(Editors note: The scripture reading for this Sunday was Jeremiah 22: 1-5. The prophet proclaims God’s orders when leaders abandon the covenant. The sermon follows the text of the scripture reading:
This is God’s message: Attend to matters of justice. Set things right between people. Rescue victims from their exploiters. Don’t take advantage of the homeless, the foreigners, the orphans, the widows. Stop the murdering.
Since last week was the end of our “Movies
with a Message” sermon series, and next week I want to do a Stonewall/Pride
sermon for our first Pride Festival, I decided to use some of the songs Jane
chose for the quintet for today’s message. The first is one is “The Canticle of
the Turning,” which is composer and liturgist Rory Cooney’s musical rendition
of “The Magnificat” or Mary’s Song, that she sings upon discovering she is
pregnant with Jesus. It is a vision of hope for the future, that depends on
changing the status quo and reversing policies that keep the poor oppressed.
The third verse says:
“From the halls of power to the fortress tower,
not a stone will be left on stone.
Let the king beware for God’s justice
tears every tyrant from their throne.
The hungry poor shall weep no more.
There are tables spread.
Every mouth will be fed.”
And the chorus is:
“My heart shall sing of the day you
bring.
Let the fires of your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears for the dawn draws near,
and the world is about to turn.”
For the most part, our world and our
people are better off than they were in Mary’s day. But some things haven’t changed. There
are still tyrants and tyrannical policies everywhere, which have not just kept
us from progressing forward, but have actually taken us backward. In our own
country, women, minorities, and LGBT folks are losing rights that we once had. Affordable health care and environmental
protections are disappearing. Much of our world is currently turning the wrong
way.
But just as in Mary’s time, oppressive policies
from our government ignite passion and righteous anger in those of us who care about
equality and justice, and we rise up and proclaim that going backward is not an
option. The 2017 Women’s March, which we participated in, was the largest
single-day protest in modern history. World-wide, over 7 million people marched
to send a bold message that women’s rights are human rights.
This protest spawned thousands of groups
committed to the cause of human rights, who keep the momentum going and remind
the rest of us that there is still work to do.
We’ve talked before about Rev. Dr. William
Barber, whose national call for a moral revival continues to inspire people to
show up at state houses and in Congress and the White House and speak truth to
power. It was actually from Rev. Barber’s most recent Facebook post announcing
a new national Moral Witness March ( that the UCC is also participating in)
that I got today’s Jeremiah reading. He connects the prophet’s message to
the struggles of our people, saying,
“God hears the cries of the people
who are suffering under harmful policies
that ignore the cries of the poor and
sick,
children, women, immigrants, and
refugees
and even the cries of the lands torn up and
polluted.
It is time for us to go to the palace gates
with a clarion call for change.”
The second song I chose expresses a
similar theme, Bob Dylan’s “The Times, They are a- Changing.” The song uses
reversals like Mary’s song and Jesus’ teachings do: “The loser now will be
later to win, the first one now will later be last, and the present now will
later be past.” It is a warning to those
who refuse to embrace the change that is coming, and a plea to lead, follow, or
get out of the way:
“Come senators, congressmen, please heed
the call.
Don’t stand in the doorway.
Don’t block up the hall.
There’s a battle outside and it’s raging.
It
will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls,
for the times they are a changing.”
This song was written for the baby
boomer generation when we were young activists rebelling against the status quo. It was
our anthem of commitment to changing the world for the better. But too many of
us, when we got older, became the very things we were rebelling against. And,
like our parents before us, we refuse to listen to the younger generation. I
have heard so many negative comments about Millennials,that they are pampered,
lazy, and out of touch with the real world, the same things the generation
before the baby boomers said about us. And I gotta tell you, it makes me want
to scream to hear Millennials defined in that way. Because my children are
Millennials, and they and their spouses and their friends are leading the way in
the fight for justice and equality. They were up front at the women’s march,
with our then 2-year-old granddaughter wearing a t-shirt saying, “Smash the
Patriarchy.” They actively support ‘March for our Lives’ and ‘Black Lives
Matter’ and ‘Gay Pride’ and Immigrant’s Rights. They are passionate, and they
amaze me with their knowledge of politics and policy. But they face so many
obstacles from older people who would rather criticize them than listen to
them.
My 27-year-old daughter-in-law is the
marketing director for the non-profit, “Central Atlanta Progress.” Her bosses
are my age, and her co-workers are her age.
She said her boss can’t even fathom why she would want a flexible work
schedule or to work from home occasionally. Because that’s not the way they did
it. They are an organization with ‘progress’
as part of their name that refuses to implement progressive policies for their
employees. Generation Z, which includes
our own James, gets even worse criticism. The kids that started ‘March for our
Lives,’ after surviving a massacre at their school, and who work passionately
to promote common-sense gun control, have been called the cruelest names and
mocked on social media by people my age in attempts to discredit them.
We are all called to work for justice
and equality, and we need to work together. The world is turning, and if we
don’t turn with it, it will turn without us. We can start listening to and
learning from each other, especially those who are younger than us, or we can be stubborn know-it-alls and
get left behind while the world changes in front of us.
The 15-year-old poet
prophet, Mary of Nazareth, proclaimed, “Though I am small, you, O God work
great things in me.”
And the 23-year-old
poet prophet, Bob Dylan, proclaimed, “Your old road is rapidly aging. Please
get out of the new one if you can’t lend a hand.”
May we here continue to be an example
for everyone who wants to see positive change in our world to join together
with people of every age, gender, color, orientation, and expression to work
for it. Because we are better together.
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