Serving Southern Prince George's & Charles Counties in Maryland
Serving Southern Prince George's & Charles Counties in Maryland |
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POWER But the issue is really much deeper. When I struggled with my identity as many in Anacostia do today, living beyond my means, I was seeking to be more than I was. Somewhere deep inside, I felt powerless in a world that seemed to not care about my life. I wanted more. I can see where so many feel helpless and hopeless when their reality is welfare, drugs, alcohol abuse, drive-bys, murder, unwanted pregnancies, it’s all over their community, and the list of vices and tragedies goes on and on. Oh, I can see why they live vicariously through Fubu, and Tommy Hilfiger and Nike, and Mercedes Benz and Lexus. Their souls are crying out for freedom, for power to have more control and so they see the materialism as a vicarious escape. I like what Robert Clemetson, lead organizer of the IAC said. We talked this week and he said when he ministered to drug dealers and the poor, they self-medicated themselves with drugs and alcohol to escape their living hells. He said they did not have the psychologist or psychotherapist and so they turned to various vices to escape. They felt powerless. So the issue at hand is an issue of power. That’s the sermon title today. Power. Power to control your destiny. Power to choose your own path. Power to let folk know who you are and what you believe. Power, to love and be loved in return… For a longtime power has been seen as something evil. Even the great English historian, Lord Acton, as we heard this morning, responding to the eventual Bishop of London, regarding the papacy in Rome, said, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” He saw a dominant and powerful empire that controlled the mind and money of so many. He was frustrated. And all he could come up with was that “Great men (people) are almost always bad men (people).” Power for Lord Acton was corruptible. Robert Greene wrote the book, “The 48 Laws of Power”, and in his book he argues that everyone seeks power. That even those who say, “I don’t want any power, John, I just want to do my part. I want to be humble. I want to serve.” He says, “That’s a power move! Watch out!” He saw this as a tactic to gain power. Greene calls life a “power game” and his best selling book gives 48 laws to win the power game of life. Greene’s secular view of power says that we have to be “subtle—congenial yet cunning, democratic yet devious.” Some of you know what I’m talking about… When you look the word power up in the thesaurus most of the words seem negative: control, supremacy, rule, command, muscle, and dominance. Yes, it seems that to have power is to invite evil in your life. It appears that if we allow power to be a part of our lives, this will lead to our egoistic demise. BUT, there are other examples that teach us a different perspective regarding having power. I have been working with the IAC, as I said, and many of the leaders are reading a book by Dennis Jacobsen, titled, “Doing Justice.” I like some of what he has to say. Jacobsen, first does what good writers do, he looks at the origins of things. He goes to the Spanish derivative of the word power, which is poder. It translates as, “the ability to act” or “to be able.” This gives us a new meaning that is broader than the traditional narcissist meaning. For Jacobsen, power is essentially neutral. Rather, you decide what direction to go, in the service of justice or injustice. His theology by its very nature, its Christological, so he’s very dichotomizing; he’s pretty black & white here, and I know as Unitarian-Universalists we know there’s a lot of “luke warm water” out there; many gray areas that move one from justice to injustice very easily. It’s a matter of perspective; particularly if those in power who make the rules and laws are unjust, then those rules and dictates must be changed and some may see you as evil even though you are working for good. So we operate on a sort of sliding scale. Amen. But that’s not the point this morning. The point is that power is not an evil word. We all have the ability to do something to better our family, church, neighborhood, and our community. We are all able-bodied people capable of changing our own destinies. We have the power to change the world. What in the world was it that gave William Channing the boldness to speak out against institutionalism with the formation of the AUA, in 1825, as a lone voice for individualism? What was it that gave Theodore Parker strength to fight for the abolition of Slaves? What gave A. Powell Davies, whom our building is named, the courage to speak out against McCarthy? What was it that gave a little man in India, Gandhi, the courage to fight British imperialism? There are so many examples… It was a power deep from within, a deep conviction that moved and stirred each one of them. They had “poder”—they had the ability to act and they did. Jeremiah, in the Bible, had to speak out against the sickness of his day. He said there was something in him that was “like fire shut up in his bones.” It was an inner power crying out to him, “make a difference Jeremiah. Do something about the trouble in the land. Stand up for justice Jeremiah! And he could not rest until he did. We all have this sort power. It is a good type of power. It is virtuous. And it is not just for prophets and preachers—it’s for all of us; we all have the ability to do something positive with our lives. We cannot let those who are corrupt have our word (power). This is our word! This is a word for those who love justice. It is for those who love mercy. It is for those who love equity. And if we truly love justice, mercy and equity, we must seek to create the beloved community. We have the ability to act! In Christian theology, there’s a beautiful idea called “zim-zum”. Don’t ask me where it comes from, cause I can’t remember. I believe it comes from German scholarship. Just trust me on this one… It means God loved humankind so much that God shrunk Godself down to enter into the world in the man Jesus. God, in essence, humbled Godself, out of unconditional love, to feel the struggles of suffering humanity. God wanted to get in touch with humans and feel their pain, their trials, and their tribulations. This poetry is compelling. But don’t get caught up in the language or literalism. There is a powerful symbolic message here for us. What we have is a mythological projection of what humans interpret as the ultimate sacrifice in life. When we give of ourselves, give our lives in the service of others, there is no greater act we can do. This is deep love. It’s the love of a mother who will struggle all her life for her children. It’s deep love from a friend who helps a struggling brother or sister out of a jam. It’s a powerful love that moves and stirs us to act for those we know and don’t know. The idea behind “zim-zum” is that there is strength in weakness. True power is not in military might, in weapons of mass destruction, but power is unconditional love that is given freely; the love that is vulnerable and can be hurt so easily. As a parent with children, I can’t tell you how vulnerable I feel sometimes. I have to care for two and soon three beautiful lives. I have the will and power to do it, but I feel weak and open. Now I have something to lose—something precious to lose. And it weakens me. Sharon, my wife, knows what I’m talking about. Many of you know too… Zim-zum… I have to step down from my self-interest and because I love them, enter my children’s world. I have to suffer by watching them struggle with living, from the womb to adult life, as they try to find their place in the universe. Oh… I wish I could help them get through all the obstacles and to not make my mistakes. But then a voice says, “No John. To live you have to let go.” To understand victory you must have failure. This is the yin and yang in the universe. Allow them to do their part. And it is this that tells me that although I am weak, I am strong. In weakness I learn the true meaning of sharing and loving, which is to sacrifice some of my life-force, some of my being, so that my children and others might live abundantly in our great web of interdependence, our great web of mutuality—the circle of life. This is the deep symbolism behind “zim-zum”. Giving in love is the greatest power on earth I know. There is nothing else more complete or more divine than our ability to love. Sometimes to gain power, we have to relinquish power. Then there’s Dietrich Bonhoeffer who said, “God is weak and powerless in the world and that is precisely the way, the only way in which God is with us to help us.” He believed that God’s forsakenness pushes us to action because we don’t know if God is really there, but we hope God is, and so we move forward even without a working hypothesis. This concept of God empowered Bonhoeffer. Where was God in Germany during the Holocaust? Was God dead? Bonhoeffer found his theology in the midst of this struggle and concluded that God’s greatest gift was stepping away and allowing us to act, to use our power. Bonhoeffer believed that, “If it is to be, it’s up to me!” We cannot wait for an external deity to enter human history and fix up the world and make us love each other forever and ever. We are not puppets. We have to be like Bonhoeffer and live our convictions and understand that change in this life manifests when we use our voice, our hands and our feet, our power to make something positive happen. It is in this universal cosmic energy that we find the true meaning of what it means to live! At the time he wrote, Bonhoeffer was imprisoned for planning a coo to overthrow Hitler. His plan was discovered and he was promptly sentenced to death. He understood “zim-zum”. He understood sacrifice. He understood exercising his power for the greater good at the cost of his own security. He sacrificed his individualism, the one thing he had, for the good of community. Sometimes that’s necessary Yes friends, sometimes that’s necessary. I want to bring it home now, round this circle out. As Unitarian-Universalists, how long will we be an obscure faith in the world? How long, with our great history, will we continue to let others define who we are? How long will we continue to hide in the corners and woods where it’s safe, as if we are a secret society? How long will we shy away from mainstream religion? Are we ashamed of our faith? Or have we become too aristocratic? Either way, for me, it’s not right. We must use our POWER! How long will we wait to teach the world about a faith that allows the practitioner to choose his or her own creed for life? There are so many hurting and crying out for a religion that embraces and nurtures whomever comes through the door— “Come on in, we can help you. This is your home, your sanctuary. Be at peace here.” This is who we are! People are crying out for fellowship and friendship, we can provide that. There are so many seeking a faith that does not condemn or codify, a faith that is not dogmatic, but respects the individuals search for their own truth. “You got your way, I got mine, hey maybe will meet at the finish line, maybe not. That’s okay.” That’s who we are! We respect the inherent worth and dignity of all humanity. That’s a mighty great story! That’s who we are today, as Unitarian-Universalists, and the world sorely needs to hear our message, now more than ever before. Yes. We have the power. We have the ability to act. We are not a social club. We are a spiritual community and somebody needs to know! That’s our challenge this morning! And that will be our challenge tomorrow and the next day, and the next and the next… I close with a poem from a poet and prophet, Paul Laurence Dunbar, a man who was truly before his time. He lived in the early years after the Emancipation of Blacks, when slavery was supposed to be over but was still enforced in many ways overtly and covertly. Dunbar was frustrated with religion, Christianity in particular. Like those in Anacostia, he felt powerless, but like Lord Acton, he took to the pen as a way to exhibit his power. He was, as Fannie Lou Hamer puts it, “sick and tired of being sick and tired” of injustice. This deep sadness and frustration probably led to his early death at age 33. He died of a broken heart, but nonetheless, Dunbar left us with a provocative poem titled “Religion”. It fits our time and place well. Hear these words as I close: I AM NO PRIEST OF CROOKS NOR CREEDS. FOR HUMAN WANTS AND HUMAN NEEDS MEAN MORE TO ME THAN PROPHETS DEEDS. AND HUMAN TEARS AND HUMAN CARES EFFECT ME MORE THAN HUMAN PRAYERS. GO! CEASE YOUR WAIL LUGUBRIOUS SAINT. YOU FRET HIGH HEAVEN WITH YOUR COMPLAINT. IS THIS THE CHRISTIANS JOY YOU PAINT? IS THIS THE CHRISTIANS BOASTED BLISS? AVAILS, YOUR FAITH NO MORE THAN THIS? TAKE UP YOUR ARMS, COME OUT WITH ME. LET HEAVEN ALONE, HUMANITY NEEDS MORE AND HEAVEN LESS FROM THEE. WITH PITY FOR MANKIND (Humankind) LOOK ROUND. HELP THEM TO RISE AND HEAVEN IS FOUND! We have power to act. We have the “poder”. Go change the world! Let it be so! See John Crestwell's review of the book "BLACK PIONEERS IN A WHITE DENOMINATION"
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