Rev. Molly Phinney Baskette ~ First Church Somerville
Sunday, June 1, 2008 ~ Fourth Sunday in Pentecost
James 1:22-27
"Stained by the World"
Liz Danner, one of our members, is a children's librarian in the unassuming
town of Holbrook, Massachusetts. It took her ten months to find this job,
and even though she has to take a train and a bus to get there, she loves
it. A few months ago, the residents of Holbrook voted on a proposition
override to raise more revenue for elder services, the public schools-and
Liz's library.
The override failed. The scuttlebutt is that it failed because people didn't
want to pay for the schools, since most of their children were either grown
or in Catholic and private schools. In any case, Liz isn't likely to lose
her job: the voters were so mad that they voted out their own library,
which they did want, along with the schools that they didn't care about,
that they are mounting a new vote in three parts. Next week, they will be
able to choose a la carte whether or not to fund the library, the council on
aging, and 20 teachers who would otherwise be laid off. As Melissa St. John
said when it came up the other day, "in other words, they're voting on
whether or not to help the most vulnerable people in our society: children
and the elderly."
The letter of James, unlike most of the letters in the Bible, was not
written to a specific church to tackle a specific problem. It was written to
what the author called "the twelve tribes in Diaspora," or, as some have
interpreted that phrase, the entire Christian church as it began to spread
out over the world. It was, and is, a letter for every single person who
strives to be a Christian. And this letter says, "Religion that is pure and
undefiled before God who Fathers us is this: to care for the orphans and
widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world."
Every single time I come back to this passage from James, I want to fax it
to the evangelical megachurches and Fox News. Forget homosexuality,
abortion, stem-cell research, Jeremiah Wright. Breaking News! The Christian
Church's obsession du jour is to care for the orphan and the widow!
But I'm not ready to alert the news outlets, because first I've got to work
on my own self. Like many of you, I recently received my federal spending
spree money, direct-deposited into my account. A couple of days later, I got
a plea from the Casa San Jose, the Mexican orphanage dear to my heart and
many of yours. They are trying to build a computer cluster and hire a local
technology teacher, to give the kids an education that may finally help them
break the cycle of poverty. They pray that someday, when the orphanage is no
longer feeding them, the children will be able to feed themselves.
In between the receipt of my check from the government, and the receipt of
this noble request, I went to Target, and was seduced by the waffle irons.
Oh, such shiny and beautiful waffle irons. How happy one would make my
children, my very well cared for children who want for nothing, except a
waffle iron. But then there are the shiny new computers for the Casa
children, children equally if not more deserving than my own. Of course, I
am lucky-I can have both. I can help the orphans and help my own children.
But how much for each? How much of Peter's and my resources rightfully
belongs to us, and how much belongs to them?
The answer: none of it. It all belongs to God. It all belongs to God. This
is one of the scariest teachings of Christianity.
It is easy to judge the people of Holbrook for their hard-heartedness. We
have the perspective of 25 miles and the fact that it is not our money. But
what about us? Do we do our part for the poor only after we have made sure
we have more or less everything we want, materially speaking?
Here are some statistics from closer to home than Holbrook. 51% of children
in Somerville do not speak English as their first language-they are
immigrants, and as such, enjoy more discrimination and fewer rights and
benefits. More surprisingly, 66% of children in Somerville are poor. 66%! If
I walk down to Rafe's school tomorrow morning, and line up his kindergarten
class, both Cole on his right and Kentra on his left would have gone hungry
this morning but for the federally-funded orange juice and bagels that were
provided. Even I was surprised by how high this number was.
We spend 4 times as much on each prisoner in this nation as we do on each
child in the public schools. Maybe if we spent that money on them sooner,
they wouldn't end up in prison. It's a question of paying now versus paying
later.
I have a shocking confession to make. I like to pay taxes. I have worked for
the federal government, and know just how much waste and excess and laziness
and disorganization there is, and I still like to pay taxes. I know that
roughly half my federal taxes will go to pay for war and rumors of war, and
end up in the pockets of executives at Raytheon and GE, and it makes me
heartsick. But still, I like to pay taxes, because of what the other half
will pay for.
I like to pay taxes because whatever churches and non-profits can do, they
can't do it with the sheer scope and power that the government can do it.
And when churches and non-profits do it, it lets citizens off the hook. It
says, "health care, food, shelter, education-these are luxuries that the
bleeding-hearts can pay for." But when the government provides these things
to its vulnerable people, it sends the message that they are basic human
rights.
I know that when Jesus said "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto
God what is God's," he wasn't advocating a liberal Democratic spending
agenda. The Bible doesn't articulate a Democratic spending plan or a
Republican spending plan. The Bible challenges us to figure out what God's
spending plan is, to use our resources in a way that sets everybody free.
This is about taking care of the vulnerable before we do anything else. It's
also about being unstained by the world, washing off its sticky desires, its
narcissism and materialism and fears about our own security-these two ideas
are intricately connected. To drag out the old truism, about whether we as
Christians are thermometers or thermostats: are we to rise and fall on the
basis of the environment we live in, or are we to change the temperature of
the room?
Some of you might remember a couple years ago a non-binding referendum in
Massachusetts that polled voters on whether or not we should repeal the
state income tax. Enough people voted yes that I got very nervous. What were
they thinking? And then I found out one of my close friends, who was in fact
the Director of Christian Education at a wealthy church, had voted for it.
"Um," I said, with my heart in my mouth lest I completely destroy our
friendship, "what were you thinking?"
She said she was sick and tired of the government taking so much of her
money. Then I asked her if she thought she needed road paving, and
firefighters. Well, she said. And what about things that other people need:
food stamps, head start programs? Then I told her that I was once someone
who had needed those things. I was a welfare child: food stamps, Head
Start, section-8, AFDC. I was Cole and Kentra. Since my mother couldn't
afford afterschool care, I went to the public library every single afternoon
by myself. A young librarian there took me under her wing. She taught me to
love books, and she started a drama club and gave me my first stage role as
Cindy Lou Who. You can see how I parlayed both of those things into a
respectable career. I thank God every day of my life for that librarian, and
for well-fare that was just that.
I told my friend about all of this, and I saw her melt, I saw her change
before my eyes. She hadn't really thought about it that way. She wasn't
malicious, she was impressionable. And she had let other people's ideas
about money, about money being their own, overtake her. Watercooler
conversation, neighbors talking over fences, is a very powerful thing. It
can work both ways.
James says "religion that is pure and undefiled is this: to care for the
orphans and the widows in their distress." That verb there, the verb that is
so much the problem in this sentence, the verb that tortures me in the small
appliance aisle of Target: "to care for," well, it can also be translated,
"to see clearly." When we look at the orphans and widows, when we see Cole
and Kentra, and the children of the Casa, clearly, we get it. Their
well-fare is bound up in mine. In freeing them, I become free. James says
"the doers who act will be blessed in their doing." He doesn't say, "God
will reward you for being generous with others." He says that the doing
itself blesses the doer. Someday, the citizens of Holbrook who voted to cut
funding for the schools and elder services will be old, and lonely. They
might long for a young person to come and read to them, or help them balance
their checkbook. But there will be no elder services to recruit the young
person; the young person who in any case has trouble with reading or math
because their school failed them. Who are the needy, really? It can change
in the blink of an eye. The doing blesses the doer.
James chooses his verbs carefully. He doesn't say "give." This is not a
one-time financial fix, forgoing the waffle iron for the computer, although
every little bit helps. James says "do." Act. Religion is changing the very
systems and structures that keep poor people poor. Good worship is writing
passionate words to your elected officials. Purity is having the courage to
disagree with a friend or neighbor or a co-worker at the watercooler before
the referendum. It's about changing the temperature of the room. Who doesn't
want it warmer?
