Faith in the Face of Disaster: UU Response to Hurricane Katrina

The Soul of America

A sermon by the Rev. Scott W. Alexander
River Road Unitarian Church
Bethesda, MD
Sunday, September 18, 2005

READING
From “The American Commitment” by The Rev. A. Powell Davies

The reading before the sermon (this morning) was written some 50 years ago by the Rev. A Powell Davies, the outstanding Unitarian minister who led All Souls Church in Washington DC during the 1940's and 50's. Often in his sermons, he spoke of the American soul and the morality of American social policy. Here are his words:

"The American commitment is to universal justice, the rights of all people – not the special interests of some. It is a commitment to fair play, to patience, to tolerance, to neighborliness. It is a commitment to THE COMMON GOOD. It protects…the opportunity of each with the good of all. It is compassionate, humanitarian. It believes in humanity and in its future. It is the Golden Rule [“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”]…It battles prejudice and false opinion. It seeks the truth. It is opposed to barriers of exclusiveness. Its principles are universal. It despises cowardice, including moral cowardice. But it has no use of obstinacy, inflexibility, and intolerance. It prefers honesty to cleverness, kindness to self-sufficiency, goodwill to narrow minded aims.

"If anyone asks by what right I define these characteristics as American, I point him to those Americans the rest of us revere as great. I say that America is defined by the moral progress she has sought and by exemplars – not by the hour of perfidy (and by her little-minded, greedy foes).

"And if anyone tells me that these characteristics are more than American, that they are universal, I will reply that that is why they are American. Because this nation was not founded on the divisive and the separate, but upon the rights of all people. 

"Can we restore these standards? Can we seek again the touch of greatness? The future will depend upon the answer…upon what takes place in [the American] heart and conscience. A nation, like an individual, must have a soul."

SERMON

This morning – as I begin my eighth year as your Senior Minister – I want to address a crucial aspect of American life (a crucial aspect of the national life that we share as citizens, one to the other) that has weighed increasingly heavy (on my heart and mind) during the sabbatical I recently completed. I have, over recent months, become worried sick about the present state of the American soul, and fear that the precious social contract of compassion and connection that has held us together as a people (over the nearly 230 year history of our republic), is becoming dangerously weakened. Deepening my sense of outrage and fear over recent weeks has been the still-unfolding human disaster in the wake of Hurricane Katrina…the disaster that resulted from the scandalously inadequate governmental response (at all levels) to the poor, sick and elderly of New Orleans…the scandalously inadequate response which is responsible for hundreds of unnecessary deaths and untold amounts of unnecessary human suffering.

As a religious liberal and a social progressive (and I am both a religious liberal and social progressive because of the moral values of my Unitarian Universalist faith), never before in my life as a citizen of this great land have I been so disturbed (and, yes, so depressed and angry!) about the drift and direction of American social policy and public life. There is no nice way to say it, friends, so I might as well be right out with it… I believe that as a people, we Americans have allowed the soul of our nation to be dangerously and immorally diminished – diminished by economic greed, by excessive individualism, and calloused social policies and priorities that (if allowed to continue) may destroy everything we cherish about this republic. It is not hyperbole to suggest that the humanity and goodness of our nation itself is now in mortal danger.

And I further believe (with all my heart and soul) that all citizens – most especially progressive and compassionate citizens – must now fight (in the public square and in the intellectual marketplace of this nation) to restore that soul which lies at the heart of our unique republic. I believe that all the American people – progressives…and conservatives… and everyone in-between – all Americans are presently in a moral crisis of incredible magnitude, importance and intensity…a moral crisis we must somehow, together, address, reverse, and overcome. We must (together) restore the American dream to its original stature and strength…we must strengthen the all-important social contract between all citizens (most especially those in want or need). In these early years of the 21st Century, we must once again become a nation of generosity, inclusion, compassion and opportunity for all citizens.

The moral crisis we face in America today – the moral crisis we cannot avoid and must address…all of us…together…as a people…citizens, one with another…with full heart and moral being – has nothing to do with the laundry list of so called “Moral Issues” that American social and religious conservatives want us focus on – things like gay marriage, abortion, stem cell research, sex education, prayer in schools, displays of the Ten Commandments (as important as they are as social issues). The moral crisis we Americans face is the systematic and unacceptable diminishment (over recent years) of the social contract …the social contract of compassion , connection and concern we Americans must extend to one another as fellow citizens…most especially those Americans in human want, scarcity and need.

Surely no one in this room this morning would deny that over recent years, we have witnessed (and, yes, together allowed) a dramatic downsizing of the social duty and moral responsibility we Americans have for the well-being of one another. Ironically, as America has become the richest nation on earth….the size and capacity of the American heart has shriveled. Amidst our incredible prosperity and freedom, the American soul has shrunk and become hardened. As a people, we have noticeably “walked away” from our national commitment to the common good (that national commitment A. Powell Davies talked about so passionately 50 years ago). As a nation, we have “walked away” from our responsibility for ensuring the well-being and basic comfort of all citizens. And this “shriveling” of the American soul (this “narrowing of the arteries” of the national heart, if you will) has (like any disease of the heart) often been both slow and subtle, making it hard for us to even recognize what is happening to us as a people. But the fact that we can (conveniently) choose (from time to time) to be morally asleep to what is happening to us does not let us off the hook. Over recent years, we Americans – as a people – have become decidedly more privatistic (both economically and culturally), giving ourselves increasing permission to close our hearts and our pocketbooks …and ignore (in our national social policies and spending priorities) the fundamental human needs of our fellow citizens. It is no accident, my fellow Americans, that at the same time the government has been cutting the taxes collected from affluent Americans, programs which serve, uplift and defend poor Americans have also been cut. Fool yourself about anything you wish, but do not deny that when our taxes are cut (out here in the affluent suburbs), the common good is always, always, always diminished.

As far as I am concerned (as an American citizen and patriot), what has been happening of late in America is a moral outrage:

It is a moral outrage that (in the world's richest nation) the gap between the wealthiest of American families (those few who make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year) and the poorest of American families (the 37 million – now the nearly 13% of the population who are forced to live beneath the poverty line) is growing…

It is a moral outrage that (in the world's richest nation) 44 million Americans – 44 million, nearly 15% of the population, including 30 million children under the age of 18 – do not have any health coverage or protection…

It is a moral outrage that (in the world's richest nation) we rank 34th in our global infant mortality rate, allowing (through our medical and social neglect) more babies to die here than die prematurely in profoundly poorer nations like Cyprus, Andorra, and Brunei.

It is a moral outrage that (across the board) this nation's environmental regulations and pollution controls (that protect the health and well-being of all the nation's people) are being systematically gutted, weakened or abandoned so that a few corporate interests can enrich themselves…

It is a moral outrage that taxes are being cut for the wealthiest of Americans at the same time food, housing, education, and health programs are being cut for the neediest citizens…

It is a moral outrage that fat cat corporations and their lobbyists are permitted to throw hundreds of thousands of dollars at national politicians and their parties and then claim there is no public corruption when regulations (and lack of regulations) favoring those corporations (which clearly endanger the citizenry) are pushed through congress by those very same politicians…

It is a moral outrage that at the very moment the global economy requires superbly educated and trained American workers that public schools all across the country struggle to provide even the barest-bones programs because of governmental cuts in educational funding…

It is a moral outrage that the so called “minimum wage” for millions of working poor in America still stands at $5.15 an hour (no one in this economy can live on that!) and that long-standing protections and benefits for ordinary American workers are being systematically striped from the work place (at the very time) corporate executives are paying themselves millions and millions of dollars a year a piece.

It is a moral outrage that the American military will spend 400 billion this year on armaments and war-making (more than the next 20 biggest spending nations combined) when one half of that amount would go most of the way toward ending poverty as we know it in America today…

We are in a true moral crisis here in America today, friends…a crisis of the American heart and soul…and that crisis is all about our apparent willingness (as citizens, of late) to turn our backs on “ the common good” of this land, and turn our backs on those in our society who need support, protection, compassion, and care. This is not how America began.

While it is always dangerous to overly romanticize the beginnings of this nation, I will assert (with historical proof that I will share in a moment) that when this nation was settled (more than 370 years ago) the original vision that bound the citizenry together was a vision of our mutual belonging to one another, as citizens of connection and caring. I know I have shared this story of my first American ancestors (from this pulpit) before, but it bears repeating now as we Americans struggle now to decide how we will live with and care for one another.

On April 7, 1630, my ancestors on my Mother's side (humble Puritans by the name of William and Joanna Towne) set sail from England with John Winthrop's (four ship) Great Fleet, and arrived at Salem harbor (in what is now “the commonwealth” of Massachusetts). The day before the ships' 400 passengers were actually to disembark and begin building their new community on the shores of New England, the four ships were lashed together, and the fleet's commander – John Winthrop…who would later become the first governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts – delivered a stirring sermon from the pitching deck of his flagship The Arbella. It gives me goose bumps now to realize that my Towne forbears (my grandparents seven times removed) heard (and hopefully took to heart) some of Winthrop's now famous words…when, with their new home in sight, he described the moral ideal ( the civic ideal ) of “the shining city upon the hill,” which he hoped those rugged Puritan settlers would build together in the new “promised land.” The "Shining City” (although those early Puritans believed in economic freedom and opportunity for all) was not to be a place of unfettered individualism and private wealth (as so many who run our country now seem to believe is their birth right as people of privilege)...but rather would be a true, compassionate and just community where every citizen's welfare would be of concern to all. I quote Winthrop 's exact words from that morning:

“We shall be as a shining city upon a hill…For this end we must be knit together. We must entertain each other
in brotherly affection…We must delight in each other…make others conditions our own…We must be willing
to give up our superfluities [which means our abundant excesses] to supply others' necessities…[we must]
rejoice together…mourn together…labor and suffer together… always having before our eyes our community
as members of the same body …so shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace…[so] that men
shall say of later plantations, ‘May the Lord make it like that of New England.'”

My Salem ancestors (and all those other early Puritans who came across the sea in search of a better life) shared a vision of an America that would establish compassion and justice for all its citizens, tending regularly to the welfare and dignity of all, that no citizen suffer in destitution or want. This vision, dear friends, was the oroginal vision of social contract in America …a social contract where citizens bound together in mutual human being. Government was understood (in those early days) not as a vehicle for the rich and comfortable to ensure their continued prosperity…but rather the role of the government was envisioned to be that of ensuring for the basic human dignity and needs of all. We have come a long way since then, and I fear we have (along the way, and of late) lost a part of that original (and generous) American Soul.

If America is to be the great and humane nation it is capable of being, we must reclaim (all of us) the fullness and compassion of our national soul.

And let me say this loud and clear so that you will all hear it (and not accuse me of a liberal bias that permits me this morning to scold only those Americans who label themselves “conservatives”)… All Americans – liberals, conservatives, and everybody in-between – share responsibility for the downsizing of the American soul and the hardening of the American heart that we have witnessed over recent years. Elected officials from both national political parties (Democrat and Republican alike) have presided over the diminishment of American social duty for the common good. Despite their differences, both dominant political parties have (at least to some degree) participated in the decimation of social programs (through the unwise and immoral reduction of taxes)…and the subsequent dismantling of the legislative and regulatory structure that was put in place to protect and care for all Americans, most especially those in want and need. And just as we all share at least some responsibility for the mess we are in, all of us too must now share in the work of rebuilding the American soul (once again) and replenishing the American heart with new compassion and justice. We must (as Abraham Lincoln implored the American people in his first inaugural address in 1861 just before the national tragedy of the Civil War) call ourselves back to “The better angels of our nature,” those “angels” being our generosity …our compassion …and our unwavering human concern for one another. All of us here at River Road Unitarian Church have a role to play in replenishing and re-humanizing the American Soul.

[PAUSE…]

Upon my return from my sabbatical last month, I told the Board of Trustees of this congregation that my first (and foremost) professional goal for the 2005-2006 church year here at RRUC is the one you see printed in your Order of Service this morning: I told them that I intend to “Work to make River Road Unitarian Church a congregation known (both in our national capital region…and in the nation at large) for articulating and embodying a public American ethic of connection, compassion and concern with and for human beings everywhere, most especially those who are disempowered or disadvantaged.” As the Ministers of this congregation, Ginger Luke, Amanda and I intend to do our part – both in the public square here in the Washington D.C. area and in the wider intellectual marketplace across America – to fight for the common good, to fight for a renewed social contract based on care and concern for all…and for the compassionate and just replenishment of the American Soul…and I pray you will pledge in your own heart today to join with us in this fight (as this congregation has historically always done through its many Social Justice Task forces and human service programs) to restore and ennoble the American Soul.

Now…let there be no doubt about it in any of our hearts or minds as American citizens. Restoring the American Soul to it's original, inclusive, compassionate stature (as reflected in John Winthrop's holy and original American vision of that “Shining City upon the hill ” where no American – no matter how powerless or poor – is left behind…and in Abraham Lincoln's call for all Americans to live from “the better angels of our nature ) ” will require that we all:
1) First… pay a price (out there in society, as we care for all citizens), AND
2) Secondly… work on our own individual heart's (in here [SCOTT POINTS TO HIS OWN CHEST] …so that we truly and deeply feel and act on our connection and belonging to all persons everywhere).

First, the price that is to be paid (out there…in the economic life of our nation).
Compassionate care and concern for all of American citizens (most especially for the poor, the unemployed, the uneducated, the defenseless, the elderly and sick) will come with very real economic costs, and will (by logic) require increased taxation for most Americans (and a short-term reduction at least) in the standard of living enjoyed by most of us out here in the affluent suburbs. We Unitarian Universalists (who are guided by the moral imperative to protect and defend “the inherent worth and dignity of every person” – it says so right here in our orders of service!) will be required to share some of our obvious economic abundance with others less privileged…period. The good society...the just society …the compassionate society …the humane society has real costs . The Good Society is not cheap …and we Americans (who have so much…and who have benefited so richly from the economic and social system, as almost all of us – in this room right now – have) must (without complaint or greed) pay our fair share toward its just creation. Let me put all this another way. Taxes collected by governments at all levels (if wisely and compassionately spent) are the glue of the good society … the capital of the social contract...and the currency that enriches the soul of the nation.

And in addition to the economic cost (each of us must ungrudgingly pay as American citizens, one with another), there is the interior soul work each of us must simultaneously undergo. As Americans (and Unitarian Universalists) each of us must do the hard soul work of spiritually making Evermore room in our hearts for all of our fellow citizens – most especially the homeless, the hungry, the unemployed, the poor and sick and elderly (every last American in distress or need, no matter how different from us they might at first seem). No one ever said that generosity of heart (or comfort with people who seem different from us) came easy to human beings. We are all fearful of human difference…all fearful of “the stranger”…and each of us is naturally self-protective and self-interested (especially when it comes to money)…that's the way human beings are wired. But the principles, and moral values, and challenge of our faith are clear. We Unitarian Universalists must continuously risk and welcome a wider circle of love and compassion – first in our own struggling hearts (where we want to find generosity toward and healing with all Americans), and then (by good works and persuasion) in the wider society…and in the soul of the nation.

[PAUSE…]

So…our new church year begins…Ginger, Amanda and I promise to regularly articulate as best we can from this pulpit a new American ethic of compassion and connection for and between all Americans. But that, of course, will not be enough. If our congregation is to live up to its moral and human promise, all of you (the many members and friends of River Road Unitarian Church) must join with us in fighting (where you live and move and work and have your being as American citizens) for the replenishment and expansion of the American Soul. This congregation (since its founding in 1959) has always expressed its compassion and concern for Americans in need. We have always been a congregation committed to a just and humane America. But now is the time for us to re-double our efforts…individually and together. Though we sometimes get discouraged (by the direction the country seems to be moving in) we nonetheless have the power to persuade the heart of America to change and grow. As each of us moves through our daily rounds (at work, and at home…in our neighborhoods and friendship circles) we can speak up, and act up, and persuade America (by the power of our conviction) to live up to its highest and most compassionate self.

So let us together get about this holy work of moving America toward it's wisest and most compassionate self. Let us (with all others of good will) breath the fire of compassion into the heart of the nation. Let us never lose sight of that “Shining City upon the hill” where all citizens are protected and valued. The Soul of America now hangs in the balance. Let us lend “the stubborn weight of our few ounces” on the side of what is humane and right for America. Let us grow the soul of the nation by our generosity…our compassion…and our love.

Amen.

Faith in the Face of Disaster: UU Response to Hurricane Katrina

• In the Eye of the Storm: Resources and Commentary following Hurricane Katrina

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