"A Celebration of Community" 10/27/13

Purdue hosted three public events in connection with recent visit of Bishop Gene Robinson. Here are my remarks at the first of those three events.

I have a final word for you. A blessing. A dismissal. 

Theodore Parker (1810) was a Unitarian minister, an Abolitionist, a Transcendentalist.

A line from his sermon entitled "Of Justice and Conscience", published in 1857 as part of a collection of "Ten Sermons of Religion", has become a part of our culture.

Parker wrote:

"Look at the facts of the world."

"You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right."

"I do not pretend to understand the moral universe. The arc is a long one. My eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by experience of sight.
I can (only) divine it by conscience."

"But from what I see, it bends toward justice."

"Things refuse to be mismanaged long."

"Jefferson trembled when he thought of slavery, and remembered God is just."

You are called to bend the arc.
             called to repair the world ("tikkun olam").
             called to make the mighty tremble.

To make the mighty tremble
 when they think of the hungry and remember why they are not fed.

To make the mighty tremble
when they think of the sick and remember why they are not healed.

To make the mighty tremble
when they think of the wealthy and remember how they have been made.

To make the mighty tremble
when they think of love and remember why it cannot be pledged.

Particular good deeds and singular acts of charity are a fine beginning.

But you are called to bend the arc.
to repair the world...
to make the mighty tremble...
when they remember God is just.

Amen.

Out into the world you go.