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Edited on Mon May-02-05 02:38 AM by grasswire
http://www.firstunitarianportland.org/sermons/sermons2005/Turning%20Toward%20Nineveh_files/Turning%20Toward%20Nineveh.htmHere's an excerpt (MODS, I have permission from the author to disseminate this sermon, with a link to the church's site): She's using the Biblical story of Jonah, and how his troubles increased until he finally obeyed God's call and went to be a prophet to the people of Nineveh. She points out the need for prophets who will point out the evil of today: Jonah’s story has many lessons, but I am curious: As satire, what does Jonah’s story tell us in our times?
The church is always called to prophesy. Our time is no different; in fact, we are in desperate need of prophets now. We are at a crucial point in history. Lest you think I overstate the case, let me share with you some words from Bill Moyers:
“For years now, the corporate, political, and religious right <…> has been joined in an axis of influence whose purpose is to <…> restore America to a rule of the elites that maintain their privilege and their power at the expense of everyone else.
“For years now, a small fraction of American households have been garnering an extreme concentration of wealth and income while large corporations and financial institutions have obtained unprecedented levels of economic and political power over daily life.
“Take note,” Moyers continues. “The corporate, political, and religious conservatives are achieving a vast transformation of America that only they understand because they are its advocates, its architects, and its beneficiaries. <…>They are systematically stripping government of all its functions, except rewarding the rich and waging war.”
“We are experiencing a fanatical drive to dismantle the political institutions, the legal and statutory canons, and the intellectual and cultural frameworks that the excesses of private power.”
Larry Kramer, the founder of ACTUP, comments on Moyers’ speech:
"In other words, our country has been taken away from us by a cabal <…> These people make the rules. They are rarely elected officials. <…> They have several things in common. They are very rich or have strong connections to money or power. They are in agreement on what they do not want. They believe fervently in their God. And that they are doing all this for Him. And they stay in constant touch.”
Sobering news. Makes me want to turn away. Makes me want to head for Tarshish. Anyone else want to come?
And, just in case any of you are thinking, “This can’t happen in America,” I have two things to tell you. First: Weimar Germany had a constitution too. And second: it’s already happening—in America. The question is only whether we will ignore it.
(snip)
In his new book God’s Politics, Jim Wallis makes a passionate appeal to people of faith in our times. He tells us that churches have a unique role in countering repression. We are called in history to prophesy—to name evil and call for reform. In fact, this is our sacred task—to be the political conscience of society.
Wallis says there are two elements of prophecy: to cry out against injustice and, equally important, to cast a new vision before the people. Now, we on the Religious Left are not so good at doing this. We are very good at saying what we are against, but not so good at saying what we are for, what kind of world we’d like to build. Prophets must be instructive, Wallis says, and not just destructive. We must show the way for personal and social transformation. That’s the word Jonah used: “In forty days, Nineveh will be transformed!” That’s our business, that’s the business churches are in: the business of transformation!
Wallis offers another Biblical saying, familiar to many of you: “Without a vision, the people perish,” and points out a different translation: “Without prophecy, the people cast off restraint.” Without prophecy, the people cast off restraint.
Isn’t that what’s wrong today in our society? We have cast off restraint. We are fully absorbed by the getting and spending of money, caught on the hamster wheel of consumer life. We are enslaved by the very system we abhor.
We may find it hard to be prophets, for we are safe in Tarshish. We are living in a neighborhood not too rowdy for comfort. We are raising families and buying houses, making grocery lists and cleaning out the fridge and doing all the daily tasks we have always done.
But my friends, this is no ordinary time. There is a crucial challenge before us. And our struggle to be faithful is much harder than Jonah’s. Terrified and nearly dead in the belly of the whale, he is vomited up on the shores of Nineveh and forced to begin his work. There’s no escape.
We have an escape—far too many of them, really. Our busy, busy lives, our daily concerns—we barely have time to keep abreast of the issues of the day, let alone organize ourselves. But there is too much at stake now. If you are going to be a prophet, the poet says, you must listen the first time.
Like Jonah, we must repent. Yes, even we progressive types—we have dwelt too long in complicity. We have lived in comfort, partaken of the pleasures of this society, been seduced by its entertainments, lulled to sleep by Trader Joe’s and “The Sopranos”—the modern equivalent of bread and circuses.
But the thing is, our Tarshish might as well be Sheol. Maybe it looks different, but it is a place of death as well—death of our souls, of our democracy, of our planet.
The danger is at hand, my friends. Nineveh will be transformed. It is only a question of how.
Take heart, though, for in every age the people have listened to the call of truth and reclaimed their countries. Over and over again ordinary people have had to wrest their rights back from the rich and powerful. And churches have always led the way. Think of all the times—in recent history alone—when religious people have led movements against oppression and destruction:
Think of South Africa, where the churches, led by Bishop Desmond Tutu, spoke courageously for political change. Or in Latin America, where Archbishop Oscar Romero and numerous other priests and nuns were martyred for their prophetic stands.
In Romania, where a simple Hungarian minister ignited the revolution against Ceausescu. In the Philippines against Marcos, with the Solidarity movement of Poland, over and over again religious people have cried out like the prophets of old, saying, “Enough! Stop the repression! This is not how God wants us to live!”
Wallis writes, “Even in democracies, churches have responded to that same prophetic vocation. In New Zealand during the 1990s, when conservative forces ripped that society’s long-standing social safety net to pieces, it was the churches in partnership with the indigenous Maori people who led marches, public protest, and emboldened a wobbly Labour party to recapture the government <…>
“And of course, it was in the United States that black churches, under the leadership of Baptist ministers such as <…> Martin Luther King, Jr., provided the moral foundation and social infrastructure for a powerful civil rights movement that reminded the nation of its expressed ideals and changed us forever.”
They provided the moral foundation. We have a moral foundation—the religious values of compassion, mercy, peace and justice—which we share with so many other people of faith. And we have the values for which our own Unitarian martyrs died—the right of conscience, and freedom of religious belief and expression. Over four hundred years ago, Francis David, founder of the Unitarian faith, said these words: “Conscience will not be quieted by anything less than truth and justice.” He died in a cold prison for those very beliefs. And we are the ones who come after him.
Grounded in our history, we Unitarian Universalists can play a crucial role in the move to restore integrity to our nation. It is our task, as religious people, to cast a vision—a vision of hope, not terror. Of a world where every person is fed, and is free. Where children have warm homes to sleep in and do not have to wear two faces. Where we are not devoured by our material desires, but instead are busy building up the common good.
It will take a long time, perhaps, but we will get there. It will require of us the kind of devotion and commitment that the powerful have used over these last forty years. They have given years of their lives and billions of dollars to the shredding of our Constitution. We must be as committed to protecting liberty as they have been to destroying her.
But never doubt that our task is possible. For we are the prophets who are, even now, turning toward Nineveh.
May it be so, my friends. Amen.
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