My Sermon

This is the sermon delivered on February 28, 2010 at the Unitarian Universalist Metro Atlanta North Congregation (UUMAN) that gave birth to this project.

Copyright 2010, Randy Blasch


Read it and spread the word.

So I know what you’re thinking… Randy is wearing a tux, why? I mean he’s smart, handsome, debonair.. ok, well maybe it was more like… Did he get home from the heart desire’s auction and forgot to do laundry so this is all he had to wear? Was he out all night?

If a man is wearing a tux, he is looked at completely differently. They have that air of sophistication and style . You have certain opinions about their status and stature in life… but things are not always as they seem… Job was the same, he was a good man, who lived a good life, and was a man of great faith and yet everything in his life fell apart around him. The things we learn, by the order of worship and by this Tux is that everything is not what it appears on the outside.

Does anyone know what this is?

It’s a food stamp card and its mine.

Now this isn’t about me and feel sorry for Randy, the point is that you can’t always trust what you see on the outside. We are in weird times. Poverty is not what we once thought. It isn’t just people in the inner city, the people who are struggling now are the people that are just like us, and in my case, a LOT like us… I mean I will be 50 years old this year and other than a couple of months right out of college, I have NEVER not had a job and I am not alone. More and more people like me and you are struggling, not making ends meet.

But how did we get here, I mean what happened to the promises that came with being a baby boomer? We were supposed to have world peace, we were supposed to have flying cars and we’d all be working 4 day weeks and making more money than we could ever need and poverty would be gone and racial and gender discrimination would be a thing that existed only in history books. But now we live in a world that we have destroyed with pollution, we’re running out of natural resources, and more and more people are living in poverty, with no way to feed their families let alone achieving the “American Dream”.

But it still doesn’t answer the question how did it happen? In our story earlier Job’s problems were brought on by, for lack of a better explanation, by a bet between God and Satan. Well when one has more time on their hands than they are used too, several things can happen and being a UU, naturally, I have been able to think about this and without the aide of a committee have figured it out at least I think I have.

Look around in this room, right now, look around.. what do you see? Besides me, looking fabulous in this Tux I mean… but seriously what do you see? Who are we? We are mostly products of, not a bet between God and Satan, but a bet between our past and what we believed was our future. The problems I am facing, we are facing are our fault, because we forgot. We chose to listen to those who promised us new worlds, and ignore those who were trying to warn us. I don’t know about you, but I remember as a kid that my grandparents would talk to me about the last time this happened, the big one, the great depression and like a lot of you out there, I would smile and pretend to listen knowing that my world would never be like their world because we had airplanes and rockets to the moon and Star Trek and the world they knew would be gone forever because we would never be like that again.

You remember those stories? Did you tune them out as much as I did? And it isn’t just me, our society has turned its back on that part of its past. Maybe it isn’t so different than Job. "The Grapes of Wrath" and "To Kill a Mockingbird", those amazing stories that reminded us of what people went through and survived have been replaced by "Harry Potter" and "Twilight". Instead of being inspired by Atticus Finch and how he stood up for injustice, we’re now rooting for a young wizard who battles evil. Don’t get me wrong, I love the new books, but those old books, those stories were the clue to fixing what we broke in 1929 and what we’ve broken again 80 years later.

Job was a man who was betrayed by his friends, his family and some say by his god, just because someone wanted to prove a point. And now, its too late, we can’t do anything to fix it. We have people who look just like us, just like me, who are poor, losing their homes, losing their jobs with no health care. All those things we promised ourselves years ago are gone. And our opportunity to makes things right has passed us by… Or have they?

Again, because of my excessive amount involuntary meditation time, I believe I’ve again figured it out. You see we’re not in the 21st century and in these times of HD TV and Satellite radio, it’s all about marketing, it’s about being able to tell the story, reach that target audience who wants what you have to sell. Seems pretty simple to me and we are the community who can do that, I truly believe that UU’s are the ones who can make things change. We have the tools, think about it. I look around and see people who I know can talk the talk, AND walk the walk.

If people question the environment, we have those who have studied it and understand it and commune with it and explain to those who will listen how to fix it and if people need to understand the physics of how the changes in our world occurred, we’ve got the people to do it. And why we treat each other and what is our role on this planet, we’ve got the humanists … so we should just go out and start stomping the streets and raising the roof with our speeches and we’ll fix it all, right??? Right???

But is it the economists who we need to convince? What about the scientists, do we need to tell them what’s wrong and how we got here and what we need to do to fix it. Who is it we need to convince? Who is our target audience and how do we reach them. We could go person to person and try and convince them and we are certainly capable of presenting an intelligent argument in favor of that which we know is right, but is that the right approach and who are we talking to?

So I did some more thinking, and I saw something on TV that made me realize what the answer was. Picture this, you are watching a football game and the kicker lines up for the extra point and they show that shot from behind and the kick goes up and goes through the uprights and someone, usually with a rainbow wig, stand up and holds up a sign and says …….. JOHN 3:16……

Its marketing genius, I mean are they going to convince you or me? Probably not, or the person who goes to one of the churches up and down Crabapple Road, of course not… but they know their target audience…. The person, usually a man, sitting home or in a hotel room by themselves, someone who’s life doesn’t appear to have much meaning, who’s caught up in the what if’s instead of the what are's… and one time, one of those people will reach into the drawer and pull out that bible that they were given as a kid or that was left behind in the hotel room and read that passage….

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,[a] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.,

And while you or I might look it up on a bet, or just to make sure we remember it correctly from our childhood, it isn’t meant for us. We’re not the ones who they are marketing to.

The same is true for poverty and especially health care, something that is near and dear to me right now. You see, I’m lucky because right now I can afford my cobra payments… because of the stimulus bills, I can actually afford to keep my health care, but what about those people who’s Cobra has run out, or those who are unable to get health care because of a pre-existing condition? What can we learn from this example? Let’s think about it…. Who do we need to market to? Is it the humanists among us?? No, they understand the role we have on this earth to care for each other and the costs involved when someone is uninsured?

Those who are earth centered? No, they understand how the health of one person affects the whole of the planet…

UU’s have no trouble communicating with them, or with any of the people in this room and besides WE are not who we need to be marketing too.

Like me in this Tuxedo with my food stamps or one of neighbors in these big houses who are working three jobs to feed their family, things aren’t always what they appear on the outside.

I have an admission, I tend to see the world through a fairly strong pair of rose colored glasses. Even as tough as it is for me now, I know that people are by and large good and caring and that there are those who give the rest of them the bad name… and I believe there are those in congress and our legislatures who are true people of faith, who actually believe what they profess. And not everyone who we see at a Tea Party or who listen to Rush are bad people. There are people who are strong in their faith and are willing to listen because someone is speaking a language that they understand. Those are the ones we need to reach… those people who really, really believe.

But we can’t reach them through charts and graphs. They won’t come to committee meetings or break out sessions because they don’t think we speak their language. Those are the people we need to market to in language they can understand, and we have the tools to do it. I am so proud that I am raising my children in this place where everyone is welcome and we are inclusive of people of all faiths, but we have to admit, if we are to look at ourselves honestly, that we struggle with figuring out how we can speak to our traditional Christian brothers and sisters. How can we speak to them, because in many cases, we come from that place and have some serious hurts in that past. But we have a common past with them and we can speak a language they understand.

Instead of rainbow wigs and John 3:16, how about doing something we are really good at. How about showing up and standing at a press conference or a rally, not with words from Emerson or Jefferson but instead, take that step of, dare I say it, faith and stand there with them as brothers and sisters holding up a sign that says…
MATTHEW 25: 31-46. Do you that one? It’s a little longer….

31"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
41"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'
44"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'
45"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'
46"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

I can see it now, a congressmen leaning over to an aide saying “look up that verse…” and if just a few who are people of real faith are changed because of it, then we have done our job. And then maybe we can then live up to those promises we made to ourselves this generation. Maybe then we can begin to converse with our brothers and sisters up and down Crabapple Road. If we can find that place where a conversation can start, then a conversation can take place. And when we start that conversation, maybe then people can be changed… maybe even us. Amen.