Rogue Reverend

Sermon: Six Words

I Samuel 3:1-10; John 1:43-51

The National Constitution Center has been having a contest, called Address America: Six Words to Inspire a Nation. The rules are thus: write a six-word inaugural speech. All the winners would be submitted to Barack Obama and his speech-writing team. Here’s one of my favorites: These are testing times, study hard. Another favorite: Invest in civic energy. It’s renewable. The winning six-word inaugural speech is, “Divided by fear, united in hope.”

As the week went on, I discovered that there were many threads running through the week.  Martin Luther King, Jr. day is Monday. Barack Obama is being inaugurated Tuesday, beginning at 10 a.m. An airplane crash-landed into the Hudson River on Thursday afternoon, and everyone survived. Plus, I’ve been reading Truman, the biography by David McCullough. Add that to the economy and what’s happening in Gaza. And then, to boot, I watched the movie Helvetica last Sunday. Yep, a movie about a typeface. Not a font, as was pointed out to me, that’s what’s on your computer, but a typeface.

So I set about thinking about a six-word inaugural speech for all of the people and events running through my head.

As of Saturday, the body count in the Gaza strip was Israeli: 13 (1.07%) - Palestinian: 1203 (98.93%). Israeli shells slammed into a UN-run school in Gaza, killing at least 2. I asked my friend Dan, who is an ethnic Persian, but a Jewish convert to come up with the six-word explanation. Auchwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek, Dachau, Buchenwald… Gaza. Of course, Dan wanted to be sure to note that he doesn’t consider this a Holocaust. But Gaza, according to him, is like an interment camp or a concentration camp. Mine is All’s not right in the world.

Saturday, splashed across the Richmond Times-Dispatch was the headline, “30,000 job losses” with the closing of Circuit City. Bank of America had to go to reserves. I’ve heard of three acquaintances losing their jobs in the last two weeks. Every prediction is that it will get worse before it gets better. But the best I’ve heard all week is an ad for an insurance company, and they tell that the company started in 1931, and they say something like “not a great time to start a company.” They go on to say that they have seen many (I think 11?) recessions, and that during that time, people begin to enjoy the little things. This one was easy… Marketing the bad news into good.

In our New Testament passage today, Nathanael is hanging out and his buddy Philip finds him and says, “We’ve found the One that Moses and the prophets told us about. Jesus meets Nathanael and makes what appears to be a snap judgment of him. Nathanael is convinced that Jesus is the One. And the six words? Oh, how easily you are convinced.

So you may be wondering what a movie about a typeface has to do with anything. Let me tell you a bit about Helvetica. Born in the 1950’s, Helvetica is the quintessential modern typeface. Rick Poynor, one of the designers in the movie, says, “Type is saying things to us all the time. Typefaces express a mood, an atmosphere.” The atmosphere that Helvetica describes is modernism. And what is modernism? Wiki says, “It is a trend of thought that affirms the power of human beings to create, improve, and reshape their environment, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology or practical experimentation. Modernism encouraged the re-examination of every aspect of existence, from commerce to philosophy, with the goal of finding that which was ‘holding back’ progress, and replacing it with new, progressive and therefore better, ways of reaching the same end.” This typeface expresses the hope that life is going to be better post WWII. That science, technology, well, everything, is going to be better. And there’s our six words: Everything is going to be better.

Truman, ahhh, Truman. A little confession here. I’ve been reading this book since I got home from the Bahamas after Thanksgiving. And I’m only on page 529.  As he became president, I think Truman’s six-word inaugural speech would be I couldn’t want this job less. Where I am in the book, Truman is still in his first term as president, the war is just over, and really, the recovery from the Great Depression is not complete. It’s like the war has given the U.S. a reprieve from the Depression, but when the soldiers return, after the initial joy, the reality of inflation and joblessness sinks in. And there’s no New Deal now. And the labor unions are striking like crazy.

Truman is really frustrated with the strikes. He threatens to draft the railroad employees if they strike. When the strike is averted, Truman sits down to write a history of his life, in the third person (calling himself “an acquaintance”), through World War I, then World War II, then to the post-war U.S. He writes,

The same elation filled the home people as filled them after the first world war.

They were happy to have the fighting stop and to quit worrying about their sons and daughters in the armed forces.

Then the reaction set in. Selfishness, greed, jealousy, raised their ugly heads. No wartime incentive to keep them down. Labor began to grab all it could get by fair means or foul, farmers began black-marketing food, industry hoarded inventories and the same old pacifists began to talk about disarmament.

But my acquaintance tried to meet every situation and has met them up to now. Can he continue to outface the demagogues, the chiselers, the jealousies?

Time will only tell. The human animal and his emotions change not much from age to age. He must change now or he faces absolute and complete destruction and maybe the insect age or an atmosphereless planet will succeed him.

After the mid-term election, which the Republicans won by a landslide, Truman seemed to have a change. He decided that he was going to be true to all Americans, not just Democrats and not just his fans. David McCullough recounts, “He called for far-ranging improvements in labor-management relations, a strengthening of the anti-trust laws, a national health insurance program, including support for mental health, child care, and hospital construction. He wanted a ‘fair level of return’ for framers, aid to veterans, an ‘aggressive’ program of home construction. He promised new progress in civil rights.”

I, of course, am not finished with the book. I don’t know how the story works out. But I am amazed at how much the story of Truman, in the late 1940’s reminds me of now. The only six-word phrase that resonates with me is O my God, we’re here again!

Samuel was an interesting bird. His response is very different from Truman’s. In our Scripture this morning, he is experiencing the call of God. In fact, people are so out of practice with answering God, that the high priest doesn’t even notice that it’s God, initially.   Samuel comes up with his own six words, when he says Speak, for your servant is listening.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Rather than an inaugural speech, for MLK I’m more inclined to write a 6 word biography. Remember these words of his from April 3, 1968?

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life.
Longevity has its place.
But I’m not concerned about that now.
I just want to do God’s will.
And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain.
And I’ve looked over.
And I have seen the promised land.
I may not get there with you.
But I want you to know tonight,
that we, as a people will get to the promised land.

I’m inclined to use King’s own phrase, “I have seen the promised land,” as the six-word biography, but I really don’t think that says enough about him. So here goes: The promised land: equality for all.

I know you all heard about Captain Chesley Sullenberger. What can you say about an airline pilot who “ditched” and made it, when he co-pilot turned to him afterwards and said, “You know, no one has ever ditched and made it.” And what can you say about a pilot who makes sure that everyone is off the plane safely, and walks through the plane two more times to make sure everyone is out? Serve others and do what’s right.  Or even perhaps, Miracles really do happen, even today.

Running through all of this is the women that I have worked with for so many years. Having quit my job, I wanted to come up with six words that explain all of it. I got a call last Sunday night from a woman I’ve been out of touch with for a while. Her life is completely different than it was 8 years ago when I began working with her, but she still has moments where people remind her that she used to be a stripper. I reminded her what I have long believed, and the only thing that kept me going on many days at Star Light. The six words: Believe that everything can be different.

My mind and word games over, I wanted to put them all together for you.

All’s not right in the world.
Marketing the bad news into good.
Oh, how easily you are convinced.
Everything is going to be better.
O my God, we’re here again!
I couldn’t want this job less.
Speak, for your servant is listening.
Nothing less than equality for all.
Serve others and do what’s right.
Miracles really do happen, even today.
Believe that everything can be different.