11/15/20 “The Other “New Deal” America Needs” by Nancy E. Petty
Scripture: Isaiah 58:6-12
Deal-making was one of my favorite things to do as a child. I was constantly trying to swing a deal with my father or grandfather. With my father, the deal always had to do with getting a new old motorcycle or car; and with my grandfather the deals focused on trading old watches—two of my favorite things growing up. They still rank pretty high on my list of favorite things as an adult. These deal-making sessions followed the standard “if/then” formula. If you will…then I will.
My daughters inherited this trait when they were young, only their if/then presentations were much more elaborate and high tech than mine, often featuring power point and video presentations. If you get me a dog, then… If you let me go to this party, then… Like in my childhood, sometimes the deal was made but most often it was deferred to statements like: I’ll think about it. Or, we’ll see. Or, not right now, maybe later.
As adults, we know about deal-making. We engage in the practice when buying cars and houses. We make deals with our significant others; and even our pets. We make deals with ourselves: If I don’t eat dessert all week long, then I can eat whatever I want on the weekend. And, some of us are susceptible to making deals with God. God if you will…then I will.
One of the most famous deals in our nation was introduced in 1933 by then President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms and regulations enacted by Roosevelt to respond to the needs for relief, reform and recovery from the Great Depression. Today, our nation has been introduced to another new deal, The Green New Deal. This deal is a proposed package of the United States legislation that aims to address climate change and economic inequality. The name actually refers back to the New Deal proposed by Roosevelt. The Green New Deal combines Roosevelt’s economic approach with modern ideas such as renewable energy and resource efficiency. Unfortunately, it is yet another political divide between Democrats and Republicans.
Deal-making seems to be an ancient tradition often expressed in the narrative of our faith. In the pages of our sacred text we discover the practice of deal-making between the people of God and God; and sometimes at God’s initiative, between God and God’s people. The text I have chosen for this morning that Chalice read earlier from Isaiah sets forth a series of if/then deal-making statements. Listen again to the prophets words on God’s behalf:
If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday.
The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your need in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.
Or in more plain speak from The Message Bible:
“If you get rid of unfair practices,
quit blaming victims,
quit gossiping about other people’s sins,
If you are generous with the hungry
and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,
Then your lives will begin to glow in the darkness,
your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.
I will always show you where to go.
I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—
firm muscles, strong bones.
You’ll be like a well-watered garden,
a gurgling spring that never runs dry.
You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,
rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
You’ll be known as those who can fix anything,
restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
make the community livable again.
In the tradition of our spiritual ancestors who heard God’s voice speaking to them, this past week I heard God speaking. And, just as a voice was heard in Ramah, Rachel weeping for her children, I heard the weeping coming from Georgia and Arizona and Pennsylvania and Nevada and Michigan and Wisconsin; and then in the linage of the prophets speaking on behalf of God I heard God saying to me tell the people that there’s another new deal America needs. I heard it clearly and plainly: there’s another new deal American needs: one made between people of faith—of all faiths and all brands of faith.
America needs a new deal when it comes to our common understanding of unity. There’s a lot of talk about unity right now. With the new political forecast, there is all this talk among some of how this is the time for people to come together in unity. The past four years has caused such division among us as a nation and as a people and now with new leadership poised to take over there is new hope for less division, less divide and more unity. Yes, AND…our unity cannot come at the sacrifice of honest and challenging conversations about the issues that divide us: systemic racism, police brutality, a woman’s right to make decisions about her body, 2nd Amendment rights, climate change, healthcare for all, LGBTQIA+ rights, fair and proportionally equal distribution of resources to rural and urban communities, living wages and government programs that protect and care for the most vulnerable in our society. The unity we seek cannot equal silence nor the avoidance of conflict. Unity is rooted in truth-telling, courage, dignity, respect and justice for all. America needs a new deal when it comes to working toward unity. If we consider the needs of all Americans, if we work from a position of abundance not scarcity, if we care about our common identity instead of our individual identities; then there is the possibility of unity.
Along with a new deal for unity, America needs a new deal when it comes to living with our differences. I am all about building on our commonalities. I believe that as we build relationships with people of other faiths and people not like us of no faith that beginning our conversations on what unifies us and what we have in common is important. And, at some point, we have to move beyond our commonalities and name our differences and figure out what to do and how to live with them. It is not our commonalities that are killing us, it is our differences! Here I lean on a vision from Teilhard de Chardin that I have heard Karla talk about from her wisdom literature studies. Teilhard foresaw what he called an Omega Point – the culminating point of the universe that would return all that is to a unified whole. The Omega Point is envisioned as a fullness or ultimate expression of the Origin itself – the Omega as the complete Alpha—the begininng. But the fascinating part of this Omega is that it doesn’t collapse everything into a homogenous blob, rather it holds together, in spectacular coherence, the dazzling particularity of all that has unfolded from the origin. Could there be a more beautiful image of the kin-dom? This vision is not of a uniform unity, but of a unity comprised of maximum differentiation.
But you ask: what of right and wrong? This is a deep question for discernment. There are clearly evils in the world, the isms that we all hope to overcome. I am not dismissing that. But I am calling us to consider that God loves every single creature, and every single human. Surely God has not written off half of America. So how do we find our way from this day of inequity and partisanship to an omega unity? I believe the Christian faith offers us tools for bridging the divide, and it might surprise you to hear me say they are values, but not the values that we have weaponized against one another. These values are known to us as the fruits of the spirit – faith, hope, and love. These values are not partisan, and we can’t let political parties co-opt them as we have in the past forty years. We, as Christians, are called to the margins – all the margins. Our differences must be faced in these margins; and they cannot hide behind injustice and a lack of compassion for the poor and vulnerable. If we move toward a unified whole without collapsing everything into a homogenous blob, then we can begin living with our differences in a healthy and faithful way. This, my friends, has to be part of the new deal that America needs. It is not our commonalities that is dividing us, it is our differences.
And last, America needs a new deal when it comes to healing and holding our divisions. We have all been manipulated by politics and power to believe that there is “us” and “them,” and that “they” are all alike. Racism is real in this country, but it is not a synonym for Republican. The vast majority of those who voted for Trump have voted Republican for the past 20 years. No, the racism in this country is not partisan, it is in our country’s very DNA – it is in the founding documents, in the electoral system, and most damningly in the unconscious bias seeded in the psyche of white America to fear black men and to objectify black women. And yes, Pullen, what that means is that I’m calling us out as part of the racist system of America. From the lived lens of racial oppression, most white voters in this congregation have more in common with Trump voters than with our brothers and sisters of color. I know this is a hard word. And I know many of you will want to fight with me – you know where to find me! But here is my point. Our communities of color showed up in this election. Even though they must felt like Charlie Brown running for the ball that Lucy pulls away every time, they defied their skepticism and showed up. But the work of healing our racial divide is not on communities of color. It is on white America. And while I cannot tell you how we will do this work, I will remind you that Teilhard suggests that the unity of the omega can be found in the origin. It is somehow, somewhere in our whiteness, in our history of colonization, in our own identity as “free Americans” that we will find the seeds of healing across this human-made breach. So let me be clear. I am not downplaying the need to work towards racial justice. But I am saying that unless we find ways to have substantial connection to those we disagree with, it is highly unlikely that we will do more than fuel another backlash in this see-saw of artificial party identity we are trapped in.
Our healing, though, is not exclusive to racism. America needs a new deal when it comes to healing many other of our divisions. Healing our divisions will take more than slapping a band aid on the wound or a dose of Tylenol to take away the pain of centuries of injustice and inequality. It will require surgery, serious surgery. It will require cutting out the tumors of hate and fear and prejudice and greed and abusive power. Sitting in a circle singing kumbaya together will not heal our divisions. Only repentance and reconciliation, mercy and grace, truth and surrender will heal our divisions. Most often the deepest of wounds must heal from the inside out. These types of healing are not pleasant to look at or care for. But the new deal America needs right now is precisely such healing. We must be willing to look deeply into the wounds caused by racism, poverty and prejudice. And as people of faith we must be willing to look deeply into the wounds that Christianity has inflicted on people of good faith and on our nation. We must be willing to rub the sauve of compassion and belonging on the sores of damnation and judgment. Our fellow Christians on the other side of the divide have been told for far too long that they are not enough, that God’s love is conditional, that they are damned to hell if…fill in the blank. God’s love is not outlined in a playbook of do’s and don’ts and of failures and successes. God’s love is always the open and loving arms of the parent welcoming the prodigal coming home. Always. So, if we tend to and care for and look deeply into the wounds of our divisions with mercy and compassion, forgiveness and responsibility, truth and justice; then our healing will spring up quickly.
The new deal America needs, and especially from people of faith, is one of a unity forged through tough and challenging conversations, a living out our differences that doesn’t collapse us into a homogenous blob but demands respect, and a healing of our divisions that requires more than band aids and Tylenol—a healing that requires the sometimes stinging sauve of forgiveness and compassion and always truth and justice.
If this is the deal we are committed to making, then we will be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, and make the community livable again. Are we willing as a nation, are we willing as people of faith, to make this deal?
