Community Christian Church
Roger Ray, Pastor
A Zen Story
During the civil wars in feudal Japan, an invading army would quickly sweep into a town and take control. In one particular village, everyone fled just before the army arrived - everyone except the Zen master.
Curious about this old fellow, the general went to the temple to see for himself what kind of man this master was. When he wasn't treated with the deference and submissiveness to which he was accustomed, the general burst into anger. "You fool," he shouted as he reached for his sword, "don't you realize you are standing before a man who could run you through without blinking an eye!"
But despite the threat, the master seemed unmoved. "And do you realize," the master replied calmly, "that you are standing before a man who can be run through without blinking an eye?"
You may have seen it on the news. Certainly, several of you were there on Thursday morning when we gathered with a few union organizers and fast food workers to try to launch a strike at the McDonalds on West Kearney.
There were only about 25 people carrying signs and marching at 6 a.m. when the managers unlocked the doors. The management had intimidated all but one of their employees into changing their minds about marching with us but several members of this church marched and chanted on their behalf for a living wage.
If there had been 500 of us, we could have closed the store down and forced a conversation with owners. If there had been 200 of us we could have at least blocked the drive-thru and put a noticeable dent in the morning's business.
Within minutes of our arrival, the Springfield police began to show up in force. Just as they did the first time we tried to stage a demonstration at a different McDonalds. The north side residents in the poor neighborhoods of this city have a hard time getting the police to respond to crime in their area. I have heard complaints that 911 calls to help in cases of domestic violence or even rape can take one to two hours.
However, within fifteen minutes of 25, mostly retirement aged church members and do-gooders, there were 8 patrol cars with almost as many armed police officers on the ground as we had sign wielding senior citizens. I don't say that to take a jab at the police whose job it is to keep our city safe and to fight crime. We were, after all, potentially violent and dangerous criminals. I have always felt that I personally have the potential to be a Hamburgler myself... only fear of the police restrains me.
I do believe, however, that we should take a moment to consider the juxtaposition of a handful of labor sympathizers standing in the cold in front of a fast food restaurant with a congregation of police cars, armed officers and a paddy wagon standing at the ready to haul us off to jail if anyone slowed down access to the menu board where people ordered the food like substances they wanted for breakfast.
The majority of the children in that neighborhood live below the poverty line. Some of their parents work for $7.50 an hour at McDonalds. In that part of town, most of the young girls will be sexually assaulted before they graduate or drop out of school. Most of the young boys are far too familiar with violence.
We cannot afford sufficient police presence to make their worlds safe. We cannot afford to pay their parents enough to raise them out of poverty. But, as a society, we will spend tax dollars extravagantly to protect commercial business. That, my friends, is a fact. It is a fact that I witnessed with my own two eyes on Thursday morning. It is a fact that we must acknowledge and allow to sink into our awareness.
I'm leaving as soon as we dim the lights in our sanctuary to drive to Raleigh, NC where I will participate in the Moral Monday March that will take place there tomorrow. I've been wanting to go since I first heard of these demonstrations taking place in the capitol of North Carolina last year. The movement was started by Rev. William Barber, the state president of the NAACP and an ordained Disciples of Christ minister.
I met William Barber at a conference I attended a couple of years ago and, I will confess, that my first impression was not all that great because he is quite a traditional Christian thinker and I was looking for soul mates in the progressive movement. But though we are not standing on common ground in our approach to religion, he is a very smart man and he has become a very effective man.
When the state legislature meets in North Carolina as they continue to try to restrict access of minorities to voting places, as they continue to try to take back the rights of women to manage their own bodies, they are faced with growing numbers of demonstrators marching in the streets of Raleigh, NC.
Raleigh is a fair sized city of about 400,000 people, two or three times the size of Springfield. The first official Moral Monday March of this year was held in February. The NAACP estimated that 80,000 marchers took part in that event. That's enough people to snarl ever downtown street and to literally make the ground shake as they walked.
I couldn't go then but I wanted to attend the next march and so I started calling around to see when I could be certain to get one on my calendar. The day that I called I couldn't find anyone at Rev. Barber's church who could give me a schedule. There was no one in the state office of the NAACP that could help me.
So, Barber is a Disciple minister. I used to be a Disciple minister. I pulled out my trusty Disciple directory and I called the Disciple church in Raleigh to find out when the next march would be. The pastor was not in but the office administrator was more than happy to help me.
But she told me, "Rev. Barber, no, I have never heard of him. Did your say, Moral Monday? I have never heard of that either and, I'm just as sorry as I can be but I don't know anything about any demonstrations here in Raleigh."
I'm not saying that it would be impossible not to notice tens of thousands of largely black people marching past the Hillyer Memorial Christian Church at 718 Hillsborough Street in Raleigh because I have noticed that it is very easy for people to look right past what they don't want to see.
On Thursday morning, while we stood and shouted, "This is what democracy looks like." And we yelled at the cars turning into McDonalds to order their egg McMuffins and bacon, egg and cheese biscuits, that "low pay is not OK," they ignored us, pulled up to the window and gave their money to employees who can't afford a car or an egg McMuffin and whose children will endure unspeakable violations and violence because we do not regard them as being worthy of a decent living.
They don't know the words to the labor union organizing songs. They have never been taught that it is only be refusing to cross a picket line that anyone ever got a 40 hour work week, or weekends off, or paid vacations, or access to health care. They don't know that it is only when the pilots support the flight attendants, and the carpenters support the plumbers, and the electricians support the teachers, that anyone ever gets a decent wage, the opportunity to retire when they are old and a chance to see the doctor when they are sick.
The cars filled with people talking on their cell phones, rushing to get to work or school, could not be inconvenienced to just this one time, go somewhere else for a breakfast sandwich... to make a little sacrifice out of compassion for the poor people all around them. They don't know.
They won't hear about it on the news. They won't learn about it in school. Heaven knows that they are not likely to hear about it in church.
Two years, when the police were breaking up Occupy Wall Street demonstrations that had spread across the country, protesters often warned the police, "The whole world is watching." The same warning was often heard shouted during the Arab spring as millions took to the streets to demand freedom from oppressive governments.
But the whole world wasn't watching. We watched for a moment. But we know more, right now, about Justin Bieber's drunken run-ins with the law and Miley Cyrus' naked efforts at gaining public attention than we know about the plight of millions of innocent people in Egypt, Syria, and Pakistan.
The revolution will not be televised. The corporate media will not tell you about it. The public schools will not teach the real history and philosophy of labor. The churches that worry primarily and exclusively about their own survival will not challenge the machinery that creates poverty. The politicians who gain their seats in power by the largess of wealthy donors will not tolerate it.
The revolution will not be televised. The revolution will not happen until people of faith decide that they are willing to no longer play dead. I'm ready for some resurrection up in here. How about you?
