“Changing the World, Changing Me”

“Changing the World, Changing Me”    Feb. 23, 2020    Dr. Roger Ray, pastor

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“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”  Viktor Frankl

            

              

This photo is from that time in the early 20^thcentury when the world was in the process of losing it’s collective mind. It was 1936 in Hamburg, Germany when Germans were being taught to salute Hitler with the call to “sieg heil” . . . “hail victory” but we see in this throng of enthusiastic Germans this one lone figure who is having none of it. August Landmesser was a German in love with a Jewish woman whom he intended to marry and with whom he intended to raise a family. He and Irma Eckler did have two daughters though they were not legally allowed to marry. Eventually August was imprisoned and then forced to serve in the military where he was killed. Irma was sent to a concentration camp where she died in the holocaust. In 1951, years after both were dead, a contrite Germany formally recognized their marriage. 

It is hard to believe that such things were going on in the world within the memory of, in not those of us here in this room, at least within the memory of our parents. The world is not what it ought to be but, folks, it is a lot better than it was seventy years ago. How did the changes come about? How did we begin to turn away from the madness of prejudice, racism, anti-Semitism, and discrimination?

Surely we all know enough of history to know that it did not change in a straight line of progress. There were people like August Landmesser who saw how wrong it all was . . . even though he was surrounded by co-workers, relatives, neighbors who believed differently . . . one man, armed with the truth can become a majority.

And lest we convince ourselves that the Germans were the evil empire and that America saved the world, you should remember that in 1939, there was considerable sympathy for the Nazi movement here in America. 

On February 20, 1939, 20,000 Americans crowded into Madison Square Gardens for a Nazi rally at which they gave the Nazi salute to a large banner of George Washington. There were a 100,000 protestors outside who were opposed to the anti-Semitic rally but that does not do much to diminish the fact that there were 20,000 at the rally. My now deceased former father-in-law fought in Europe during WWII and never tired of telling war stories but in-between his tales of wartime hijinks were affirmations of how much he hated black people, Jews, and Communists . . . which made me finally ask, “Why did you fight against the Nazi’s when you agreed with all of their objectives?” Roosevelt took us into WWII but, given some of the veterans I have known, we can be thankful that he didn’t take us in on the side of the Nazis!

I have been listening to parts of a new biography about the life of Elenore Roosevelt by historian, Blanche Cook. She was first lady of the United States from 1933 until her husband’s death in his 4^thterm as president, in 1945. After Franklin Roosevelt had died, Elenore was appointed to be our ambassador to the newly formed United Nations.

The relationship between Elenore and Franklin was complicated, to say the very least. They were distant cousins who fell in love and were married but Franklin had an affair with a secretary that broke Elenore’s heart. They both wanted to divorce but they were Roosevelts and their family insisted that they remain together, which they did, but no longer so much as husband and wife but as political partners. 

They both had their paramours, but they worked together through the war years to help to give birth to what we now call the modern world. The Germans were working to exterminate the Jews but, as I have said, the Americans were not initially terribly eager to do much to protect them. 

In 1939, a ship with nearly a thousand Jewish refugees from the coming holocaust was turned away from American shores and sent back to Germany. Elenore heard of this and worked behind the scenes to make certain that it never happened again, working tirelessly to help Jews who were escaping Europe.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Elenore tried to prevent Franklin from putting American Japanese into internment camps, but failing in that, she personally visited the camps and worked to provide education for the children there and to help find opportunities for them after the war was over. 

During the war she spoke tirelessly for an end to the Jim Crowe laws that kept blacks segregated and in poverty. She insisted that the United States had no moral authority to wage war as a defender of Democracy unless it granted full civil rights to black Americans. 

After the war, she was the first chairperson of the UN’s Commission on Human Rights and she oversaw the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For her whole life, she worked to fight against racism, sexism, and religious discrimination. So, yes, she was one of the luminaries who stood up against the prevailing culture of her day, and even to her husband, the longest serving president in American history. She helped to shape the New Deal, the formation of the United Nations, and the religiously tolerant, racially diverse nation we’re still trying to get right.

But what I find to be paradoxical about this amazing, intelligent, brave woman, this diplomat and social reformer, is that she never allowed herself to come out of the closet. Elenore had a long-term love relationship with the journalist, Lorena Hickok. It was not entirely open, but it wasn’t very well hidden either. For most of their time as lovers, Lorena actually lived in the White House. 

Their relationship eventually cooled, ironically, because while Lorena was thrilled with the large number of lesbian friends they had in and out of the White House, Lorena continued to object to having Jews and black people around them. They remained friends, . . . you know, how we all have someone in our life who is still a racist and we keep the relationship, but it just isn’t the same. 

It is a bit ironic that I am contrasting Elenore Roosevelt with August Landmesser this morning. Elenore was a huge historical character who did so much to help the modern world to come to its senses and strive to become a decent civilization and August was really a nobody, his life was sad and he died in obscurity but . . . and I don’t want to sound judgmental here but the fact is, August fought for the person he loved, a Jewish woman he wasn’t allowed to marry, but for whom he was willing to sacrifice everything. Elenore fought valiantly for every right cause except for the person she loved.

Mind you, we can all be thankful that Elenore did not leave Franklin, come out of the closet and move to some place where she and Lorena might have enjoyed a more open and honest love relationship. A part of me thinks that she should have, and yet, without Elenore, I’m not sure that Franklin Roosevelt would have always had very good moral instincts.

There are passionate love letters between Elenore and Lorena . . . she could describe what it felt like to kiss Lorena in a way that makes me blush and I am not easily shocked these days. They had love, they had passion, they shared a bed, a life, and a world changing destiny, but they never got to call it what it was. 

This quote has been falsely attributed to Abraham Lincoln for a hundred years but even though Abe is not the real source, I like it a lot . . . how many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg?

Four, because calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg. 

I trust that I am not alone in feeling a real weight of sadness that while Elenore Roosevelt did so much for the world, for Jews in the face of anti-Semitism, for black Americans in the face of lingering racism, for Japanese Americans who were incarcerated and robbed by internment . . . but she never felt safe to say who she really was, and I find that to be just heart breaking.

In the past, as I have come to the conclusion of a sermon about public morality, I have pointed at the “tank man” in China’s Tiananmen Square and said, “be like that man!” I have applauded the courage of Iesha Evans who stood up to the riot police in Baton Rouge, or Malala who was shot in the face for advocating for girls going to school and came out of the hospital still advocating for female education rights. And I have pointed at climate activist Greta Thunberg and Nazi resistor, August Landmesser, and said, “be more like them!”

And yet, in spite of all of the amazing things that she accomplished in life . . . in spite of the indisputable debt of gratitude that we should all feel for what the selfless work that Elenore did, I am tepid about suggesting that we should be more like her because I wish that she could have been more fully herself. 

The Jewish psychiatrist and holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl, said, “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”  Yes, do all that you kind to bring light and mercy into the world . . . to kick against the darkness of prejudice, discrimination, poverty, exploitation and abuse, but please, please, find a way to live your own life fully as who you are. 

Do not be captured by the expectations of others. Do not accept confinement in public opinion. Do not let the insincere and misinformed take away your joy or force you to deny your love. If there is someone to whom you might speak of the thrill, as Elenore did to Hickok, of feeling “the northeast corner of your mouth on my lips,” well, folks, you should proud of that and you sure shouldn’t hide it.