Passion

I suspect that my pastor, Terry Matthews, is still a bit amazed when I get something out of his sermons. It's not that they aren't very good sermons. He probably just doesn't believe that I really do my best listening with my eyes closed and a thin stream of drool leaking from the corner of my mouth. I made lots of notes on Sunday's sermon and I intend to write about it soon, but this time I'm just going to pick on a single point. Terry used Rosa Parks as the example of a life defining moment. Most of you know that Rosa Parks is the black lady who refused to move to the back of the bus when commanded to do so by a Montgomery, Alabama public bus driver. I doubt that she woke up that morning thinking that this was the day she was going to change the world. She just very quietly said "no" to a social injustice. 2010 is the 50th anniversary of the Woolworth lunch counter sit-in. Blacks were allowed to order and eat at Woolworth, but they had to stand while the counter stools were reserved for whites. Four young men claimed space at the counter by taking reserved stools. They were allowed to stay, but they weren't served. From what I've read, these young men just wanted to change one small social injustice. I don't think that they set out to write history or to change the world. Just lately, I blogged about the Class of '63. We graduated high school as teens and grew to adulthood in perhaps one of the most dynamic decades in history, at least in U.S. history. We witnessed assassinations of political leaders, a foreign war that became more unpopular each day it continued, a domestic war on social injustice that also cost lives and burned cities, men walking on the moon, and a moment the world held its breath while the U.S. and Russia edged closer to nuclear war. We saw students bomb and burn campus buildings and we saw our own troops fire on and kill students on those campuses. We waited in very long lines to buy gas that wasn't even available and we began to see computers involve themselves more deeply into our lives. We said goodbye to Buddy Holly and hello to the Beatles. It was a very bi-polar decade with great highs and great lows. No matter how you view the period, you have to admit that there seemed to be a daily passion. It was hard to be a young person during those years and not be caught up in some cause. It has been several years now, but I once polled my Sunday school class about what current issues would cause them to "take to the streets" in protest. Hardly anyone could come up with a single item. I did get one person who mentioned saving the rain forests. The world is upside down. Today, in the same edition of the newspaper, you are able to read about drastic budget cuts expected in the spending on public education and about the looming chance of a professional football players strike because of disagreement about the way billions of dollars are being split between team owners and players. Not so long ago, teaching jobs and jobs in health occupations seemed to be forever safe. Not so now. Pay goes down, jobs go away, and the newspapers are full of words unaccompanied by action. Where is the social justice in that? Our prisons are filled to the bursting and yet we find no better way to handle societies problems. I cannot believe that persons with dark skin are innately more prone to crime and yet the demographics of our prison population tell a different story. During our past presidential election, I overheard someone say that, if Obama was elected, he would soon be assassinated. This wasn't said because of his politics, but because of his skin color! Race is still playing a terrible roll in social injustice. Sometimes, as a nation, we try to be the world's policemen and yet, we send troops to Iraq and Afghanistan while ignoring Darfur. Can you say "oil dependency"? We speak of opening up vast offshore areas to oil exploration and drilling. This is immediately followed by the explosion and sinking of a drilling platform accompanied by fears of a major incident of pollution. Are we as a society so demanding of having our own way that we are unable to give up some parts of our high standards of living so that others may live just a little bit better? I'm not a leader, but I'm a pretty good follower. I'm ready to take to the streets once again in protest. Let's get passionate! Isn't it time to stop world hunger? Isn't it time to reduce and balance our prison population? Isn't it time to pay for services we take for granted like being educated, protected, healthy, and clean and let athletes play for the fun of the sport? Isn't it time for the 11 o'clock hour on Sunday morning to stop being the most segregated hour of the week? Isn't it time to provide our children a better world and opportunity than to lament that the best of times are now behind us? Isn't it time to get passionate about injustice and inequality? I have the passion. I just need to find a leader worthy of following as we once again take to the streets. Could that be Christ and His church? Shouldn't it be Christ and His church?