Epiphany 2B

The Rev. Patricia Templeton
Epiphany 2B
January 18, 2009
St. Dunstan's

Change for the Common Good

We gather to worship today on the eve of two momentous days in the life of our nation. Tomorrow we celebrate the life of the great prophet the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., son of this city, the leader of the movement for equal rights for African Americans, who for too long had suffered under the oppression of segregation and discrimination.

And the very next day, we will watch the fulfillment of King’s dream that his children would one day “live in a nation where they will be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” as a black man, Barack Obama, places his hand on the Bible and becomes the president of the United States.

I imagine that even Dr. King did not dream that his children would live to see this day. One of the most moving aspects of Barack Obama’s election has been the amazing joy that it has brought to so many who for so long felt they were on the margins of American life.

Even black Americans who have found success marvel at the meaning of these events. I heard Bill Cosby this week talk about going to vote last November, and carrying with him pictures of his long dead mother, father, and brother.

Cosby wept as he told how he went into the voting booth, closed the curtains, and took the pictures out of his pocket and placed them on the voting machine, so that his parents and brother, too, could somehow be part of this historic occasion.

I can’t remember a time in our national life when the words of the psalmist we heard today rang more true:

“Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things. Shout with joy to the Lord, all you lands. Let the rivers clap their hands, and let the hills ring out with joy.”

Even many who did not vote for Obama can’t help but be moved by the significance of this week. Despite the difficulties our nation faces, it is a time of hope and optimism, and the excitement of new possibilities.

The story of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement in this country has often been compared to the Exodus, where Moses leads the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt towards the hope of new life in the promised land.

Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann suggests that the story of the Exodus, the movement from bondage to freedom, from oppression to liberation, is a paradigm not just for the Civil Rights movement, but for all times and people.

The grips of Pharaoh and of empire did not die with Moses or Martin Luther King. Brueggemann reminds us that they are alive in any society based on production and consumption, where the many work for the wealth of the few, where those in power often promote anxiety and fear among those they govern, where large portions of the population are excluded from what we know as the American dream.

God calls us, Brueggemann says, to move from the grips of Pharaoh to what he calls “the neighborhood,” a place where God’s people look out for one another, where the welfare of all is judged by the well being of the least, where all are valued and cared for by the community.

Sociologist Robert Bellah describes the same movement in terms of a change from radical individualism to concern for the common good.

“Radical individualism is what I call the default mode of American culture,” Bellah says. “It is where we go when things are relatively stable and we face no enormous challenge, or are denying that we do so.”

Individualism has its strengths, Bellah says. But it also has a darker side. “It is our radical individualistic culture that allows us to accept a level of poverty higher than any other advanced nation,” he says.

“It is that culture that allows us to accept a health system that leaves tens of millions without insurance, and an environmental policy that has not only failed to lead the world to greater sustainability, but actually stood in the way of things.

“But when we are faced with challenges that we cannot deny, we do have other resources we can draw on,” Bellah says. It is in those times that the emphasis can switch from the individual to the common good.

Certainly we are now faced with challenges that we cannot deny almost everywhere we look.

But I also sense that it is a time when we realize we have other resources to draw on; a time when we may be open to thinking of the common good, a time when we realize that the health of the individual and the nation depends largely on the health of the neighborhood.

And perhaps that is also part of the excitement and hope that surround this inauguration – that it is not only the color of Obama’s skin, but the perception that he is concerned not with just the well being of the powerful and elite, but with the common good; that his beginning in politics was as a community organizer, one who was concerned about the well being of the neighborhood.

And so we take heart at the promise of an end to torturing our enemies, at a renewed attempt to restore our moral standing in the world, at the promise to address the economic needs of all citizens, to extend health care to all Americans.

Of course, concern for the common good, the neighborhood, is deeply Biblical in nature. We see it repeated over and over again in the Old Testament with God’s instructions to Israel to pay special attention to the widows and orphans and resident aliens – immigrants, who live without protection on the margins of society.

We hear it from Jesus in today’s Gospel reading. “I say to you that listen: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you…Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

Our national leaders would do well to remember those words.

Of course, Barack Obama is not this nation’s messiah. He is not our savior. He faces enormously difficult challenges that no person can be expected to resolve quickly.

There have been and will be bumps along the way; mistakes will be made.

We know all of that.

But on the eve of this historic moment in our nation’s history, it is time to lay aside those doubts and questions, and to embrace the hope that fills our nation.

It is a time to lay aside our differences and unite in prayers for our leaders, all of them, that God will bless and lead them as they face the difficult challenges ahead.

It is a time to remember the resources we have to draw on in times of crisis, a time to remember that God can and will do a new thing if we allow it.

At the end of our service today we will sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” a hymn that is known as the black national anthem. It was written in 1900 by African American poet and teacher James Weldon Johnson (who graduated from Atlanta University).

It was sung for the first time that year by black children in a segregated school in Florida to celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s birthday.

Its text seems especially appropriate for all Americans today.

“Lift every voice and sing

till earth and heaven ring,

ring with the harmonies of liberty.

Let our rejoicing rise

high as the listening skies,

let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us;

sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us:

Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,

let us march on, till victory is won.”

Amen.

Readings

Exodus 3:7-12

The LORD said to Moses, ‘I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.’ But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’ He said, ‘I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.’

Galatians 3:23-28

Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

Luke 6:27-36

Jesus said, ‘I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.