Sermon    “What Keeps Us Separate?”

The Rev. Rali Weaver

My sermon title this morning is a question that originates from a mantra recited on Street Retreats as part of the Faithful Fools Street Ministry in San Francisco.

“What holds us separate, what keeps us separate, is not as much as what still connects us.”

The Faithful Fools are a social witness ministry who walk with the homeless in the streets of San Francisco to witness and help them to articulate their lives.

Their mission statement reads:

We are called to a ministry of presence that acknowledges each human’s incredible worth.

Aware of our judgments, we seek to meet people where they are through the arts, education, advocacy and accompaniment.

We participate in shattering myths about those living in poverty, seeing the light, courage, intelligence, strength and creativity of the people we encounter.

We discover on the streets our common humanity, through which celebration, community, and healing occur.

Today as we begin to explore how we might as a community take more responsibility for the needs of the Dedham Food Pantry, I thought it might be good and right for us to explore our own judgments and participate in shattering any myths we might carry about those living in poverty. To do so I thought it might help to begin by meditating upon the Faithful Fools Mantra “What holds us separate, What keeps us separate, is not as much as what still connects us.”

Maybe you could say that with me

“What holds us separate, what keeps us separate is not as much as what still connects us.”

Say it again with me. “What holds us separate, what keeps us separate is not as much as what still connects us.”

I want you to imagine walking through some of the poorer neighborhoods of San Francisco or the poorer neighborhoods in Boston – or closer yet here in Dedham. As you imagine walking along the streets of East Dedham, or Mattapan or Dorchester or Roxbury-- I want you to imagine repeating that phrase over and over “What holds us separate what keeps us separate is not as much as what still connects us.”

When the Faithful Fools say these words they say them in the midst of spending a day or a week living alongside the homeless in their streets. The majority of the people who go on these retreats go on them just once but these first impressions alter their perception of poverty and homelessness forever.

When you walk the streets of the city without a place to go, it is easy to see why loitering might be a necessary evil. When you stand on the line for the soup kitchen and after an hour or more of waiting are told they have run out of food you realize how hungry missing one meal can make you when you don’t know when you will get to eat again.

Little awarenesses -- we all need underwear and shoes, water to drink is not always free or easy to find, having a place to sit or to get out of the sun, or warm up, or go to the bathroom is something every body needs—These little awarenesses help to dismantle our privilege and dispel the myths that hold us separate.

When I spent the day in the streets of San Francisco with the Faithful Fools I realized how difficult it is to feel safe or at ease in the city and I wondered what could be blessed about being poor. The young adults I had with me started to make sense of the need for pleasure among the homeless men and women we got to know. They saw a reason behind the drug and nicotine usage and how small pleasures and quick fixes could raise spirits in the short term. Which came first, they would wonder, the drugs or the homelessness?

One day I was walking home after a day of sight seeing and I encountered a relatively well-dressed Black woman who was asking for help. Could she have $20 dollars? I had heard so many of these stories before but then I noticed a bruise above her right eye. Her story was of being abused, of needing to flee and $20 would get her to her sister’s house. I had no money on me and wanted to give her my phone number at the church but had no pen. What surprised me was that she, better dressed than I at the time, asked six or seven people for something to write with and not one of them would look at her or help. I finally realizing what was happening asked the next person who passed if they had a pen and they handed it to me right away. The color of our skin and no other factor could have made the people passing respond in that way. That experience and her story weighed on my heart. What would become of her? Where would she end up? I did give her my phone number and lent her what help I could.

And later, I dreamed of archiving the stories of the homeless and disenfranchised in that city, not because they were to be admired but because they were living beings that were invisible on the streets. Her story became part of my story. Her plight my plight. I thought if we could share the stories of those in the streets, eventually people of privilege (like me) might realize there are not so many differences between us.

When I shared my dream with a close colleague his response was short and abrupt: “You know Rali, familiarity really does bread contempt”.

On the contrary however her story had not bred contempt in my heart but a deep longing for change and I began to wonder again: what keeps us separate? Is it our apathy? or an active need to maintain the status quo? or fear for our own safety?

I saw the same phenomenon in Boston. Very few people knew the names of the homeless people they would pass every day. Michael, who greeted every visitor to Charles Street, or John who bummed cigarettes in the Boston Common all day would at times be described at parties I went to as “that man with the frog like voice” or “the man who stands in front of Deluca’s”. They were characters in people’s lives but rarely characters with known names. And more often these people we passed daily in the streets weren’t noticed at all. What keeps us separate? Is it our apathy? or an active need to maintain the status quo? or fear for our own safety?

I must admit I am certain this may not be anyone else’s concern. I am a minister with a deep call within my heart to help the disenfranchised, to help the invisible become visible. This may not be your call. But if we live in a society that is able to turn a blind eye to the experience of a few, when might they turn their blind eye to you, or to me? Why aren’t we all a part of each other’s story? Why aren’t the needs of the few our needs?

You have probably seen the passage written by Pastor Martin Niemoller a prominent anti-Nazi theologian:

“In Germany they first came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me —
and by that time no one was left to speak up.”

Aren’t all the dividing lines put there to intentionally keep us separate? To keep us from acting in the best interest of our neighbor?

When William Ellery Channing helped to form the Benevolent Fraternity that is now the Unitarian Universalist Urban Ministry, its mission was to “elevate the poor”. At the time the poor people of Boston could not go to church because to go to church you had to buy a pew, and if you could not buy a pew you could not have a seat in church. I wonder how many of us could not sit in church if that same system were in place today? Channing and his collegues in ministry strove to build separate chapels to provide a place of worship to the poor and thus elevate their thoughts to those of the men who could afford the better seats.

There is something to my sensibilities that is both wonderful and horrible about this. It is wonderful because they noticed a need and were trying to meet it. But I ask you why not provide seating in your own church for those in need? Why make a separate and most likely not equal place for worship?

Still this was the beginning of our UU Urban Ministry that does a great deal to meet the needs of the disenfranchised in our city.

For the past four years I have attended the UU Urban Ministry’s annual meeting and the one consistent theme is how much the providers learn and gain from their work with those in need. Maya Angelou once wrote that she had “found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver” and this is truly what the UU Urban ministry embodies. Congregations involved in its work proclaim the great benefits they receive. Staff members hired to work at the UU Urban Ministry speak of how the work they do has transformed their own lives.

True generosity and goodness engender transformative work, and I want that for all of us.

As we think about the underserved families in our own town, I wonder how we might liberate our own spirit as a church by providing for those in need.

The food pantry has in fact found a new home. I hope you will stay after worship to hear more about it. I don’t want to spoil all the surprise but I can tell you that it is a step up from the basement they have occupied for twenty years. But if we keep in mind the mantra we started out with we must ask what holds us separate? What kept the Food Pantry in an inadequate space that clients and workers had to carry bags up and down stairs, where clients with handicaps could not easily access the space?

What might it be like if we provided for the food pantry in the way that we might want to be provided for? The forbearers of this parish felt a connection to the work of the court and so provided the land so long as the court should need it. What if we in our time felt the same pressing need for the food pantry? How might our vision shift if we put aside our fears and refused to separate our desires from those of the hungry and in need in our community? What type of permanent home for the food pantry would we desire to build if it were OUR food pantry?