Last preached on June 16th, 2013
Every Father’s Day, I cannot help but wonder about what my father would think about who I am today. Though he passed away over 20 years ago, his presence in my life is as full and as real today as it was when I was a child. He imbued enough of his values and beliefs in me that they are a constant voice. Yet, I do not know what that voice would say about the man I’ve become.
During the peace movements and protests of the 1960’s, my father was a baton wielding Military Policeman in Washington D.C. He was a military cop, a detective, and then later a Counter Intelligence Agent… a spy-hunter, through the Cold War of the 70’s and 80’s… one who even investigated Unitarian Universalist Churches for anti-American activities. When he retired from the military, he became a special investigator for the Tennessee Department of Revenue… a Tax-Collector, or as they say in the Tennessee Hills, a “Revenuer”.
All of this he was and more… because he was also my best friend, my hero, my co-conspirator… he was my Dad. And so, I wonder what he would have thought about his son becoming a “Commie Pinko Liberal”.
I remember some of the best times with my father, as he and I drove two or three hours in the cab of his pickup truck, once or twice a month, on our way to or from a Boy Scout camping event somewhere. It was private time, where we talked about life, the universe, and everything. Ok, I talked, and my father commented. Playing in the background would be my father’s favorite country music singers… Willie Nelson, Kenny Rogers, Kris Kristopherson, and his favorite… Johnny Cash.
I remember one song my father played over and over, a song that had a profound impact on me… one that has become a part of my personal scriptures… from one of my personal prophets. As I have thought about how to have the conversation with the memory of my father about how this son he raised conservative Baptist grew up to be a flaming liberal preacher, I have kept coming back to the words of this song. The song is “The Man in Black” by Johnny Cash.
Well, you wonder why I always dress in black,
Why you never see bright colors on my back,
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone.
Well, there’s a reason for the things that I have on.
During my ministerial internship, my supervising minister, the Rev. Barbara Pescan, when she was writing my mid-term evaluation, jokingly sent me an email asking if she should include something like “Intern needs to quit wearing all black, he is frightening congregants…”
I began dressing in black at about 15 years old. I was not trying to be gothic, I just felt that black was the color for me. I was not depressed, I was actually quite happy, quite energetic… driven. I would go to church and school looking like I had come from a funeral. I was seeking some way to express something for which I did not have any words… but luckily Johnny Cash did.
I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he’s a victim of the times.
As a kid, I did not know what issues I wore the black for, I only knew that things were not right in the world. Until I came home from Bosnia, I thought that conservative domestic policy and imperialist foreign policy would solve all the inequities and injustices I felt in the world, but Bosnia cured me of that. I found the world much more complicated than I had been taught it would be.
Before Bosnia, I had spent almost a year in Panama, and I saw a level of poverty that I couldn’t have imagined. There was a “hopeless and hungry” side to Knoxville Tennessee… but it was nothing like 12 people living in a dirt floored, cinder block, tin roof hut on a clear cut jungle hillside outside Panama City, Panama. The family that lived there did anything, and I mean anything, just to be able to live in that hut, among hundreds of shanty huts on that hillside. I did not understand the privilege I have had nor the responsibility to the world that I carry until I compared their home with the one I grew up in.
As in Panama, here in the United States it is those same people from the “poor and hungry” side of each and every one of our towns and cities that populate our prisons, and fill them like the cup that overflows. Those who can afford to live in better places can afford better lawyers, and receive lower sentences or no punishment at all. The police that might pull me over when I lived on the south side of Chicago were concerned for my safety. The same is often not true for a person of color pulled over in those same south Chicago neighborhoods, or here in Ventura.
Our prisons are filled past the breaking point with the poor and the destitute, many convicted of crimes of culture, crimes of desperation, and crimes of addiction… often created by the necessities of living on that poor and hungry side of town.
Even in this song that I love, written by a man I believe had learned to transcend it, there runs a thread of the same racism that fuels our culture of inequality. Our equation of black and darkness with what is evil, wrong, or needs changing is a symptom of just how deep racism runs in our society. So, even in using this symbol, we have to know that while it may have a message of liberation for us, it might be a symbol of oppression for someone else
I wear the black for those who never read,
Or listened to the words that Jesus said,
About the road to happiness through love and charity,
Why, you’d think He’s talking straight to you and me.
Jesus understood about symbols, and their power to change the world. The symbol of the loaves and fishes… the symbol of coming together and sharing bread and wine in remembrance, the symbol of riding into town as a Roman Emperor would, but on a donkey instead of a horse.
The generations of followers after Jesus also understood about symbols, even if they used them to construct meanings about his life that I don’t think he intended, such as much of the modern symbolism around the cross. Rather than sin and redemption, I find the core message that Jesus taught his followers to be what Johnny Cash said in his song, the road to happiness through love and charity. I find the same message about the salvation of us all through love and charity in almost every religious tradition I have ever encountered.
I do not believe in the Jesus who dies on the cross to pay for sins, but rather in the Jesus who lived among the poor, the abandoned, the people that his society had rejected. I believe in the Jesus who stood on a mountain and said that the order of his culture was backwards… that it is the poor who shall inherit the earth.
I believe in the Jesus who so loved the people around him that they found healing in his touch, in his friendship. I believe in the Jesus who recognized that the gift of a penny could be more than the gift of a million dollars, if a penny was all you had.
Rabbi Jesus did not preach blind obedience to scripture, but rather, through story, through life examples, and through parable he showed how we could find a better way to treat one another, how we could live together in peace and in love, and how we could heal an unjust society.
I think Johnny Cash is right… even today some of the most devout conservative Christians I know may have read the words of Jesus… but for the life of me I’m not sure they have really listened. And the amazing thing is, I think Jesus was talking straight to you and me. By every definition I can think of, Jesus was a liberal.
Well, we’re doin’ mighty fine, I do suppose,
In our streak of lightnin’ cars and fancy clothes,
But just so we’re reminded of the ones who are held back,
Up front there ought ‘a be a Man In Black.
It does not have to be a Man in Black… it could be a Child in Yellow, or a Woman heckling a Presidential speech, or an Iraq Veteran waiving a flag, or a group of people sitting on the floor of City Hall. Much of our American society has become so complacent, so comfortable, that we desperately need people who are willing to stand up, to make a statement not just with words and symbols but with their lives, calling us to our better selves.
If it is not lightning cars that are the signs of the conspicuous consumption of our modern society, then it is gas guzzling military vehicles used to go buy groceries and pick up the kids. We might spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on our clothes collection, and never give a thought to how so much of our clothing comes from virtual slave labor.
We need people to witness to us, to remind us of where our values and principles should lie, to remind us of all the anger, pain, want, and need that exists in the world. We have to have the courage to witness to our society… to be the voices calling ourselves and society to be better than we are. We have to be up front, in the open, and speaking truth.
Unitarian Theologian James Luther Adams called Unitarian Universalism “The Prophethood of all Believers”… As Johnny Cash did in this song, we are called to be the Prophets of our time.
I wear it for the sick and lonely old,
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold,
I wear the black in mournin’ for the lives that could have been,
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men.
There are times that I look at all of the problems that we are facing in this world, and I despair. I wonder how in the world we could ever hope to create programs for all of our elders who are not being taken care of, for all of those who have been forgotten by society. I look at the way that criminalizing drugs causes far more societal harm than the drugs themselves do. I think of the lack of education and opportunities that make the selling of drugs and the feeding of addictions something many have to do just to survive.
I think of the young men and women who die and are wounded in our wars of choice. I think not only of the loss to their families, but the loss to our nation as these brave souls are sacrificed. What might they have done, had they lived? I think of the shattered lives that come from the shattered bodies and minds of those who are wounded and come home to carry that wound the rest of their days… both physical and spiritual.
I think of all of this, and more… and I want to run and bury my head in the sand. Move to some small island off the coast of Ecuador and hope the world goes away and leaves me alone. When I imagine all of the problems and inequities in the world, I wonder how anyone could hope to have any affect at all.
What brings me back is that, though the problems we face are enormous, the solution begins not with a program, but with a vision. The solution begins with a religious understanding of right relationship, a vision that could inspire millions to create a world where we treat one another as we should. And perhaps, if we can inspire enough of us… then what seems insurmountable can become a task shared among many. It is a dream we can realize together.
And, I wear it for the thousands who have died,
Believen’ that the Lord was on their side,
I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died,
Believen’ that we all were on their side.
I believe in a religious vision that begins with a respect for the inherent worth and dignity of every human being, enacted through an interdependent web of which we are all a part. I believe in a vision that calls for us to learn from one another, not try to convert others at the point of a sword or the barrel of a gun. I believe in a vision in which doubt is not feared, but becomes a signpost pointing to a deeper understanding of truth. I believe in a vision of “world community, with peace, liberty, and justice for all”.
I believe we are at a turning point in the history of humanity… in which we can choose to unite across the old lines and divisions to address the broader problems that effect and endanger us all… or we can do what humanity has almost always done in history, and continue killing each other by the tens of thousands.
This is my faith, this is my hope… that we can find a way to live together in peace, seek the truth in love, and help one another.
Well, there’s things that never will be right I know,
And things need changin’ everywhere you go,
But ’til we start to make a move to make a few things right,
You’ll never see me wear a suit of white.
Ah, I’d love to wear a rainbow every day,
And tell the world that everything’s OK,
But I’ll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,
‘Till things are brighter, I’m the Man In Black.
This is what I would tell my Dad, on this Father’s day. And I think he would understand.
So may it be, and blessed be.