norm….
I’m going to vote for a world
That doesn’t vote for killing, control and swagger,
I…am…going to vote for love…
We can vote for love…right now…tender love…yes…but also tough love and honest love.
There is much harm to end and much damage to repair. But we have the building of Beloved Community still to do. And we will need all of us to make real that dream.
Amen
Prayer
Will you pray with me now?
End times are always also times of beginning
The new creation is always waiting to be revealed.
May we find the courage and the strength of heart
To live through the coming days
Holding a vision big enough to be worthy
Of our commitment
And hopeful enough to be worthy of our love.
May we close out the political din as it rises
To its crescendo…if we need to…
There is little to be learned
And few minds are being changed
May we discover space in our spirit
To hear love’s call
And remember our lust for a working tomorrow
And the need to begin moving forward, together,
Once again.
May that be so. Amen.
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