Today is the 50th anniversary of the
March on Washington, and a lot of words have been written about what it meant
and what it means today. I was 10 years
old at the time, and to be honest, I don’t know how much of my memory of it is
from that day, and how much of it from watching news and movies and reading
books about that day. I saw the PBS
documentary “March” last night, and it brought up a lot of feelings: joy at
seeing the faith of people in the midst of struggle, sadness and anger about
how much still needs to be done, amazement at the organizational work (before
the time of computers, cell phones and faxes) and the breadth of people who
participated.
Monday is Labor Day, and I come at it with honor and
anger as well. I am honored to have
known people who worked incredible hours, often at great danger, to fight for
the rights of working people. I am honored
by the workers today—immigrants and non-immigrants, documented and undocumented—who
pick and prepare our food, care for our pre-schoolers and seniors, repair our roofs,
clean our offices and tend our gardens.
And I am angry that those very important jobs are among the lowest paid.
I am struggling with what to say in my sermon this
Labor Day weekend. In a lot of churches
I’ve served in, it has been the custom to pray for all veterans on Memorial Day
weekend, and at times include a hymn with a national theme. We have done that in our current
congregation. But I don’t remember any
big emphasis on lifting up the labor movement on Labor Day. Part of that is my
own cowardice. Remembering veterans
usually gets approval from the congregation; talking about the labor movement
and you hear “we shouldn’t be political in the church”.
And yet, whatever we say about our military is
political. Not every veteran is a hero
or has made sacrifices, and most of our military adventures are not about
protecting our “freedom”, but our power.
How often has the church acted like a cheerleader for the military, and
how does that affect our soul?
The bible is full of calls to justice, and promises
of its fulfillment. There’s more references to economics in the bible than to
prayer (and a lot more than about sex, which is what we in the church get hung
up on). And there are this “great cloud
of witnesses” (Hebrews 12) from 1963, from 1863 and from 2013 that are still
marching, still organizing, still working to get us to the place we were meant
to be.
Be justice.
Be Beauty.
Patrick
