As part of a group that takes a sermon writing class at our Unitarian Church, I am asked occasionally if I present a sermon on the days that our minister is either off or has a commitment elsewhere. I relented and said I would do one. Originally I was thinking of presenting a sermon on growing bonsai and spiritual growth and church growth; however, when the request came out, they asked me if I could do something on liberation.
So here it is:
It started with a low rumble in the distance which progressively grew louder. Of late this had been an ominous sign of another impending raid by marauding soldiers trying to escape north to the Sudan in advance of the liberators who were in the process of overthrowing the current government of the country. I remember it like yesterday, being liberated.
Let me set the stage, it was May 1979 and my wife Donna, and I were living and working at a Leprosy Center in the eastern part of Uganda, a country that had been ruled by the ruthless dictator Idi Amin. We had been in the country for over a year, and I had been working at the Leprosy Center as a Farm Manager, managing a 2500-acre dairy farm, with close to a 1000 head of cattle, that was part of the Center. In January of that year, rebels with the assistance of Tanzania to the south had invaded the country in an effort to overthrow the government. In April, I think it was actually on Donna’s birthday or just before that, did Uganda’s capital Kampala fall. The Amin army fell apart, deserted and tried to flee to the Sudan to the north. The problem was our Leprosy Center was located just off the major highway to Sudan. We had been unable to evacuate in time and we were stuck at the center. During the past weeks we had been subject to the looting and harassment sprees of these fleeing soldiers. Moreover, while under siege for the past month to a month and a half we were running out of all things essential (sounds familiar?) and had to live on one candle a night; two or three matches a day; we only ate sweet potatoes and eggs three times a day; drank rainwater and locally distilled moonshine. I’m amazed that I still have a liver and my eyesight.
Hearing the vehicles approaching in the distance meant that we needed to get ready to deal with another wave of obnoxious soldiers (corner me over a beer one of these days and I can tell you some stories, but this is not the place today) when all the sudden tanks and jeeps rolled in, very unlike the deserters who came in with stolen ramshackle cars. Here they announced that they were the liberators, the Tanzanians! It was unbelievable feeling of relief that moment, being liberated, we laughed, we cried, we knew we had made it. Let me tell you, there had been moments the past month that we thought we were not going to survive it. Really, being liberated never felt so good. On top of that, the evening of our liberation Radio Netherlands read an announcement over the shortwave radio in which it told the listeners that we were missing in Uganda and asked anyone who had heard of us or seen us to call the Netherlands foreign office, but that they feared the worst.
But, we were liberated and we were alive, we could live again without fear! Almost everybody was rejoicing and celebrating; and that night we burned two candles and had a small get-together, followed by a center-wide party the weekend following.
During that party, the flood gates opened, the people were finally able to express what they thought of Idi Amin’s reign and the past 10 years they had lived through. We heard more horror stories about the oppression, the difference between the haves and the have nots, how you could not even trust your closest relative, because they could rat you out and that could cost you your life.
Living in Uganda and working with lepers, we were working with a part of society that were outcasts and heavily discriminated against. Nowadays we would call this social justice. Social justice is not a new thing, but unbeknownst to us we were practicing it. We were not using those words; we were there to help. Some could ask me why the hell we put ourselves in such danger to serve and work with these folks. It was a combination of a lot of things including compassion, empathy, naivety, and the thirst for adventure. I have always been a teacher at heart and in my way, I also was there to observe and teach. While we had already learned a lot about the difference between the ruling class and the common folks, it was then and there that we really appreciated the importance of liberty and being liberated.
The center where we worked was sponsored by the Church of England and the local Bishop was on our board. He was a regular visitor to the center; however, he would return to his Ivory Tower after his visits.
Other religious folks we encountered were the Dutch catholic priest and the Italian nuns. Those Catholics were a different breed all together. One of our favorite story was about father Meindert van Acht, the brother of the Dutch prime minister at the time, who we frequently visited. One day, just after we arrived at his remote village on the slopes of Mount Elgon, a 14,000-foot-tall volcano located between Uganda and Kenya, we sat on his porch and watched him exiting his church. He had just finished mass. There he came, walking towards us with the bible under one arm and a crowbar under the other, a sight to behold, a priest, the brother of the second most important person of the Netherlands, in a tattered and torn robe with these two items under his arms. We never asked him if and if so, how, he used the crowbar in his service.
Father Meindert had one request, which was that he did not want any visitors on Tuesdays because that was his weekly whiskey night, so he did not need an excuse to drink. All other days were great. The guest room was always open, and, in the evening, he would break out the mass wine or some additional whiskey for his visitors and himself. During visit with the Italian nuns at a Leprosy Center in Jinja in north central Uganda we always enjoyed fine Italian wines and good conversation.
But it was not always fun and games or drinking to excess. It was a form of stress relief in a country where it was very difficult to work in. It was a country where we saw a lot of murders, assassinations, political and social injustice, and where we all tried to work with those folks who were oppressed and looked down upon. We youngsters, in our early and mid-20s, were in awe at what the missionaries were doing, how they were living, coping, and surviving. They lived alone; we were in a group of 6 Dutch folks who could give each other at least some mutual support. They were outwardly happy, content, even keeled and at peace with themselves and their god. I guess that is what their belief did to them.
In those days we had not yet learned about those words “social justice” or another word called “liberation theology” that Father Meindert and his compatriots were practicing in the villages of Uganda or elsewhere in the developing world.
Liberation Theology was first introduced by the Uruguayan Priest Juan Luis Segundo Gutiérrez in 1971. In his book “A Theology of Liberation” Gutiérrez proposed that the true task of theology was not to declare pristine abstract truths, rather ‘only by doing this truth will our faith be “verified.”’ At that time Gutiérrez and other liberation theologists in Africa, Central and South America were struggling to bridge the gulf between divine justice and social justice, trying to address the reality of human suffering and confront their own discipline. Some of them were trying to approach the Bible from the perspective of the powerless.
In the opinion of the liberation theologists, the church should be a movement for those who were denied their rights and plunged into such poverty. Folk that were deprived of their full status as human beings. Liberation theologists were of the opinion that the poor should take the example of Jesus and use it to bring about a just society.
A common way in which priests and nuns showed their solidarity with the poor was to move from religious houses into poverty-stricken areas to share the living conditions of their flock. The nuns that operated the leprosy center in Jinja and the Dutch fathers that were operating the boys orphanage in Mbale a town to the south of us or father Meindert on Mount Elgon, were working with folks that were either down on their luck, from a tribe that was on the fringes of society, the poor and the sick, or just simple outcasts. They were not the pious religious priests from my memory growing up on a Caribbean island, but real down to earth people who served the communities they were working in. They were not there to save souls; at least they never expressed that to us.
Regretfully, we did see some missionaries from some other denominations in Kenya whose interest seemed only to be there to save souls in an effort to stroke themselves, somehow still living in their ivory tower, and seemed less interested in social justice.
Most controversially, the Liberationists said the church should act to bring about social change and should ally itself with the working class to do so. Some radical priests became involved in politics and trade unions; others even aligned themselves with violent revolutionary movements. They were often accused of spreading or at least preaching the revolution, socialism or even worse, communism. As the Argentine theologian José Míguez Bonino said it was the revolutionary challenge of those who boldly proclaimed: “Jesus Christ is Che Guevara.” Liberation theologists were often not accepted by their regular church and told to shape up. Some tried to moderate it a bit with statements such as: “love for the poor should be preferential, not exclusive.” Things finally changed a little bit with the new Pope who led a less opulent lifestyle and paid more attention to the poor and sick.
Although we live in a free country, even here in the US there are different levels of being free, isn’t there? If you are white, have money and often if you are male (especially a white male), you seem to be freer then others. It should therefore not be a surprise that even here in the U.S. liberation theology took root. The Protestant African-American theologian James Cone wrote in his 1970 book entitled A Black Theology of Liberation: ‘If God is not for us, if God is not against white racists, then God is a murderer and we had better kill God.’ Black religion, Cone asserted, began not with an abstraction but with the acknowledgment that ‘God is Black’ and present in the experience of black people, from the slave auction block to the urban ghetto. Others argue that that the Bible assigning a male gender to God was the original justification for the patriarchy. This was discussed by the feminist theologian Mary Daly in her book Beyond God the Father which was published in 1973.
I travel a lot around the state and get to see the economically and environmentally depressed areas of the state, both black and white. The inner city and the Appalachian region. This is one of those things we have been trying to address this in our community as part of our social justice commitment. Here at the UUFP we have a social justice table that we can visit during coffee hours and find out about worthwhile causes. We go to marches; we have a black lives matter banner outside; you name it. But let’s not forget the other causes out there as well.
We UUs have a rich history of social justice, ranging from our stand against slavery, to the voter registration in the south in 60s and 70s, to our support of the Black Lives Matter movement, to our push for gender equality, equal rights, marriage equality, and to the social justice committees that you find in almost all the UU churches and fellowships throughout the country. Social justice does not stop there, we are also concerned about environmental justice.
After working in the 3rd world, the freedom to move around, to think what you want, to express it to friends and family, freedom of association, or even think to yourself and not be in doubt. All the things that makes me so happy to be a citizen of this country, to be a member of our UU religion, and especially of this fellowship. The UU’s 6th Principle which promotes: THE GOAL OF WORLD COMMUNITY WITH PEACE, LIBERTY, AND JUSTICE FOR ALL is so darn important to me after what we experienced in Uganda and the other countries, we have worked in. It also makes me scared of the things I see happening around me or what has happened, but at the same time hopeful about the countercurrent that is occurring as well.
Remember, today social justice can mean different things for different religions and we need to watch out for false prophets. For example, some will even claim that preventing a woman’s right to choose is a form of social justice. Competing claims of being on God’s or at least the right side are testing the limits of a liberal social order straining to accommodate militant believers. Our fourth principle tells us that we: A free and responsible search for truth and meaning. This is something many dogmatic religions don’t allow; it is something totalitarian governments try to suppress, like the one we experienced in Uganda. Let’s use it wisely in defending it and applying to our efforts in social and environmental justice.
That is what I try to do throughout my life, and I know many of you do. I had the privilege to get an education, but I try never to be condescending to anyone and share my knowledge with all who want to hear it. We are not rich but contribute to the church and other worthwhile causes both monetarily and by volunteering. We are socially active when we can and marched for women, for science, the environment and for gun control. All I can say is to stay true to yourself, like father Meindert, the Italian nuns, and the many liberation theologists and try to address the human suffering around us and in particular the suffering of those who are socially, economically, environmentally and racially disadvantaged.
I believe we all can learn from the example the liberation theologists gave us and incorporate them in the way we live our UU faith.
 |
| Donna and I visiting one of the male nurses and his family at his home in the village in Uganda |
Invocation:
Rev. Karen G. Johnston
Do not be alone right now...
Gathering together grows courage...
These things add up: your one thing & my one thing; his one thing & their one thing & her one thing…
Do not be alone right now. Do not let me be alone. Any liberation – all liberation — is collective liberation. My freedom is bound with yours and yours with mine. Inextricably...
Reading:
The Gift— Hafiz, translated by Daniel Ladinsky
We have not come here to take prisoners,
But to surrender ever more deeply
To freedom and joy.
We have not come into this exquisite world
To hold ourselves hostage from love.
Run my dear,
From anything
That may not strengthen
Your precious budding wings.
Run like hell my dear,
From anyone likely
To put a sharp knife
Into the sacred, tender vision
Of your beautiful heart.
We have a duty to befriend
Those aspects of obedience
That stand outside of our house
And shout to our reason
’O please, O please,
Come out and play.’
For we have not come here to take prisoners
Or to confine our wondrous spirits,
But to experience ever and ever more deeply
Our divine courage, freedom, and Light!”
Benediction:Barack Obama
Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
We are the change that we seek.
