Sermon originally preached on July 28, 2019 as part of the Summer in the 60s sermon series. Revisit the original here.

In the Stephen King novel, 11/22/63, a man discovers a portal back to the 1960s. He walks around the town and sees the signs. The textures. The fashion. All the details he never knew and what the pictures don’t quite show.

He is surprised that his New England mill town STINKS! Air pollution was still unchecked. And people smelled like sweat as the deodorant wasn’t as strong as modern deodorant and air conditioning wasn’t as widespread. He finds a diner and sits down and has a root beer float. It’s home-brewed root beer with local ice cream that’s creamy and rich. Way better than anything today.

We did this series a little over a year ago. I came from a phrase I said… most things start with my stupid mouth getting me in trouble… I said I’d never want to live in the 1960s. One of you asked why. For you, the 60s were a great time! Yet as I read about it with all the political tension and assassinations and racial unrest and an unending war, it just sounded awful. But you who were alive in the 60s said you had a great time. The sights, the smells, the friends, and the learning. You grew up. You found love. You discovered your purpose. It was a great time for you.

I was reminded again that books are a poor substitute for experience. It has been so good to hear many of your memories of the 1960s. And then to see that we’re right back in the 60s in many ways.

This series the Summer in the 60s was an attempt to find understanding and common ground across generations. For I am currently in my late-thirties, which is statistically the most stressful time of life. Kids are in the house, more responsibility at work, and aging parents. Yet I also heard Rob Bell interview Rev. Lydia who works with people in their 90s. She did a study and the time the 90-year-olds most loved? Their 30s with the kids in the house, parents around, and life humming.^[1]

When I look back to this time in 10, 20, 30 years… I wonder what I’ll remember. Will I remember the racial unrest, the political tension and racial unrest and two unending wars? The pandemic? Or will I remember the love that surrounded and attended me? Will I look back with regret wishing I had done more? Stood up. Spoke out. Done more to witness to justice, for we are still dealing with things from the 60s.

In Stephen King’s book, there’s a scene that haunts me. The main character is traveling down a new highway, recently built by the Eisenhower highway project. He stops at a rest stop and marvels at how clean and graffiti-free everything is. On his way out, he notices a bathroom sign that reads “coloreds.” He walks down a dirt path and sees a board over a river. Sure, the 1960s were a great time for many of you—you had amazing root beer floats, and you saw man walk on the moon. Yet it also had boards over rivers.

The poet Maya Angelou stated, “When we know better, we do better.” This is true of us at every level of our lives.

Some among us never had to experience or consider that there were boards over rivers. Some of us then can deny the black experience. That neglect and frustration at those who have the privilege of walking away from a discussion about race has boiled over. We are now in yet another discussion, another reckoning of America’s sinful history on how it has treated its citizens of color. So many have taken to the streets.

Jesus has disturbing words for us today. We can read the signs for the weather, but we can’t read the sign of the times. Maybe this is because it’s easier to talk about the weather. Less risk involved. No way to get into sticky politics or offend someone that way. If we read the times and offer our opinion on it… say that it’s a time to gather stones, we might offend someone who thinks it’s a time to scatter stones.

Many of us don’t investigate signs unless they apply to us. The ‘60s were great for many of us, and I don’t want to take that away. Yet we also want to be open to other opinions. As the Rev. Truman Whitaker’s sermon in this series last year reminded us, “listen to the disturbers for our Lord was a disturber.”

Now I’m not talking about the violent looters. There’s a difference between the protestors and the looters. I saw a quote on Facebook that said, “when there are protests there my be looters. When there are hurricanes, there may be looters. When fans celebrate a championship, there maybe looters. Looters are not protesters, hurricanes, or fans, they are looters. We can listen to the message as well as deal with the looters. They are two separate things.”

Unlike King’s book, we can’t go back to the ‘60s. Maybe in the ‘60s, you were a teenager having a great time. Learning to drive. Going on a first date at a sock hop. Maybe some of you were in college in that decade. Or got married. Had kids. That season has passed for some of us. Many of you who lived at that period are near retirement age or have been retired for a while. You worked hard, you built a life. You followed the rules and are wonderful people! Absolutely. You are beloved by God.

How is it with the children? How is it with your neighbor? How is it with the poor, the oppressed, those yearning to breathe free? There are still boards over the river. We cannot go back and change things. We have to start where we are. We cannot go back and let black soldiers into the promise of the GI Bill which they were denied.[2] We cannot go back and fix the start of the real estate practice of redlining.[3] We can work to end those now.

What to know is that the past is not prelude. The past is in the present. You who were alive then are with us. With your knowledge and wisdom, you can help other generations read the times and listen to the echoes of history.

When things look bleak, you can remind us that you saw trouble in your own time. Protests, marches, wars, and assassinations. Yet in those times of trouble, we also had promise and possibility. To call a moonshot! To imagine and innovate! To walk on the moon and change the world. To find love and friendship and life. For that’s what you did.

As I looked back to the 1960s, a time I first thought must have been so hard. When I studied. When I listened to many of your stories. When I saw the hope, promise, and love… Yeah… there’s the juice. It restored my faith in humanity a little bit. It gave me courage to face the challenges of my own day.

As I read the time, I see a time where many are trying to scatter stones. A time to tear down. A time to refrain from embracing. A time to tear. No, my friends. We have scattered for too long. It is time to gather. We have torn so many things down, including each other. It is time to build up and mend! It is a time to embrace!

My friend Alan Jones asked, “Do you know what the most scandalous claim was in early Christianity? Everyone mattered. People then did not think they counted, but they did. We need to recover this understanding. We need to re-imagine humanity in light of God’s gift.”^[4]

That’s a hard thing to do when neighbors aren’t seeing one another as neighbors any more. Some see Trump is the savior from our ills and others see Biden as the savior from Trump. So folks are behaving childish and taking down one another’s signs they don’t agree with. Listen. We already have a savior, that job has been filled. There is no other aside from Jesus for us in the church. And the church is the hands and feet of God in the world. MLK said in the 60s that the moral arch of the universe is long and bends toward justice. It bends that way because good people are pulling on it.

A local example of people pulling on that arch is back when COVID hit, the city made the prudent decision not to open the pool at JUMP Park. It wouldn’t be a good financial decision. There were questions as to how safe it would be.

Instead of calling the leadership names, a group of people gathered and said, “We’d like the pool reopened.” When they were told no but instead of insulting or stomping their feet or throwing bricks through windows, they asked for dollar amount. Then that group of folks went out and raised the funds. The pool reopened! That is the sort of neighborliness that makes Medina such a great place to live.

You as a church engaged in talks about white privilege and racism. You’re learning about your black neighbors. As we should. We have a lot of first responders in our congregation. I sat with a few of them and listened to their concerns and stories and found that the headlines don’t really reflect their experience.

If you want another example of neighborliness, look no further than Ruth Bader Ginsberg and her friendship with her political opposite Antonin Scalia. You couldn’t get further apart in how to interpret law than those two. But they were good neighbors and they loved the opera. They shared that interest and now I think of them in heaven listening to a concert by Vivaldi. I have no idea if Vivaldi even composes opera as the closest I get to opera is Led Zeppelin, but you get the idea…

The economy of God is neighborliness. One that extends even to our enemies.

I am reminded that whatever is happening in the world… All the scary stuff. All the politics and international crisis and natural disasters. The political division and troubling testimonies and investigations. All the stuff that can divide us… People can still rally, come together for a common cause, and shower love on one another. To face a common crisis and be present to one another. This week has been a reminder that all signs from God point to love. Love of people in need. The signs point to love.

Engagement is the key. Together is the goal. It’s hard… But it’s what all the signs point to.

Sure, I wish there was a portal to go back. But there isn’t. Sure, I wish we each could go back to the times in our life that felt most full, but we can’t. Instead, we have each other. And the signs of God’s love for each of us. May that encourate you. May you feel it so strongly that you can stand and sing out while the sorrows like sea billows roll… It is well. It is well with my soul.

Works Cited

[1] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reverend-lydia/id956742638?i=1000444522006

[2] https://www.history.com/news/gi-bill-black-wwii-veterans-benefits

[3] What is red lining: https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-u-s-government-segregated-america How it helped create the suburbs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETR9qrVS17g How mortgages are part of racism: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6084476/

[4] https://chqdaily.wordpress.com/2012/06/24/rev-alan-jones-lets-get-used-to-gods-lack-of-taste/