A Service by Revs. Phyllis L. Hubbell and John Parker Manwell with the UCNuu Choir and Kathryn Perry, WSA
Liturgy
RINGING OF THE BELLS
WELCOME AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
Janet Hixson, Trustee
STEWARDSHIP MOMENT
Lynn Jacobs
INTRODUCTION AND SOLIDARITY RITUAL
Rev. Hubbell
So much is going on the world this morning, we have felt it essential to pause for a few moments before our already full service, for a ritual of solidarity with those who are suffering around the world, and some who are finding fresh hope. As a result, the service today will run late. We can only say, if you find it necessary to leave before we have finished, feel free to slip away quietly, and go with our blessing.
Even as we gather here this morning, Libya is trying to level one of its own cities. U. S., French and British planes may be in the air on a mission to prevent massacres of those who oppose Col. Gadhafi's cruel dictatorship in Libya. Once again, we see videos of missiles in the night.
Only yesterday we learned of government supporters in Yemen opening fire against defenseless protesters as they rose from noon prayers. Many moved... away from the fighting, but a crowd of mostly tribal men from the outskirts of the capital stood firm. A man walked through the crowd with a microphone yelling: "Peaceful, peaceful! Don't be afraid of the bullets!"
On Friday, Syrian police killed several protesters seeking an end to repression and corruption. On Saturday, 20,000 mourners protested their deaths at their funerals while the police waded in with truncheons and tear gas.
People are running out of food and water and struggling to stay warm in Japan even as the government struggles to prevent a wider nuclear disaster. Elsewhere in the world, violence and poverty are so routine they do not even compete for space in our media.
Yet yesterday we also heard of people voting for the first time in Egypt. People lined up in the streets before the polls opened. "My vote today will make a difference. It's as simple as that," said first-time voter Hossam Bishay, 48. "Many noted that it was the first election ever when they did not know the outcome in advance."
Tens of thousands of brave people continue to witness for freedom in the Middle East.
Our hearts are full. In this holy place, we seek to remember our connection to all those who suffer this morning; to all those who struggle for a better world. Spirit of Life, keep our loved ones safe, but help us to recognize all people as our loved ones. Help us continue to seek to help and not to harm.
We invite you now to join those who witness all over the world this morning by coming forward and dropping stones in the glass bowls as you hold all those you are thinking of in your heart. May these stones hold our prayers, may they be markers of our resolve to do what we can to stand with all who mourn, all who seek a better world.
We have two bowls. We invite you to line up in the four aisles. Let me invite any who may need extra time to start coming down now. Then we will ask the two middle aisles to come forward and return by the same aisle, followed by the outside aisles. The choir will sing "Soon the Day Will Arrive", hymn number 146, and those in their seats are welcome to join them.
MUSIC - Hymn 146: Soon the Day Will Arrive
OPENING WORDS
Rev. Manwell
We celebrate today the work of Empower Hampton Roads, a partnership of two dozen area congregations, including this one. Through EHR we seek to empower the people of our community, all of them. It's work that is deeply biblical, and yet as profoundly secular as our nation's Declaration of Independence.
Most of us are familiar with these words of the prophet Isaiah, proclaimed by Jesus in the synagogue to describe his own task as he began his ministry:
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because . . .
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners....
and comfort all who mourn. [Is. 61:1-4]
But Isaiah, so long before, had gone on. In words that are less familiar, he said that he was called --
to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning . . .
They will be called oaks of righteousness. . . .
They shall build up the ancient ruins . . . .
They shall repair the ruined cities,
The devastations of many generations.
We'll revisit this magnificent vision in the words of today's closing hymn. They describe the work of the church and synagogue alike. But in their largest sense, they also describe our work together, through Empower Hampton Roads. And they challenge all of us as citizens. As a nation we claim that all people are created equal. We are still discovering new dimensions of that word “all”. But in our hearts, we know that all of us are brothers and sisters.
Come, let us celebrate that challenge. Let us join now in worship.
CHALICE LIGHTING
In the light of truth, and in the warmth of love,
We gather to seek, to sustain and to share.
HYMN #140: Hail the Glorious Golden City
TIME FOR ALL AGES
Vicki Caminer
SONG OF DEPARTURE - #413: Go Now in Peace
TIME OF MEDITATION
Silence
ANTHEM: I Dream a World
Jean Rutherford is the President of Empower Hampton Roads, and represents Norfolk's Episcopal Church of the Ascension on the board.
Eunice Whitehurst is co-chair of the Fund Development Committee, and represents The Presbytery of Eastern Virginia on the board. She is a member of First Presbyterian Church in Norfolk.
SERMON
Rev. Manwell
How to describe Empower Hampton Roads? Does its task not call out to us, as it did to Isaiah?
To repair the ruined cities. . . . The devastations of many generations.
The injustice we challenge is indeed the inheritance of many generations. It will not be overcome in one. We have been at it since the time of Harriet Tubman and Nat Turner; of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln; of W. E. B. Dubois and Thurgood Marshall, of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., James Reeb and so very many more whose names are etched in our minds. We’ve been at it since Stonewall. We’re at it now in Arizona. It is the work of generations yet to come.
Today, here at home, we carry on the fight for full equality, as we seek to empower all the people of Hampton Roads in claiming their right to be heard, in finding their political voices, in offering channels for working together.
That's where we begin. That's what we are doing. That's where we are going. We're restoring the dream of our cities as communities that belong to all their people, where in the words of the prophet Amos, justice rolls down like the waters, and peace like an everflowing stream.
There was a time when people of goodwill, people like us, thought we knew what poor folks needed. They needed to become like us. But in our time we have learned that it's poor folks who know best what they need. We need to listen. We need to work together. Through EHR we try to heed this wisdom.
We don't have ourselves to thank for it. The community organizing tradition of EHR goes back to Saul Alinsky, and perhaps before. It was Alinsky who sought to empower poor neighborhoods in Chicago to speak out, to demand their fair share of city services in a system run by and for those with money and power. Fifty years later, several organizations carry on the Alinsky tradition. One of them is the Gamaliel Foundation, with which EHR is affiliated.
At the core of this tradition, as Gamaliel and others carry it on today, is a concept that's both secular and deeply spiritual. They call it the “one on one”. It begins with listening, as two of us pair up and then draw out each other's stories, in turn. Where are you coming from? What do you feel strongly about? When you think about this community, what possibilities for change excite you most? Ultimately, we want to find from each other, where's your passion in life, and how can we tap it, together?
We begin these conversations, systematically, in our congregations. They can change our congregations, too. We share what we hear, and listen for common themes. We meet with those from all our congregations and choose priorities to work on together. When EHR got started, a key priority was affordable housing. Its Housing Task Force worked successfully for a law in Virginia Beach allowing developers to build more densely if they included low cost units in their projects.
Today EHR's housing priority has shifted to Norfolk, where it is trying to assure that the city works with our neighbors who live in Tidewater Gardens as it redevelops that well-worn housing project as part of the larger St. Paul's quadrant. EHR’s Norfolk Housing Task Force works closely with these residents to draw out their needs and to empower them as they voice their needs to the city. Just this week the city announced a $250,000 federal grant to start the planning. It will be a long road, but an exciting one, with lots of chances to make a difference.
Other EHR priorities include transportation, health care and education. There's a lot of listening to be done, and a lot of learning, together. All of EHR’s work is done by volunteers. It has only a tiny staff, to support and coordinate the work. You can get involved. You can make a difference. Each congregation in EHR has a core team which keeps the congregation informed and matches members with opportunities to get involved in the work. They’re the people to see. Let me invite them to stand up. Dave Crandall - a new member just last year - heads UCN’s core team, along with long-time member Nancy Gillette - the whole team is sitting right here up front. I think you already have in your hands a handout they've prepared, listing some opportunities.
But be warned: if you get involved, it may change your life. Dave found himself in Norfolk after he retired from the Navy. He was planning to pack up and move to Florida. Then here at UCN last year he learned about EHR, and its new task group on health care. President Obama had declared rising health costs a top national issue. Dave got involved. And the rest, you could say, is history. Dave stayed in Norfolk. Now he heads that new health care task group. With UCN's support, he took Gamaliel's week-long leadership training last year. He's passionate about the issues, and he's joined EHR's board, too. Dave says:
I have grown spiritually. I am profoundly affected by the deep religious beliefs that are quietly displayed by people I meet within EHR and the coalition member organizations. I have participated in agenda opening and closing prayer/reflection items. Readings from Singing the Living Tradition are appreciated.
His life has changed.
Phil and Nancy Gillette had already experienced the same thing. Phil took the week-long training. It was fabulous, he says. He experienced
total immersion in demanding training that taught me so many different things about a totally new activity for someone who had been an academic all his life. This learning was on how to do community organizing. It was about doing one-on-ones, about principles of power, about money, about setting and following up on one's own priorities, it was about accountability, it was about how we fit into the larger national scheme under the Gamaliel Foundation's umbrella. I was both inspired and changed.
And so he returned, later, for a week of advanced training, which was equally inspiring.
One day last September Phil took a delegation of EHR folks he had organized to a meeting of the Chesapeake City Council, to advocate for homeless shelters. The next day he found himself in the emergency room at Sentara with angina pain. Nancy was at his side. He said to her, “If I die, I want you to remember at my memorial service that I felt that by advocating for homeless housing to be built in Chesapeake last night, I felt I had made a difference!”
Nancy took the training, too. It changed her life. She has found in EHR an outlet for a lifelong passion for helping the poor, and for equality for African Americans. Especially in its opportunity for personal interaction with Tidewater Gardens residents, where she has found friends, she has found it fulfilling work.
The Gamaliel tradition rests on a bedrock conviction that all the people are equal, and all the people should have a voice. Not just a “yes” or “no” vote but a voice from the get-go, through the “one-on-one” listening process, in deciding what's most important. As the ultimate in grassroots democracy, it’s a hybrid – both secular and religious. In the symbolism of our Jewish and Christian roots, it's a conviction that all of us are neighbors. In the first principle which grounds us as Unitarian Universalists, it's a conviction that all people have inherent worth and dignity. It’s a deeply spiritual process.
Our UU congregations are discovering this. Our UUA president, Peter Morales, tells us that one in eight UU congregations now works with a community-based group like EHR - some affiliated with Gamaliel, some with other entities which carry on the Alinsky tradition.
It's transformative work. It changes the world we live in, one little piece at a time; and it changes us. It's an extension, in street clothes, of the justice work of the church.
I hope you'll linger after the service for a chance to talk with the core team folks about this work, and the issues it raises. I hope you’ll want to support it. And I hope you’ll find a way to get involved.
Before we receive our offering, I want to sing our hymn. It begins with those images from Isaiah. It ends with images drawn from the prophet Amos, who dreamed of a land “where justice shall roll down like waters, and peace like an ever flowing stream.” Let's join our voices now in song. Hymn 121.
HYMN 121: We'll Build a Land
OFFERING
Rev. Manwell
It is time now for our offering. Once each month, except for gifts marked for the church, we devote our offering to the work of justice. Sometimes it’s through an outside group, and sometimes a partner group like EHR. We'll pass the plate just once. Please make out your check to UCN, mark it for EHR and place it, unsealed, in one of the pew envelopes. Or, if you're making a cash gift, place it in one of the pew envelopes and mark it with your name, so we can give you a tax receipt at year-end. It's through this offering that UCN can pay its dues to EHR, help you go to leadership training, and otherwise support EHR's work of empowering Hampton Roads.
Let us receive now our morning offering.
CHOIR: The Rose
BENEDICTION
Rev. Manwell
Let our love be like a river, a never-ending stream. May it go with us, as we live out our dream of justice, in our cities, in our nation, in all the world. Go in peace, and stand on the side of love.
CHORAL POSTLUDE: Siyahamba