I wanted to start off today by thanking everyone who shared last week or who simply took part by being present to hear the stories and reflect on them as a church. For those of you who weren’t here, you missed some fascinating and at times colorful stories of how we came to be the church that we are today. Hopefully we’ll get some of that written up and saved for posterity. Those of you who still have your notes should get them to Kathy, who has graciously agreed to type them up.

The past two Sunday’s have been pretty remarkable. Two weeks ago I told the story of getting arrested during the recent anti-war protests in the city. Then last week we heard a powerful overview of the life of this church, of ASBC.

Today I want to try to merge the global crisis with our particular faith community. I’ve been thinking a lot about both and it seems to me the two are coming together in interesting ways. A couple of weeks ago I talked about the storms that are ravaging this nation using the story of Paul’s shipwreck. We saw how his faith saved everyone on the ship so that they made it to shore safely. I see our church as a kind of shore, a safe refuge for people who might otherwise drown alone at sea. Anyone who finds their way here is fortunate. I feel lucky to have found my way here. You all are really pretty amazing. So I’m excited to take a deeper look at what’s going on in the world and what role we might play as a progressive faith community, as a refuge for lost souls from all kinds of shipwrecks and storms.

I want to start by returning to the storm of these present times.

We know the rough outlines. In the wake of 9/11 our nation embarked on a course of pre-emptive war that continues to rage on in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rather than admit to our mistakes, the drums of war and fear-mongering continue to rumble so that "you’re either for us or against us," which is another way of saying that dissent is not allowed. Those who dare dissent are locked up in cages.

It’s enough to make you wonder what’s coming of our experiment in democracy. That’s precisely what Cornel West sets out to explore in his new book, Democracy Matters, subtitled, Winning the Fight Against Imperialism (New York: Penguin Press, 2004). Dr. West came to Park Slope to talk about his book a couple of weeks ago and I have to say it was one of the most inspiring talks I’ve ever heard. I felt like I was in the presence of Dr. King, of someone with a sharp mind, a learned intellect, and a courageous willingness to get real about what was going on in the world. But more remarkable than all that was the mesmerizing quality of his delivery. He sculpted his words and moved with a rhythm that was truly beautiful to behold.

He dug down deep, too, far below the pithy sound-bites and entertainment saturated shell games that pass for journalism today, tracing our current ills to three root problems. At least that’s what’s in his book. In his talk the other night he focused on what he identifies as three sources for resistance and rejuvenation—of our experiment in democracy.

In talking about what we’re up against, Dr. West identified three great "anti-democratic dogmas," the first of which is "free market fundamentalism." He says free market fundamentalism is "just as dangerous as …religious fundamentalism" because it takes a certain economic theory and lifts it up as sacred truth not to be challenged.

It’s hard to even imagine an alternative economic theory because this insidious dogma has so deeply infiltrated the fabric of our society. Dr. West writes that "…This illicit marriage of corporate and political elites—so blatant…in our time—not only undermines the trust of informed citizens in those who rule over them. It also promotes the pervasive sleepwalking of the populace, who see that the false prophets are handsomely rewarded with money, status, and access to more power. This profit-driven vision is sucking the democratic life our of American society" (p. 4).

The second "anti-democratic value" is aggressive militarism. This sounds a lot like King, who warned against the intertwining evils of poverty, racism and militarism. But the latter is being taken to a new extreme in America today. Dr. West writes, the "new doctrine [of preemptive strikes]

It’s hard to read those lines without hearing Arnold Schwazeneger ridiculing the unemployed as "girlie men." Dr. West is revealing the soil that such rhetoric grows out of. How alarming that a movie star is a spokesperson for those in power. But we can’t dare point that out because of the third anti-democratic dogma, which is "rampant authoritarianism."

We can’t say the king has no clothes because "you’re either for us or against us." Cornel West writes, "The major problem is not the vociferous

And that is precisely what Dr. West is so passionately invested in: the democratic experiment. He loves this country and like King is fighting to save the soul of America. And it is toward that end that he offers three equally powerful—one hopes even more powerful—sources of inspiration and renewal.

The first of these is Socratic dialogue. Here Dr. West is reaching back to the very foundations of democracy in ancient Greece. He means by this the capacity for self-questioning, "a relentless self-examination and critique of institutions of authority…" (p. 16). This "manifests in a fearless speech…that unsettles, unnerves, and unhouses people from their uncritical sleepwalking" (p. 17). In other words he’s saying we simply can no longer afford to believe the lie that we can do no wrong and have done no wrong. We must own up to our past and present in order to get real with ourselves and see the world more clearly. Those of you who have read my book will appreciate that this is what I was trying to do. As a straight white man attending Union Seminary I was forced to confront my collusion via race, class and sexual orientation, with the dominant culture in ultimately my collusion with the American empire.

One reason I was able to begin that life-long task had to do with Union’s grounding in the prophetic tradition. This is the second source that Dr. West identifies as essential to the survival of democracy: the prophetic traditions in all three Abrahamic faiths. It is the notion that we not only have to hold ourselves accountable, but we have to have some sort of universal standard to hold ourselves accountable to. I won’t belabor the point beyond mentioning it as a crucially important touchstone for the challenge before us.

But today it’s West’s third point that I want to emphasize by way of conclusion, and that pertains to the blues and what he more formally refers to as a sense of "tragicomic hope." We heard a little of what Dr. West has to say on that subject in our modern text today, including his observation that, "Tragicomic hope is a profound attitude toward life reflected in the work of artistic geniuses as diverse as…Cervantes in the Spanish empire, …Chekhov in the Russian empire" and Ralph Ellison in the American empire. Dr. West quotes Ralph Ellison on the importance of the blues, as being that "…impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one’s aching consciousness, to finger its jagged grain, and to transcend it, not by the consolation of philosophy but by squeezing from it a near-tragic, near-comic lyricism" (as found in West, p. 19).

Powerful stuff. ‘Keeping the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one’s aching consciousness.’ He’s talking about the suffering of slaves and the strength of spirit required to take the worst life has to offer and transform it into art, into the music, into the blues. Dr. West is trying to remind us that there is a great history of resistance and rebellion against the powers of greed and injustice, that the great artists and prophets down through history have risen up against it, daring to speak out on behalf of love and justice. They are part of that great cloud of witnesses that stand behind us as we carry on their work.

And I am very intentional about saying as "we" carry on their work. Last week we heard our share of tragedy and comedy as we were treated to a grand overview of the history of our church. We’ve had our struggles and we’ve risen above them, drawing on our sense of humor and hope and faith—as diverse as our sense of faith is.

You have succeeded in creating a community where everyone is welcome, where the ideals of justice are allowed to shine, where we dare question what’s going on in the world and even to look critically at our own role in the various kinds of oppression which stain the world with the blood of the victims.

As I see it, while the anti-democratic forces described by Cornel West have unfolded, the ideals he lifts up as sources of resistance have been nurtured right here in this faith community. And now we find ourselves like Robert Johnson, standing at a crossroads both in terms of our nation’s history and in the life of our church. We’ve got a rare message of inclusion and justice and respect for the world religions that is badly needed in the world today.

And we’re being offered a platform through which to share that message with the broader world. According to the old legend, Robert Johnson made a deal with the Devil at the crossroads. But if you ask me, he made a deal with God, with the creative energies of the universe. He devoted himself to transcending suffering and living life to the fullest, and God saw to it that his music soared to the top of the world.

So as we stand at the crossroads and God appears to have a chat with us, we’ve got a decision to make. We can keep playing our music here, or we can take a chance to move a little closer to the big city, where a few more people might wander in and find out what we’re up to. I think you all know me well enough now to know where I stand. I’m ready to slide all my poker chips out onto the table. Worst case scenario, we find ourselves right back here. And the best? We end up with a full house. Amen.

ASBC Story:

Early days:

-different dynamics, but central to the family traditions

-affected by the movements of the larger denominations

-and yet sufficiently congregational so as to maintain some autonomy

Something wonderful was created:

-a truly diverse faith community with wide ranging interests

(an acceptance of gay and lesbian people)

-an openness to different ways of being spiritual

-a strong sense of justice

There was a time of crisis, but it was worked through

-now there’s very little attention paid to whether someone was part of one predecessor church or the other and many weren’t part of either—they’ve come post-merger