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On this Annual Meeting Sunday, I thought I would reflect a few moments with you about the Church in relation to our world, our nation, our community, and ourselves.

First, the world. Last weekend at our UCC Central Atlantic Conference annual meeting in Delaware, Dale Bishop, our outgoing Executive for Wider Church Ministries, addressed the gathering. He has spent much time with Muslims and Christians in the Middle East and he told of the perceptions Christians there and in the third world have of us. While we assume that many of these Christians are oppressed and yearn for freedom to practice their faith, they see us as the ones in need of their prayers. Why? Because they believe we have fallen prey to idolatry – in fact many idolatries. They see us as bending our knees to the false gods of nationalism, militarism, and materialism. They see us as afraid to speak out on the most important questions – war and peace, and the great divide between the rich and the poor, throughout the world, and in our own nation. Bishop said this: "Nationalism keeps us apart. The God of our faith binds us together. For all are children of God, all loved and cherished by God equally. We cannot worship God and nation equally or at the same time." In the Old Testament scripture this morning we heard about how the Philistines depended on military might, the best technology, and a weapon of mass destruction named Goliath to impose their national interest on others. I fear that America has become Goliath in the world. There is no doubt that this is how we are seen. Christians here need to listen to Christians elsewhere and together speak out against nationalism, militarism, and materialism.

Christians are called to speak the Word of God to a broken and troubled world. I remember as a college student reading the words of the French resistance fighter and existentialist Albert Camus. Commenting on the silence of so many Christians during the holocaust he said that he wasn’t asking or expecting Christians to do good or even be good. Camus wrote:

America has been playing around with imperialism since the mid-nineteenth century. There was the Mexican War and what we called the "annexation" of the Philippines, an expression of what an American President called God’s will and our "Manifest Destiny." And this period in our history is the same one in which greater and greater wealth and power came to be concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer Americans. In a recent speech, Bill Moyers (one of the few voices of integrity in broadcast journalism today) said this.

In one way or another…the oldest story in America (is) the struggle to determine whether "we, the people" is a spiritual idea embedded in a political reality - one nation, indivisible - or merely a charade masquerading as piety and manipulated by the powerful and privileged to sustain their own way of life at the expense of others.

He quotes the historian Page Smith on our American founders:

"(Their) ambition was not merely to free themselves from dependence and subordination to the Crown but to inspire people everywhere to create agencies of government and forms of common social life that would offer greater dignity and hope to the exploited and suppressed" - to those, in other words, who had been the losers. Not surprisingly, the winners often resisted.

The history of our country has been the battle to extend dignity and hope. In talking about the abuses of what Mark Twain called the "Gilded Age" and afterwards, Moyers makes an interesting observation.

From his own public comments and my reading of the record, it is apparent that (presidential advisor) Karl Rove has modeled the Bush presidency on that of William McKinley, who was in the White House from 1897 to 1901, and modeled himself on Mark Hanna, the man who virtually manufactured McKinley. Hanna had one consummate passion - to serve corporate and imperial power…Mark Hanna - Karl Rove's hero - made William McKinley governor of Ohio by shaking down the corporate interests of the day. Fortunately, McKinley had the invaluable gift of emitting sonorous platitudes as though they were recently discovered truth. Behind his benign gaze the wily intrigues of Mark Hanna saw to it that first Ohio and then Washington were "ruled by business...by bankers, railroads and public utility corporations." Any who opposed the oligarchy were smeared as disturbers of the peace, socialists, anarchists, "or worse." Back then they didn't bother with hollow euphemisms like "compassionate conservatism" to disguise the raw reactionary politics that produced government "of, by, and for" the ruling corporate class. They just saw the loot and went for it…This "degenerate and unlovely age," as one historian calls it, exists in the mind of Karl Rove…as the seminal age of inspiration for the politics and governance of America today.

Moyers goes on to say that "Democracy doesn’t work without citizen activism and participation, starting at the community." What about our community? Chatting with Jim Henkelman-Bahn last week, I was describing Rio de Janeiro, with its stark contrasts of abject poverty and immense wealth, of good people who are very poor victimized by drug lords and violence and indifference by the rich; teeming and diverse cultures trying to find their way. And Jim said, "What you are describing is Long Branch." Extending from Colesville Road West and down to Takoma Park, the Long Branch Community has lots of problems – struggling schools, crowded housing, crime, and drugs. Long Branch has now embarked on a process not unlike what went on in downtown Silver Spring, with community representatives working together not only to revitalize their neighborhoods, but to find a way to live in a multi-cultural community. Our congregation is located within the geographical boundaries of Long Branch. Many of you live there. We are proud, are we not, of the positive social impact our congregation has had in our community over the years – Emergency Homes, Extended Hand, Shepherd’s Table, Progress Place, Christmas in April-Building Together. I think it is time we take a closer look right where we are. At a meeting of the Long Branch Task Force that I attended last Thursday, it was clear that some folks believe that community problems are the fault of the immigrant and minority groups and that the answer is that they should go elsewhere. Others were saying that our community is the world in microcosm and let’s get it to work. I was chatting with one community activist there who offered to take any of us interested on a tour of Long Branch. I’d like to take him up on that. Perhaps this is something some of you might like to do too.

Which brings me to Christ Congregational Church, you and me. For the past five years, our congregational agenda has been dominated by what I would call a badly needed time of "healthy self-care" – self-care as a community dealing with loss, and dealing with badly needed improvements to our building. It hasn’t been easy, but I believe we have done well in both these areas. Amazingly well. But legitimate self-care can, over time, become cloying self-absorption. Personally, I think it is time to start looking outward more. Rev. James Forbes of Riverside Church in New York is fond of saying that nothing much happens in a church unless you’ve got projects. Vision is indispensable, but projects put "legs on ideas." I think we need to pursue some world-wide projects: how about AIDS in Africa, or a sister-city in Latin America?. I’m excited by the Global Learning Initiative Linda is working on with our youth. I think we need a project right here in our Long Branch community. And I think we need to start speaking out more clearly about the impact of militarism and nationalism here at home. How about getting some people together to talk about the so-called Patriot Act, a legislative effort that many legal scholars and civil libertarians on the left and on the right believe to be a direct assault on our freedoms as Americans. And no one has yet been able to explain to me how our government can still hold people prisoner without charging them with any crime and not designating them as prisoners of war. It seems to me that that is plainly wrong. Many local communities are resisting the Patriot Act and passing legislation opposing it.

On this Annual meeting Sunday, there is no doubt we face challenges as a congregation. Sometimes we can feel like those beleaguered disciples in the boat with Jesus. The storm is raging. How can we afford to do what we need to do? How should we worship on Sunday? What is the best staff size and configuration? How will we live through saying good-bye to Linda and Dale? Now I, as one leader among you, can’t wave my hand and calm these CCC storms that worry us. But I can tell you how we can calm them together. I’ve prayed about this. I’ve looked at the man from Galilee dozing peacefully in the boat. And a word that came to me is this: there is a way to still the storm, tame the giant, and get on with being a church. And that way – have a really successful recommitment campaign. The answer is on the income side. The word from God is, as always, stop worrying – especially about money. Seek first the kingdom of heaven. The best way to stop worrying about money is to get it out of the way by giving it away. I think God is telling us to get this debt down or we will forever use it as an excuse to keep us from our true calling. That is what my prayer has yielded in this. We’ve got good people leading this campaign. Let’s make it work.

In closing, let me say a word about spirituality. The theme of my sabbatical was "Being and Doing." I believe that after many years of "doing" quite a bit, we need to be "being." But ultimately "being" is not about action or inaction, doing or not doing. Being is about being present to God – both when we are still and when we are active. Without this understanding, actions are empty and inaction is narcissistic. And I believe, more than ever, that true spirituality, true peace of mind, is not really about finding our comfort zone or freedom from distraction, or really any "experience" at all. True spirituality always comes down to Jesus’ words in the garden, "Thy will be done." The Upanishads teach a universal truth that the spiritual quest for each person ultimately involves a choice between two things: that which is pleasant and that which is good. That is the question we always need to lift up, not only as individuals, but as a congregation. What makes us feel pleasant - whether that be worship, common life, or even involvement in the world - may not always be good. Think about it. In any event, with faith, in choosing the good, we can tame every giant and still every storm. AMEN.

Full text of Moyer's speech.

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