We covenant to affirm and promote: The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large.
I’d
like to take a moment to settle into this weekend. It’s quite the weekend for
celebrations—the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the second inauguration of
President Barack Obama.
For
the inauguration luncheon this year, 15 chefs will be scurrying around to
produce three courses representing the agricultural bounty of the entire
country. Okay, I admit it. When I tour the White House, the room I most want to
see is the kitchen… . I’m willing to chop vegetables for the tour—shoot—I’ll
wash dishes.
Things
have really changed in that kitchen. Martha Washington, who brought the first
slaves into the president’s kitchen, likely trained the slave Hercules herself—and
he excelled. He ended up with eight assistants, and worked the system so he
could dress like a dandy, and enjoy some of the better things in life. However,
when Washington was planning to leave Philadelphia for Mount Vernon, Hercules
escaped. Although I’m sure he packed his favorite chef’s knife, his story ends
there.
Not
so the president’s kitchen.
The
story of Hercules, and the stories of other slaves who served in the government
in particular, remind me how much we tend to simplify slavery—to see one side,
one vignette—but it’s so much more complex. Christianity Itself was stretched
and molded to accommodate slavery. Our Founding Fathers accepted that entire
races of people were incomplete.
Right
of conscience and the democratic process brought us from Hercules to Obama and will,
I pray, take us beyond.
But,
what takes us from discomfort over something being not quite right to I’m
willing to run away, to be beaten, jailed, and even die to stop this?
We
simplify as well the moment of that enlightenment. Surely to develop that level
of commitment takes time…nurturing… .
I
think of a passage in a book I read years ago—Letters from an American Farmer
by Crèvecoeur. I offer a caveat here. I read this book with about 15 other
people, and of them, grad students and favorite and lauded PhD professor, I was
the only one who thought it was a satire—if not satire, then allegory.
They
all uniformly hated the author of the letters and took him to task for every
puny, boneheaded thing he said that he did. Still, whether it was a scathing indictment
of Early America written by a cad or a scathing satirical indictment of Early
America written by a crafty wordsmith—it was scathing enough that he was asked
to leave the country, and not return.
In
the passage, Farmer Crèvecoeur is off to dine with a planter, and being no
fool, chooses to walk a shaded path. Coming to a clearing he finds a caged
human beset by birds. On reflex, he shoots…and the birds fly off…a short
distance. I won’t read you the passage. It is gruesome, and you’d probably end
up hating him too.
In
the cage is a slave, near death. Crèvecoeur laments that he doesn’t have
another ball for his musket, else he would put the poor man out of his misery.
Of
course, what is he doing walking a shaded path in 18th America with
only one ball for his musket? I guess they weren’t a well-regulated militia
even then.
The
man is begging for water, and unable to end his misery, Crèvecoeur actively
debates giving him water and prolonging the misery—he does it because it’s the
only way he can make himself feel better. Then he heads along to dine, with the
planter whose slave it was—and where he is assured that the execution was on
the up and up with the law.
I
know. How could he not do something? How could he break bread with the man who
had caused it? I could intellectualize the argument; he’d be risking his own
life—but I wanted a hero, I wanted to believe I would have acted differently.
One
of the things I miss the most, and the least, about living in the country is country
roads. On days when you’re not in a hurry, the weather is fine, and there are many
more horses and cows than cars…nice.
Then on a morning just like that, I noticed something in the road up
ahead. It was a beautiful rattlesnake—5 or 6 feet—but someone had driven over
it, one tire, and although it was plastered to the pavement the width of a tire
track, the first 4 feet continued trying to move forward. I hoped it was dead,
and this was reflex, but I didn’t know. There was only one right thing to do.
I
drove up a ways, turned around, and drove a lot farther in the opposite
direction than I needed to before I turned back around and aimed for the snake.
I couldn’t do it. I tried twice before I saw a car coming up behind me and I
continued on my way.
Forgive
me, but damned cages.
They’re
everywhere. Within 15 minutes of turning on my computer, I was invited to watch
a TED talk on human trafficking, compelled to action by a Syrian facebook page,
and notified that a woman inadvertently left a couple of guns and some
ammunition in her first grader’s backpack.
But
who needs to look that far?
I
live in Porter’s Community. For those of you who do not know, Porter’s is a
very old, Black Gainesville neighborhood with a checkered history that is on
the brink of gentrification. When I first moved in I used to go outside in the
evening, let down the tailgate of my pickup truck parked in the drive, and sit
and chat to my neighbor Angie…and whoever happened to walk by. I was determined
to meet people and really experience the neighborhood. And…I did. I don’t sit
out on my tailgate anymore.
But
even with just a window to the outside open, I can hear the cages clanging.
Young
men, who have no jobs and no prospects, congregate in groups of six or eight
through the day, wherever someone has been able to score some beer, and turn
shiny black SUVs, with 2 dollars in the tank, into four-door, faux leather upholstered
radios. Listen and you can hear the frustration building—whether the talk is
about a woman, football, boxing, or the dogs they are trying to raise for
profit—harsh words rise into the afternoon quiet, a challenge cracks like a
whip, and then a laugh breaks, a crude joke, a bruising tease—but things calm back
to women, or football, or boxing, or dogs.
The
other evening, the trick didn’t work. I had to weave through 20 police vehicles
just to get on my block. Everyone was outside. A young woman had been stabbed,
on my block, right in front of the community center, and the perpetrator walked
right on out of the neighborhood. No one stopped him or let one of the many
officers know that—hey, that’s him. Everyone, including the police, just stood
around and watched.
Damned
cages. They’re everywhere.
It’s
overwhelming, but let’s enjoy a moment together. It’s late tomorrow night,
maybe even early Tuesday morning, and President Barack Obama nips down to the
kitchen for a healthy snack (of course)—and you just have to imagine old
Hercules, smiling, and dishing up a big piece of Martha Washington’s own Great
Cake.
For
a long moment, imagine you’ve knocked one of those cages down and bent back all
of the bars—what would the moment look like, and who would be smiling?
