This is our story
Hebrews 11: 29 – 12: 2
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
August 18, 2019
Earlier this week I read a post on Facebook written by George Takei: “Many say they don’t recognize the America we live in now. But I do. I lived through an America which had lost its way, misled by politicians stoking fear and hate to get elected. And yes, it was an America with camps. But I have also seen America rise from that low. I have hope.”
In 1942 George was 5 years old when his family was forced to leave their home in Los Angeles to live in the converted horse stables of Santa Anita Park, then an internment camp in Rohwer, Arkansas, eventually being transferred to the Tule Lake War Relocation Center in California. Between 110,000 – 120,000 Japanese Americans were interned during WWII. Even if a person was of 1/16 Japanese descent they were interned. About 80,000 were second and third generation, born in the states with U.S. citizenship. The rest were first generation immigrants who were not eligible for U.S. citizenship.
Most of the Nisei or second generation, American-born Japanese on the west coast of the U.S. were farmers raising fruits and vegetables and nursery plants. When the exclusion orders came they had to clear out in just a few days. Mother’s Day flowers were abandoned in the fields. An orchard owner who was unable to sell the contents of his nurseries gave it all to a veteran’s hospital. The owner of a strawberry farm asked to delay his departure so he could harvest the berries. When he was denied this request, in an act of defiance he plowed under his crop. The FBI then charged him with an act of sabotage and put him in jail.
Children were born in these camps. People came to their last days in these camps. One could leave the camps if they joined the military and fought in the war or if one’s profession or skill was useful to the war effort but many of these were made to move east instead of back to the west coast where many of them were born and raised.
When the exclusion orders were finally rescinded, the date was postponed so as not to interfere with Roosevelt’s reelection in 1944. Nine out of the ten camps were closed in 1945, except Tule Lake, the one that George and his family were in. It closed in March 1946. 66 years later George’s story would inspire a Broadway musical entitled Allegiance and he would have a starring role. In 1976 President Gerald Ford formally apologized for the internment stating that it was wrong, it was a national mistake, and that it shall never again be repeated. In 1988 President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act which granted reparations for the internment of Japanese Americans. In 1992 the act was amended by President George H. W. Bush to ensure that all remaining detainees receive reparation and he issued another formal apology.
58 years ago in 1961 East Berliners had their last chance to escape to West Berlin. They could take only what they were wearing. An estimated 3,000 people crossed the border on August 12. The next day the border was closed with barbed wire and the construction of the Berlin Wall began. For 28 years the wall was the visible, tangible part of the “Iron Curtain” that divided post-WWII Europe. In the fall of 1989, after several revolutions in eastern Europe, East Germany allowed East Berliners to visit West Berlin and that was the beginning of the end of the Berlin Wall. For several weeks people climbed onto the wall, sang songs, and chipped off pieces of it to take home. Germany was reunified in 1990 and the wall was completely dismantled by 1992.
This is our story. This is our song. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. In an interview this week Anderson Cooper said to Stephen Colbert: “You said you have learned to love the thing that you most wish had not happened. You went on to say, ‘What punishment of gods are not gifts’. Do you really believe that?” (Colbert had quoted Tolkien.) Colbert replied, “Yes. It’s a gift to exist. And with existence comes suffering. There’s no escaping that. …If you’re grateful for your life, then you have to be grateful for all of it. …It’s about the fullness of your humanity. …I want to be the most human I can be, and that involves acknowledging and ultimately being grateful for the things I wish didn’t happen because they gave me a gift.” He went on to say, “In my tradition that’s the great gift of the sacrifice of Christ is that God does it too. That you’re really not alone. God does it too.”
The author of the letter to the Hebrews wrote to encourage a community of faith that they were not alone. The community had begun with great energy and confidence but was now feeling the pain of suffering and serving and it was affecting their community life.
Some were losing their faith; sometimes they neglected to gather together. So this letter was written to remind this community of faith that there were others who went before them who were able to withstand their own evil times because they had faith that they could and that God was with them. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Jesus endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Jesus endured racism, poverty, grief and loss, betrayal and abandonment, suffered a violent death, and disregarded the shame we associate with failure and degradation. Jesus knew exactly what it meant to commit political suicide, to risk everything and he did it anyway, because he knew the story was about something bigger than himself. It was and still is about the poor, the hungry, the sick, the incarcerated, the sex workers, the outcasts that politicians and people with privilege not only disregard but criminalize and marginalize and dehumanize with systems of power and acts of hate. And in the faces of pain and injustice we feel small.
The joy that is promised at least in this life is not a blissful one or even a happy one. It’s more like the joy that comes from knowing that in the midst of the most painful part of our story we are not alone. This is our story. This is our song. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Antonio Basco, whose wife Margie Reckard was killed in the mass shooting in El Paso, invited the public to attend his wife’s funeral because they had not lived in town for very long and didn't know many people. Hundreds of folx lined up for hours to pay their respects. They said, “We are your family, sir. We are your family.”
We have seen America, we have witnessed humanity sink into violence, depravity, destruction and we have also seen our nation and our human tribe rise from such lows with courage, compassion, and justice. This is our story. This is our song. It is the human story. Not only Jesus but we have each other, as long as we don’t give up on one another, as long as we hold onto one another. This is our hope. You and me and everyone on this earth who is striving for a better world—we are the story, we are the song. Blessed assurance, we belong to each other.
The evil is large. And we feel small. But Jesus didn’t fight the powers and the principalities with an angel army or thunderbolts or revolution. Jesus’ idea of faithfulness and justice was food and healing and forgiveness, spending time with sex workers and drunks and tax collectors, living on the kindness of strangers and friends, speaking to the powers, turning over tables that excluded, that monetized worship and prayer. Jesus’ idea of faithfulness and justice is the work the Church is called to do every day and to do it as best as we can with what we have and to not give up on our small daily work.
This is our story, this is our song. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Amen.
Benediction
Goodness is stronger than evil.
Love is stronger than hate.
Light is stronger than darkness.
Truth is stronger than lies.
We are not alone. Amen.
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
August 18, 2019
In 1942 George was 5 years old when his family was forced to leave their home in Los Angeles to live in the converted horse stables of Santa Anita Park, then an internment camp in Rohwer, Arkansas, eventually being transferred to the Tule Lake War Relocation Center in California. Between 110,000 – 120,000 Japanese Americans were interned during WWII. Even if a person was of 1/16 Japanese descent they were interned. About 80,000 were second and third generation, born in the states with U.S. citizenship. The rest were first generation immigrants who were not eligible for U.S. citizenship.
Most of the Nisei or second generation, American-born Japanese on the west coast of the U.S. were farmers raising fruits and vegetables and nursery plants. When the exclusion orders came they had to clear out in just a few days. Mother’s Day flowers were abandoned in the fields. An orchard owner who was unable to sell the contents of his nurseries gave it all to a veteran’s hospital. The owner of a strawberry farm asked to delay his departure so he could harvest the berries. When he was denied this request, in an act of defiance he plowed under his crop. The FBI then charged him with an act of sabotage and put him in jail.
Children were born in these camps. People came to their last days in these camps. One could leave the camps if they joined the military and fought in the war or if one’s profession or skill was useful to the war effort but many of these were made to move east instead of back to the west coast where many of them were born and raised.
This is our story. This is our song. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. In an interview this week Anderson Cooper said to Stephen Colbert: “You said you have learned to love the thing that you most wish had not happened. You went on to say, ‘What punishment of gods are not gifts’. Do you really believe that?” (Colbert had quoted Tolkien.) Colbert replied, “Yes. It’s a gift to exist. And with existence comes suffering. There’s no escaping that. …If you’re grateful for your life, then you have to be grateful for all of it. …It’s about the fullness of your humanity. …I want to be the most human I can be, and that involves acknowledging and ultimately being grateful for the things I wish didn’t happen because they gave me a gift.” He went on to say, “In my tradition that’s the great gift of the sacrifice of Christ is that God does it too. That you’re really not alone. God does it too.”
The author of the letter to the Hebrews wrote to encourage a community of faith that they were not alone. The community had begun with great energy and confidence but was now feeling the pain of suffering and serving and it was affecting their community life.
The evil is large. And we feel small. But Jesus didn’t fight the powers and the principalities with an angel army or thunderbolts or revolution. Jesus’ idea of faithfulness and justice was food and healing and forgiveness, spending time with sex workers and drunks and tax collectors, living on the kindness of strangers and friends, speaking to the powers, turning over tables that excluded, that monetized worship and prayer. Jesus’ idea of faithfulness and justice is the work the Church is called to do every day and to do it as best as we can with what we have and to not give up on our small daily work.
This is our story, this is our song. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Amen.
Benediction
Goodness is stronger than evil.
Love is stronger than hate.
Light is stronger than darkness.
Truth is stronger than lies.
We are not alone. Amen.
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