In Every Generation
by Rev. Colin Bossen, April 19, 2009
"In every generation, a person is obligated to see his or herself as though he or she had personally been redeemed from Egypt." So reads the Haggadah, the liturgy that orders the Passover Seder. A lifelong participant in Seders--my father's family is Jewish--this line of text has long been important to me. The purpose of the Seder, the ritual meal that celebrates Passover, is to tell and retell the story of the liberation of the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt. When times are good the story serves as a reminder that our ancestors were once slaves. Since we are descendants of slaves we are called to be kind and compassionate to the marginalized. As Exodus reminds us, "You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt."
When the yoke of oppression weighs heavy the Passover story offers hope. Your ancestors survived slavery and forty years of wandering the desert, perhaps you will survive this season of sorrow. Great miracles occurred and the waters were parted for Moses. The same may happen for you.
The Exodus story has inspired movements for freedom and liberation across the centuries. It was, for enslaved African Americans, a myth that offered hope that like the people of Israel they might overcome their oppressors and escape the bonds of slavery. During the Nazi era Exodus reminded the Jewish people that they had persevered in the past and might do so again in the future. The Passover story and the Seder have been celebrated in Jerusalem under Roman occupation, secretly in Spain after the expulsion, in camps during the American Civil War and even in the Warsaw Ghetto. That the story has been passed from generation to generation is a testament to the human power of culture and the importance of both finding and sustaining hope.
This Passover season, on the third night of the eight day holiday, our sanctuary was packed when we hosted the journalist Amy Goodman. Goodman is the co-host of the award winning radio and television show Democracy Now! She seeks to be a voice for the voiceless, uncovering and sharing the stories of those who are silenced by the corporate media. In her talk--as in her recent book "Standing Up to the Madness"--Goodman shared the stories of those who have spoken out against oppression.
She spoke of George Christian who, with three other librarians, fought a request from the FBI to turnover library records. The FBI, in their pursuit of terrorism, wanted to know who was using the library's computers on a specific time and on a specific date. Two FBI agents approached Christian with the demand and presented him with a National Security Letter. They told him that he had no choice but to comply.
The National Security Letter also made clear that if he discussed the matter with anyone he could face a five year prison sentence. It came without a court order but was authorized under the provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act. Christian told the FBI "I believe that this is unconstitutional." He informed the agents he would fight the order. After the agents left he contacted the other members of the board of the Library Connection, the consortium of libraries his belonged to, and explained to them the situation. When he did they were in turn gagged by the National Security Letter.
They contacted the ACLU and the four librarians took government to court in a case where they were only identified as "John Doe Connecticut." The National Security Letter meant that they banned from attending their own court proceedings. If they did they could be identified by the press or accused of violating the letter's gag order by testifying in court. Instead, they had to watch arguments for their case unfold over closed circuit television as they sat in a locked room off site. Over the television they saw that hundreds of other librarians, not even knowing the identify of John Doe Connecticut, had shown up to support them.
Christian and his colleagues went to great lengths to conceal their identities. They did not want to be accused of violating the National Security Letter's gag order. Ultimately their identities were leaked when the government failed to properly redact court documents. The gag order, however, was not lifted and the librarians still could not speak to their own case.
This took place while congress was debating whether or not to reauthorize the USA PATRIOT Act. Proponents of the bill argued that there had been no civil liberties violations under the act. One wrote in a USA Today editorial, "Zero. That's the number of substantiated USA PATRIOT Act civil liberties violations." The librarians begged to differ but the gag order authorized under that very act prevented them from speaking out.
Shortly after the act was passed the gag order against Christian and his colleagues was lifted. Ever since then they have been talking to anyone who will listen. They want to make certain that people understand that the USA PATRIOT Act does violate civil liberties and is a danger to democracy, it infringes upon the right to privacy and the right to free speech. In her book Goodman ends the chapter on the librarians with a quote from Christian that echoes the text of the Haggadah. "Each generation has to stand up for its own rights...If we are all passive, we end up with no rights at all."
Goodman emphasizes ordinary heroes in her work. She is more interested in soldiers, students, school teachers and librarians than the rich and powerful. She tries to draw attention to the pressing issues of the day--"war and peace, life and death."
In our time we face many issues of "war and peace, life and death." The United States is at war in Iraq, Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan. We are in the midst of an economic crisis, unemployment is now almost 10% here in Ohio. Wages for working people and membership in labor unions have been in steady decline for almost thirty five years. Our civil liberties have been curtailed. Our government has been involved in torture. We face a looming ecological crisis that threatens our existence not just as individuals or communities but as a species.
Confronted with such challenges it can be difficult to find hope. This is the power of the Exodus myth--the assurance that adversity can be overcome--and the balm of story. When we share and uncover the stories of those who have spoken out and resisted injustice--whether or not they won in their struggles--we know that we are not alone.
I am often reminded of this in my own activism. Recently I have been consulting with a group of taxi drivers trying to build a strong union. Their union--the Professional Taxi Drivers Association--is independent of the AFL-CIO or the Change to Win coalition--the two major union federations in the United States--and they have been seeking outside support.
I met with some of the taxi drivers in a downtown hotel a few weeks ago. A couple days later they asked me to meet with their membership. It was, in some ways, a disappointing meeting. They had rented a large room for the occasion but only a handful of people had shown up. The leadership was visibly upset. They told me that the last time they had had a meeting they were able to gather almost 80 people. In nascent union efforts enthusiasm waxes and wanes. Last time they had met there was a hot issue. Now there was not.
I told them that if they were going to a build a union their most important tool was persistence. It took three hundred years to end slavery on this continent but it was ended. It took another hundred for African Americans to win full citizenship but after much struggle and strife--because of dedicated people who refused to give up--they did. As Theodore Parker would say, "the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice." Or to quote Martin King, "however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because 'truth crushed to earth will rise again.'" And I shared with them a story from my time organizing with the Chicago Couriers Union.
I was involved with the CCU for about a year and a half. During that time the union also had its ebbs and flows. We started strong with a good organizing committee and lots of enthusiasm. We won a few decent victories. We forced one company to pay its couriers--who were paid on commission--at least minimum wage. We stopped another company from illegally docking its employees paychecks when they did not comply with the uniform policy. But by the end of summer enthusiasm waned. We were not able to establish a foothold in any major courier company and our organizing committee pretty much fell apart.
Then one of the worker organizers got a job at a large courier company. He started to reach out to his co-workers. One-by-one he brought them to the union. After several months he had signed-up nearly everyone in his department. They drew up a list of demands. They sent a letter to the company's owner outlining their grievances. The owner, of course, ignored them. So they sent another letter and demanded that the owner meet with two of their representatives. She met with the representatives but only to tell them to knock it off. "If you don't like working here go get a job at McDonald's," she said. So they sent another letter--signed by all but two of the bike messengers at the company--intimating that there would be repercussions if the company did not listen to them. They were ignored and so they struck--they refused to deliver packages for two hours--and shut the courier company down. After that the owner agreed to meet with them and over the next couple of months--with the help of a few more job actions--they won most of their demands including a pay raise. The raise was extended not just to the department that had been organizing but to every courier in the company, close to a hundred people. It was the first pay raise that anyone in the courier industry had received in over a decade. None of it would have happened if that worker organizer had not stuck with the union when the organizing efforts seemed at low tide. Nothing would have come to fruition if the workers had not stuck together in the face of adversity.
After I finished one of the taxi drivers began to speak. An African immigrant he said, in a lyric lilt, "I do not feel that this room is empty. I feel that it is very very full. The people who have to be here are here. The other drivers may not know it yet but they have delegated to us the task of forming this union. Whether they are conscious of it or not they are here in spirit."
I do not know how the story ends yet. We are only at the beginning. Who knows where beginnings will lead. But the taxi driver's words leave me thinking of the passage from Hebrews that reads "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight...and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us...".
Hebrews is sermon that was written to an early Jewish Christian congregation riven with dissension and in danger of falling away from their faith. The community was suffering persecution and not all of its members were standing pat. The letter is an exhortation to stick with the faith and with the church in spite of adversity. The section that proceeds the passage I quoted details all of the heroes from the Hebrew Bible--Abraham, Moses, Samson, David and the like--who "conquered kingdoms, administered justice...shut the mouths of lions, quenched ragging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, [and] won strength out of weakness..."
This cloud of witness was to serve as a reminder that others had triumphed in the face of adversity before. By following their example and continuing in their work the struggling congregation would be assured to triumph also.
The cloud of witness is always present with us when we continue the struggles of previous generations. It is with us when we build upon their successes and learn from their failures. It is with when we understand that in every generation--in old forms and in new--oppression rears its ugly head.
Working with the most vulnerable--immigrants and supposed independent contracts--I am constantly amazed to discover the working and living conditions of some in this country. There are people who do not make minimum wage. Others who work 14 or even 16 hours a day to make ends meet. Some of them labor seven days a week and have little time for friends and family or even rest. Gains and rights that are supposed to enjoyed by all, that were won through the sweat and struggles of previous generations, are under threat or have gone by the wayside.
Yet when we despair there are places we can look to find hope. The stories that Amy Goodman shares of people speaking out for truth and against injustice should remind us that we are surrounded by a modern cloud of witness. There are those among us--whether present in this room or present in the human family--who should be lifted up as examples of the possibility of struggle.
Perhaps the greatest struggle before us is confronting the growing ecological crisis. The result of human actions and Western patterns of consumption it will require all of us to not just confront the powers and principalities but in some meaningful way change our patterns of behavior. Reflecting on this, in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Al Gore said, "The future is knocking at our door right now...The next generation will ask us one of two questions. Either they will ask: 'What were you thinking; why didn't you act?' Or they will ask instead: 'How did you find the moral courage to rise and successfully resolve a crisis that so many said was impossible to solve?'"
The moral courage can be found in the stories of others who have struggled for justice. The moral courage can be found when we realize that each generation has its own Egypts and Pharaohs. Many times those Pharaohs have been overcome and those Egypts left behind. The waters have parted and an impossible obstacle has been transformed to dry land.
In every generation we are challenged anew to work for justice and liberation. We are called to redeem ourselves from slavery. If we do not then we will quickly find ourselves enslaved again. We are only free to the extent that we can exercise our freedoms. If history shows us anything it is that in every generation some power or principality must be overcome or the human spirit will be crushed.
As the poet Primo Levi wrote:
"Each of us has been a slave in Egypt,
Soaked straw and clay with sweat,
And crossed the sea dry-footed.
You too, stranger.
This year in fear and shame,
Next year in virtue and in justice."
Amen.