“Politics and Hope”
The Rev. Dr. Matthew Johnson-Doyle
October 24th, 2010

Readings A Kind of Hope by Ric Masten
The Good News by Thich Nhat Hahn

Message Politics and Hope

Note: The sermon is an oral event. This manuscript may not reflect the exact spoken words. If you want to hear what was actually said, you can listen to sermon visit our website at www.uurockford.org. © Matthew Johnson-Doyle, 2010.

In the name of love, in the name of peace:
will you stand, will you stand with me.

I heard that song a year ago,
and want to thank Tracey / the Choir and Jim McDowell for making it happen
this morning.

when pain and hatred churn up angry noise
we will rise in one joyful voice
loud and clear and ever strong.

I heard that song a year ago,
at a Unitarian Universalist General Assembly –
the one in Salt Lake City, in June of 2009.

And there was a sense of momentum.
Sure, the economy was lousy,
but we thought it was soon to turn around.
And health care was going to be passed any day –
this was before the town halls of August, that summer –
and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell would be repealed,
and Gitmo would get closed down,
and the sun would rise in the east and all the birds of the field
would sing
and peace and love and joy would break out everywhere.

That’s how it felt, sometimes, didn’t it?
Amy Carol Webb, the Unitarian seminarian who wrote this song,
wrote it in 2008,
and I remember how it felt back then,
don’t you?

Seems like a million years ago.
Seems like a lifetime.

What happened?
How did we all get so angry? So frustrated? So disillusioned?

I don’t know if you’ve heard,
but we’ve got an election coming up in a few weeks.
There’s been some stuff on TV about it.

I don’t know about you, I can only speak for myself.
But I’m depressed about it.
Not sorrowful, per se, but that sort of shake-your-head with resignation frustration.

Don’t get me wrong –
I’m not depressed because I think one particular political party
is going to loose a lot of seats in the House and a few in the Senate.
It’s not that.

My depression is because the candidates I have to choose from seem so,
frankly, depressing.

I mean, really, I don’t think I’ve ever been less excited to vote.
I’ve voted in every election since I was 18;
federal, municipal, midterm, presidential.
I think I’ve always had at least one candidate, for one race,
who I really was pumped up for.
Usually more than one.
I wanted to vote, I wanted to express my preference.

There are a few candidates I will be happy to vote for this time –
and I’ll be enthusiastic about voting for our own church members
wherever I might, perchance, see their name on the ballot -
but in most of the high-profile races,
I feel, well, icky about my choices.

And it’s not that I’ve been poisoned by the negative TV advertising –
remember, I don’t watch much TV.

Maybe you don’t feel like I do –
and that’s fine. That’s great, even.

But I’ve been talking to you, and I know I’m not alone.

And it’s not just the candidate situation.

The whole political system just seems so awful.
The filibuster, in the US Senate, has meant that we don’t seem to make any progress –
in either direction –
we just yell at each other, talk past each other.
Our political discourse is uncivil, uniformed.

We have huge problems in this country –
millions of unemployed, underemployed –
some of you right in this room, I know –
a school system that expects miracles from teachers
but doesn’t invest in our future –
rising inequality, a growing prison-industrial complex,
two wars, a huge debt, and so on.
Big problems,
and we bicker, we distract, we stick our heads in the sand.
We talk about petty nonsense.
I feel this especially when it comes to the situation in Illinois –
the state is so badly managed, our deficit is so huge,
and so many agencies, which do the state’s work –
which is to say, they do our work, for us –
waiting months and months for promised payments –
and yet most of the politicians seems to talk in cliché’s,
they won’t get specific about solutions,
or level with us about hard choices,
or they have one plan one day and another the next.

We are so far away, as a society, so far away
from “we will rise in one joyful voice.”
So far away.

* *

Election cycles are like roller coasters.
One year, one party wins,
comes in with all these plans,
but they overreach, or they get stopped, or forget why they got elected,
or whatever and two years later,
the other team comes in,
but then the same thing happens,
and we’re back to where we started.
It’s exhausting.

Look, I don’t want to say that elections aren’t important.
They are very important, I always vote, and I hope you will too.

And I don’t want to say that all our political leaders are spineless panderers,
because some of them are noble public servants who work hard and do their best.
Of all parties.

But when we put our hope in elections,
we are bound to get disappointed.
And when we put our hope in politicians,
we are so often disillusioned.
We expect politicians to lead,
but they are much more likely to be followers –
follow the polls, follow the money, follow the conventional wisdom.

On the verge of yet another election, then,
here is what I want to say to you:
vote, pay attention to politics, get involved –
but don’t put your hope there.

You’ll get burned that way, I promise.
Don’t put your hope in elections, or political parties,
or ideologies, or any of that.
It is too shallow dirt, too rocky for any tree of life to grow.

I think we need to dial it back.
We need to stop blaming our politicians for our problems,
say it is their fault that we spent too much money,
or have too much crime, or are failing to slow the pace of climate change.

And we need to dial back the credit, too –
when we say Lincoln ended slavery or Reagan brought down the wall
we cover over the role that ordinary folks,
and folks outside the political system,
played in these events.

I really wanted Obama to end Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
The racial integration of the Army under Truman
paved the way for the modern civil rights movement,
and I feel like ending Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
would help signal that all people are worthy, no matter who they love.
Plus, more than 70% of the people in the country support ending the ban.
This should be easy.

Yet we wait. Process, we are told. Be patient, we are told.
Writing in a Birmingham jail a generation and a half ago,
Dr. King said to those who urged patience that
“Wait has almost always meant never,”
and that “There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over.”

I’ve been stewing about this recently,
as yet another victory for equality in the courts
has been appealed, delayed, stalled out.
I’ve given up hope that this administration will provide any real leadership
on gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender rights.
It hurts to say that out-loud, but it’s true.

And I was depressed about that. Still am, a bit.

But as I was thinking about this, and reading about it,
I realized that I was not without hope.
I don’t place it in politicians.
But I still have hope, and I still believe, in my heart,
that we shall overcome –
not because we will be lead by politicians, but because we will lead them.

Dan Choi, a discharged army officer who tried to reenlist,
in the few hours between the decision and the stay,
at the recruiting station in Times Square,
the same Lt. Choi who chained himself to the white house,
who keeps speaking up and insisting on justice,
he gives me hope.

The Log Cabin Republicans, who filed the suit,
and aren’t giving up on the appeal,
they give me hope.

And I can say this about most of the issues I care about.

I’ve been disappointed by politicians,
but seeing Latino’s and Anglo’s and Black folks and Native folks
all march together in the 95 degree Arizona heat last summer –
marching with them, witnessing their courage,
singing with them
singing with them,
in the name of love, in the name of peace,
will you stand, will you stand with me,
that gave me so much hope.

Our local school board bickers, can’t agree on anything,
gets walked all over,
but I sit in a room with other community leaders,
and we plot out changes, and we organize resources,
and you – you here sign up to read with little ones –
and that gives me hope.

The good news they do not print.
the good news we do print.
The good news is that you have arms to hug,
that music rings in the air,
that the sun shines in the sky that rain falls to water the earth.

I’m tired of politics, but I’m not tired of humanity.
I see people reach out in love –
visit a friend in the hospital, hold their newborn child,
write a letter to a loved one,
teach, reach out.
I see us trying, learning, growing.
And that gives me hope.

I see people who are unhappy with things as they are,
who speak of all the ills of the world,
like the revolutionary who laughed real laughter,
yet who bothered to get out of bed in the morning and say it,
and that gives me hope, too.

I see people come in the doors here to the church,
looking for connection, for meaning, for life,
and that gives me hope.

We had 200 Unitarian Universalist youth in the church this weekend,
who came to be together and grow together and worship together,
who were kind to each other, who accepted each other as they are,
who didn’t bully or hurt, but who were in covenant together,
and that gives me a lot of hope.

Come, sing a song with me,
and we give each other hope when hope is hard to find.

What about you?
What is your source of hope?
When you turn away from looking for politics to solve our problems,
where do you turn to?
What gives you hope?

Think about this for a minute.
You may have lots of things, but choose one.
A person you know who quietly or loudly keeps up the good fight.
A feeling you have.
An experience of the world, the wide universe, that grounds you in the moment.
Something beautiful that stirs your heart.

What is your source of hope?
Put it, in your mind, in a word or a phrase.
Just one, and it doesn’t matter if it is a large source of hope
or a small source of hope,
whatever it is.

The great thing about hope is that it is contagious.
You can share it, like a rose in the wintertime.

So, I want you to turn to someone near you –
in just a moment –
turn to someone near you, and look around – make sure no one is left out here,
you might have a group of three or two, OK –
and share your word or phrase –
what gives you hope?

Go.

--

Will you stand, will you stand with me?
Will you give hope when hope is hard to find,
and will you take it?
In your troubled days, in our troubled times,
will you let the love of your sisters and brothers
into your heart?

I’ll vote, and I’ll keep paying attention to that world.
I don’t have a lot of hope that politicians will do right,
but that’s OK,
because I have faith in human beings.
I have faith that each generation will open its heart and its mind
a little more than the last;
I have faith that the essential virtues:
kindness, mercy, wisdom, justice –
these endure and need no permission from politicians.
I have hope, because every day I see people try –
try to connect, try to do justice, try to speak out
and change the world we share together.
I have hope because I have heard children laugh,
and because I’ve seen the sun set over the trees.
I have hope because I’m not the only one who thinks
things should be different.

I’m still not thrilled with a lot of my choices, and a week and a bit from now,
when I go into that voting booth over at 3rd Presbyterian,
I’ll probably mutter while I vote.

But then I’ll get back to work, building a better world,
and I know the rest of us can get back to work too.
For there is a lot to do,
and nobody else is going to do it –
it’s our job,
democracy is in our hands,
we are the ones we’ve been waiting for,
and we are the ones who have lead before,
and will again,
and that gives me hope.