OUR RETURN TO BUSY-NESSCheryl M. Walker
September 4, 2005
Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 25.
32: Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats,
33: and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left.
34: Then the King will say to those at his right hand, `Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;
35: for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
36: I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.'
37: Then the righteous will answer him, `Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink?
38: And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee?
39: And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?'
40: And the King will answer them, `Truly, I say to you, as you did it to the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.'It's Labor day, a time to celebrate the American worker. It was first celebrated in 1882, right here in New York City but it has come to mostly mean the end of summer. The end of lazy days at the beach, dress down or half day Fridays, the last summer backyard barbecue, closing up summer homes, preparations to return to school. Here, at church, committees that have not met during the summer months are starting to coalesce again and think about what their goals are for the coming year, and this is the last of our one only Sunday services. In short this holiday has meant our return to busyness.
But this year, as we go about our preparations for the coming months we do so, with especially heavy hearts. Yes, there is still the back to school shopping we need to do for our children. And the summer homes still need to be closed down for another year. And we need to dust off our suits and dress clothes for work. But as we go about these mundane tasks, as we must, we do so remembering that there are hundreds of thousands of people in this country who do not have these luxuries. And in these troubling times, even the most commonplace things seem like a luxury. Having hot meals everyday, enough drinking water, a roof of any kind over our heads; all these things we take so much for granted today seem like luxuries.
And if in these times, you have not taken a moment to express gratitude to God or whatever, that you have been blessed with another day and with the basics of living, then I suggest you do so today. For if we have learned nothing else from this past week, we ought to have learned to be grateful for the simple gifts of life, of food, of water and of shelter.
That we are able to wake up in the morning is a small miracle for which we should be ever grateful. And if at the end of the day we are still safely alive then we should say a prayer of thanks, because there but for the grace of God go I. The people of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida know all too well that in a brief period of time, all that they had could be taken away by the mighty forces of Nature. And we who have witnessed this catastrophe from afar, who can have no real sense of its incredible destruction must know, that we too are vulnerable to the power of the Earth. In the wake of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, we have seen that even the most powerful nation on this earth is still no match for the power of the earth itself.
For most of us, if not all of us, this kind of desolation is unimaginable. It is estimated that ninety thousand square miles of this country have been devastated. To get some sense of how large an area it is, if you took the United Kingdom, including England, Scotland and Wales that would be the effect of the devastation. Over a million people have been displaced, some temporarily and some forever. The effects of this hurricane are shocking in its magnitude. We still do not know the final death toll but it appears that it will easily in the thousands. New Orleans is mostly under water and it will take another two to three months before the water can be pumped out and another year before the city is entirely dry. And all of this assumes that there will not be another hurricane behind this one.
It is all so incredibly mind boggling and heart wrenching. As the events of the week unfolded my heart strings were pulled in so many directions. When we first knew of the hurricane I felt a sense of dread. This was the largest, strongest hurricane to make landfall in the United States. And I worried and feared for the people I knew and the people unknown to me. I prayed that the people of the Gulf Coast be spared as much loss of life as possible. I knew that the destruction of property would be tremendous, and inevitable, but property can be rebuilt, a life cannot. When it seemed that New Orleans had been spared and that the worst of hurricane had indeed damaged billions of dollars worth of property but that most people were spared, like so many I sighed a great sigh of relief. And then the levees broke and the city was flooded and my heart was filled with tears as I saw people stranded on roof tops with desperate signs seeking help and as I saw the elderly and babies stranded with nothing in a sea of despair. But by the end of the week, my heart had turned to anger. Anger at what could at best be described as indifference and at its worst total disregard for the value of human life.
It is often said that times of crisis bring out the best and worst in people. I saw little of the best this week and so very much of the worst of this nation. I hardly know where to begin to describe it all. I only know that, in this time of our greatest crisis, we failed and failed again, time and time again. Beginning with individuals who saw this time of crisis as a time of exploitation in the name of greed. There were those who preyed upon the vulnerable, and those who fed our deepest divisions. I saw a man carrying a flat panel 36 inch television out of a K-Mart, he was not doing that for his survival. It was almost laughable. What was he going to do with a 36 inch screen tv when there's no electricity, he had no home and I'm sure there was no cable. Yet that's what he stole. There were gangs of youth who were robbing anyone they thought they could and they were not doing that for their survival but then, gangs in New Orleans isn't really a new story.
Story after story about the lack of order and control in New Orleans filled the airwaves. But something else was going on in these stories. Something more insidious even then the acts of lawlessness perpetrated by a few. Something that was feeding America's two greatest diseases—classism and racism.
And here we saw the worst of the media. At one point I was watching a story on the morning news and they were showing a picture of a black man wading waste deep in water with two cases of things that he had stolen from a local convenience store. The reporter kept showing this as an example of the lawlessness that had engulfed all of New Orleans. As I heard this reporter describe New Orleans as a city totally out of control I saw what the man was carrying. On one shoulder he had a case of diapers, on another he had a case of infant formula. What does a grown man need with a case of diapers and a case of formula? There is only things he needed them for, he needed to feed some babies at home who were waiting at home for him to feed them. I don't know about you, but if faced with the prospect of feeding a hungry child or breaking into a Seven Eleven to steal diapers and food, I'm going to break into the Seven Eleven. And to anyone who would choose property over the life of a child, I say shame on you! No amount of property is worth the life of a child.
Yet the reporter kept telling me how this man, poor and black, was a symbol of all that was wrong in New Orleans. And in a way the reporter was right, for he was an example of all that is wrong in America—classism and racism. Because if there was anything that we learned this week is that racism and classism are not about whether I, as a black woman can get a cab in New York city, but that it is about whether people will live or die.
When the city of New Orleans first called for an evacuation of the city it had no plan in place for what to do with those too poor to afford to leave. This came as no surprise to anyone who had sat on disaster planning commission for that city. One former member reported that the issue of what to do with the poor came up time and time again in their planning sessions and the response was the same everytime—silence. There was no plan. From the beginning of this crisis the poor were abandoned. And while there was some small effort to bring some people to the Superdome there was no plan for what to do once they got there. And for those who could not make it even there were simply forgotten. They were expendable, collateral damage.
It is impossible for us to stop the forces of nature; we cannot prevent tsunamis, or earthquakes or hurricanes. They are out of our control, but what is in our control is what we do in the aftermath. In this morning's reading it was said that all the nations shall be separated into those who will sit at the right hand of the Christ, the righteous, and those who will sit at the left, the unjust. Now I'm not going to argue the theology of the text this morning, but let us take the Christ as a metaphor for being judged by a higher power. Maybe it is the power of time, or maybe it is the power of history or maybe it is the collective power of the world, because the world was watching. We will be judged righteous not by how much power we have, and not by how many riches we have, but by how we treat the least among us - the poor, the disabled, the elderly. And who at the state, local or federal government, could we honestly say after this week would be chosen to sit at the metaphorical right hand of the Christ.
Surely not the mayor of New Orleans, who while impassioned in his pleas for help after his city was in ruins, before the crisis began when he could have done so much, did so little. And once the destruction happened he was nowhere to be found among the poor and the disabled and the elderly of his own city. When I was sick and in prison you visited me. No, he did not visit the sick and the imprisoned in his own city, those people who could not leave. No he shall not sit at the right hand of the Christ.
Surely not the governor of the state of Louisiana. Who instead of calling for National Guardsmen to deliver food and water to the starving and dying babies at the Convention center, chose instead to say that she needed them because they knew how to shoot to kill. When I was hungry you gave me food and when I was thirsty you gave me drink. No she shall not sit at the right hand of the Christ.
And not the head of FEMA, who when asked why he didn't send food and water to the people at the Convention Center, said he didn't know they were there. Didn't know they were there?! May he should have bought that 36 inch flat screen televison from the man who stole it from the K-Mart. Because I saw it on my tv, you saw in on your tvs, the whole nation saw it on their tvs; but somehow the head of FEMA didn't know that 20,000 people were at the Convention Center with no food, no water, and no sanitation for days. No he shall not sit at the right hand of the Christ.
And what of our president, where shall he sit? In a speech given to the nation while the people of New Orleans were suffering the un-sufferable, he used 70 words to say that we'll eventually get them some food and some sort of relief and 700, ten times as many, talking about rebuilding business and opening new pipelines. When I was hungry you feed me, when I was thirsty you gave me drink, when I was a stranger you welcomed me. Not when gas prices were high you opened a pipeline, not we'll have low cost loans for people who are wondering if they will live another day, not we will rebuild the business when the dead are in laying in the streets; no, no he shall not sit at the right hand of the Christ.
For these people in this time have not shown themselves to be righteous.
So who shall sit there? Who deserves to hold the title righteous? A guy named Dwayne, just a guy who looked like a thug who turned into a savior. Dwayne left the convention center and went looking for a reporter and he was not going to stop until he found someone who was going to bear witness to the suffering happening in his city. And if it were not for Dwayne, those people at the Convention Center might still be sitting there waiting for help to arrive. Dwayne shall sit at the right hand.
There is a woman named Elizabeth, a registered nurse who, for days, was the only person providing medical assistance to the people in downtown New Orleans. With no supplies, no water, nothing but her wisdom and powers of persuasion she used all her skills to keep as many people alive as she could. She saved the life of a dying girl who was going into a diabetic coma by begging anyone for a little bit of insulin. She shall sit there.
There is another woman on Long Island, Anne, who lives a comfortable life with many privileges. She has decided to devote her energies day and night to finding housing for the thousands who have been displaced. And first place she is going to house a displaced family is her house. She shall sit at the right hand of the Christ.
Where will you sit? In our return to busy-ness will you merely go on with the status quo forgetting the horrors of this week in a month or two? Will you write a check today, and I do hope you write a check today, and think "well, I'm done." Or having seen the true cost of racism and classism and divisions in this country will you stand up and speak for justice. Will you do whatever is in your power to help dismantle systems that do not affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person? Where will you sit? It will not be easy and the work will not always meet with success, but there will be no greater shame on us if we do not try.
A new church year approaches. Soon the halls will be filled with the sound of our youth. Again we will do the work of growing this church, this faith and our souls. As we go to meetings after meetings and return to busy-ness, let us not be tempted to forget this time. Let us remember what we the Earth has been trying to teach yet again - do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God. We have seen the ugly truth of classism and racism in stark and unmistakable terms, and we have a choice. We can ignore what we have seen or we can strive to break the chains of these twin evils and truly build a beloved community. I have faith if we make the right choice we will build that land. I have faith that each of us in some way can do something, no matter how small, to begin the process of building a new world, of weaving a new tapestry. I believe in each of us is the person stands the person who would sit at the right hand, the righteous who treat the least among us with dignity and respect.
When I was hungry you fed me, when I was thirsty you gave me drink, when I was stranger you welcomed me. As you do to the least among you, so do you do to yourselves. In all that we do in the busyness of our lives may we always be grateful for life and whatever we may have; and may you always remember one simple question—where will you sit.