Rev. Joseph Boyd
The prophet Amos in the first testament demands to “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.” I’ve been reflecting on all that has brought us to this moment we’re alive in. I’ve been reflecting on the momentum, the thrust forward to usher in a new day when our democracy might become real. I’ve been reflecting on the children, parents, those who have lost loved ones, retirees who have made this moment possible. It’s a moment that has become a movement, and many are wondering where the movement is leading us, and if it’s somewhere we really want to go. We see violence and hatred in the streets, and at the same time we see mostly peaceful protesting that has now reshaped sports franchises and our understanding of what has been long overdue.

Over the last six months we have been moving the conversation forward through our collective action to reconcile with our past, and imagine a new way forward. We have been engaging in a conversation through our actions about what is necessary, what is worth doing, and what is best abstained from.  Each of us regardless of our social location has been asked to take another look at how we have been living our lives, and we have been challenged to see what is truly worthwhile about this life, and what is worth letting go. Many have been forced to let go of those who meant the world: whether they were killed by police, caught up in a pandemic, or simply caught up in the great reality: that for each of us the price of living is death, sooner or later. The way we spend that time while we have it matters. It matters to have a community like this to help offer presence and support in times of grief and times of joy, times of birth and times of death, and every transition in between. We are alive, and living is more than an academic matter.

I still get this gnawing sense that we haven’t got down to the real nitty gritty yet. The threats we witness; to our family’s health and to the health of this nation, I feel we are still only aware of symptoms and not root causes. We see the symptoms of disease, but we have yet to discover the root. And we must not give up until we discover the root. For it is in our discovery of the root that we will truly know what is necessary and what is unnecessary, what is ready to be let go of, and which roots are in need of water as they seek to thrive.

James Baldwin points us toward a fundamental question that gets at the root of many of the troubles we are witnessing. It’s a basic question, and often the most profound and liberating questions are simple, so simple they are easily missed and jumped over. The question he poses is why do we need to think anyone is inferior? It’s such a basic question. A child would ask this question. Why do we seem to need to view anyone as inferior? The answer to this question is less important than the thoroughgoing reckoning with the question itself. The question is like a mirror, and the more we spend time at this mirror, the more that we’ll notice. We’ll see the contours of our face, of our body, and we’ll start to notice the environment around us that gives us the contours, the person we call ourselves.  It may seem this would be a hellish exercise, but it doesn’t need to be. We can feel joy in discovering what is necessary and what is unnecessary. There is a great joy in being able to surrender the root of our suffering, and tend to the roots of our happiness and thriving.

There is a great freedom in being able to see what was always right in front of us, but was missed for most of our life, or only seen partially. It would be tempting to want to take a step back from this mirror when we see plenty we wish was not there, and retreat back into an image we had of ourselves or of life during a different era. It may be that we’ll need to do that. Personally and as a nation, we may feel the need to take a step backward, even turn around, and just stay put for the next 4-8 years, unable to dare the discovery that awaits us if we continue to stay with what we’re seeing, and allow what we’re seeing to change us and transform us.

This is a big year. For anyone, regardless of race or social location, this has been a year that every citizen across the globe will register as a significant year. That has never been true in my lifetime, until now. We are seeing that the hope for our democracy rests in our ability to face who we are now, and who we’ve been for a long time. We see now that racism is only a symptom of something much larger and profound, if we have the willingness to stay with it. We see how an economy that benefits a small minority of citizens seems to only thrive by making others’ lives less than safe and dignified. Why is that? Do we need to do that? These are the simple questions we are being asked to face. If what we’re doing is not working for a majority of our citizens on the margins, why do we need to keep doing things this way? Again, the answer is not as significant as being willing to stay with these questions long enough to transform us.

We are mostly water biologically. Just like how smaller bodies of water, streams, rivers, tributaries flow into larger bodies of water, I think we have the same instinct built into us. We naturally want to go home, toward something large and expansive, if we are given the ability to flow and move. We are given that ability right now. We are given the ability to be who we naturally are, which is something larger and more expansive than any of us will ever know. We are given the opportunity to grow into who we might become as persons. Will we retreat back into old habits and ways of viewing our lives and the lives of our neighbors? Maybe. But it won’t feel the same as it did. It will not feel real. And we will be forced to either continually distract ourselves from this fact, or choose another path forward. We’ll see this time not as an end, but a beginning, a beginning of a new life that is waiting to emerge that includes you, it includes me, and it includes the stranger. The beginning of a new life, where the stranger becomes our guest instead of our enemy or scapegoat. A new life when the victim becomes the hero, and those who are incarcerated in body and mind are set free. A new life where the gates of opportunity are opened not for a precious few but a multicolored humanity, a family of plant, mineral, animal, a family of water that knows the only way to flow is forward toward something larger.

This month’s theme is “Renewal.” It is renewing to be who we naturally are, and to allow justice to flow down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. We refill our bodies with justice and righteousness every day, with every sip of water we take. Do you know how long you can live without justice and righteousness? 3 days. Like water, justice is necessary for life. You’ll need at least a few drops to sustain you. But we can do better than a few drops. We’ve built dams to justice and righteousness, we’ve created a democracy that is more often a damn than an ever flowing stream, we’ve created an economy that damns most of our people, and we’ve created the myth of the inferior stranger. Why do we do this? Is it necessary? These are our questions this year. These are the questions that will allow us to be who we really are, and allow us to do what we need to do. It can be tempting to think that we need something to renew us to engage the path of justice and righteousness. But when we drink in the waters of justice, we are renewed. When we take in the ever flowing streams of rightness in the midst of wrong, we are sustained, and together we will thrive.