Excerpts from Keynote Address at Annual Assembly by Erik Walker Wikstrom

27 Oct

Excerpts from Keynote Address at Annual Assembly by Erik Walker Wikstrom

Posted October 27, 2011 by impactcville in Uncategorized. Leave a Comment

Let Justice Roll
A Reflection on the Occasion of the 2011IMPACT Annual Assembly

Rev. ErikWalker Wikstrom
Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church – Unitarian Universalist

…It’s not too hard for a congregation to be involved in social action. Lots of congregations of all kinds would say that they’re interested in it. They have a Social Action Committee. Maybe there’s a Director of Social Justice Ministries. Maybe checks get written to good causes. Maybe some folks volunteer to bring food to the Food Bank once in a while. Oh, it’s not too hard at all for a congregation to be involved in social action.

But for a congregation to be involved with others who are involved in social action? To intentionally seek out other congregations, other communities – and not just others who are like us but also others who are not like us? And then to join with these others – even those who are not like us – not simply to work toward those issues that we’re most excited about getting involved with but to try to determine the issue which actually is most pressing for our entire community? Wow. No wonder I feel proud to be standing here tonight. Protestants of so many stripes, Roman Catholics, Jews, Unitarian Universalists, Muslims – we’ve come together to try to do something that will benefit not only our own communities but, more importantly, the wider Charlottesville – Albemarle County community. That’s something to be proud of.

…I would like to share one thing with you, … The text for themorning was the well-known passage from the Hebrew Scriptures, the book ofAmos, Chapter 5, verse twenty-four: “Butlet justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!”

… SuddenlyI didn’t hear Amos telling us to get out and work building justice in theland. I didn’t read those words as anencouragement to put more energy and more commitment into some social justiceproject or other.

But letjustice roll on . . . [and] suddenly I saw this river – fast andfree-flowing. Almost at floodstage. Unstoppable. A seething torrent. Roiling. White water of a class V or VI. Aget-out-of-the-way-because-I’m-comin’-through-and-nothing’s-gonna-stop-me-nowkind of river. You get the picture?

This is the river of justice, rolling on likea never-failing stream. Flowing on. Rich, and full, and life-giving. A little dangerous too, maybe, butpowerful. And beautiful. Awe-inspiring.

Except that it’s not flowing. It’s dammed up. I don’t know how. Maybe some beavers got to it. Or it was buried during a mountaintopremoval. Or some folks built a damthinking that it could generate power for I don’t know what. Or maybe people got to littering and stoppedit up, and fouled it up, and filled it up so full of sludge and slime that nowthat river’s all backed up. I don’t knowhow it happened; I just know that it happened. That mighty river, that never-failing stream, has been clogged up and itjust isn’t flowing anywhere like it used to. Oh, maybe a trickle here and there, but nothing like it’s supposed to be– swollen with spring melt and flowing free.

I got this picture and suddenly realized thatAmos wasn’t telling us to go out and make a river of justice. He wasn’t telling us to construct a concreteculvert and to start pumping water into it. Not at all! The river’s already here,he’s telling us – we just got to get out and let it flow!

That’s the message I want to share with youtonight, my new friends. Justice,righteousness . . . we aren’t responsible for going out and making them. Creating them. Building them. Developing them. They’re already here. All we have to do is clean out the muck, getout the gunk, jettison the junk that’s been damming up the works for far toolong. That’swhat our job is.

I want to remind each of us and us all that we’re not responsible for it all. The river can take care of itself, thank you very much, and if given half a chance it can wash away any obstacle. To mix my metaphors, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We just have to get it rolling. And believe me, that’s hard enough. We have to clear away all of those things that are damming up the works – the things that have gotten there by accident, the things we’ve put there on purpose, the things that some people think make life better and more enjoyable for them (even while there are people dying of thirst just a few feet downstream). Our job is to do what needs to be done to let justice roll.

Nothing more. And, of course, nothing less.

Is this Good News?

Let the people say,“Amen.”

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