July 12, 2009 + Speaking Truth to Power + Frank Alton

Amos 7:7-17; Mark 6: 14-29

Speaking truth to power is risky. That seems like the understatement of the century after hearing the story of John the Baptist’s beheading. But however understated or redundant, it is a truth we must face over and over again. Whether it’s our personal struggle to stand up for ourselves with our parents, our employers, our spouses, or someone who is oppressing us; or whether it is speaking up on behalf of some other group of people who are being treated unjustly, the risks of speaking truth to power are evident at every turn.

The people of Iran learned the lesson recently, as protesters and their leaders were arrested for questioning the current arrangement of power. The risk isn’t just about life and death. It’s about success and failure. What if a lot of people die speaking truth to power and nothing changes? A recent editorial in the New York Times, entitled “Understanding Iran: Repression 101”, compares the impact of the protests in Iran to those 20 years ago in Tiananmen Square in China, where the Chinese Communist party, albeit changed, continues in power; and to Solidarity uprisings in Poland where more radical change resulted. It goes on to compare protests and revolutionary movements in Burma and North Korea and Nicaragua. We can ask about the impact of protests in this country – against various wars, about environmental issues or abortion, the anti-nuclear movement of two decades ago, and many other examples of speaking truth to power.

Clearly, if speaking truth to power is evaluated based on short term success in light of the risks involved, not many would chose to participate. But that is to address the matter politically. How might it look different if we address it spiritually? What happens spiritually when we fail to speak truth to power? William Sloan Coffin said, “If you lessen your anger at the structures of power you lower your love for the victims of power.” (To the left, p. 5) I agree with Rev. Coffin. But love and anger are difficult travelling companions. One usually wins over the other at any given moment. That leads me to ask a question about the spirituality of people who speak truth to power. What prepares a person spiritually to speak truth to power? Amos and John the Baptist offer some hints.

First of all, both Amos and John had an appropriate sense of their own importance. Now, appropriate means neither too high nor too low. Both decided that despite not having high enough status, there was no one else more appropriate or available to take up the mantle. Amos refers to himself as “just” a herdsman, as over against Amaziah, who was a priest, with access to the king’s ear. When Amaziah tried to emasculate Amos by calling him a prophet and saying he wasn’t living up to a prophet’s status, Amos refused to take the label. “I am not a prophet. I am just obeying God’s call to prophesy.” Amos spoke truth to King Jeroboam; the official priest Amaziah tried to silence him. Amos wouldn’t hear of it. He was clear about who he was and what he was called to do. It wasn’t about him; it was about a larger cause. He wasn’t into status–that didn’t matter.

The same was true of John the Baptist. John’s role as messenger was to prepare for someone else. He began his career making sure everyone knew that he was not “the one.” “There is one greater than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.” Along the way he insisted that that he had to decrease while Jesus increased.

The people who need to speak truth to power don’t do it because it makes sense for them to be the ones who do it. They do it because there is no one else who is any better. Even though on the outside prophets clearly have a lower status than kings, in the Bible the call of the Prophet and the call of the King are very similar. In Nathan's oracle to David concerning building a "house" for God (temple) and a "house" for David (dynasty), God says, "I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel" (2 Sam 7:8). The wording is strikingly similar to that in Amos's account of his calling: "and God took me from following the flock, and said to me, 'Go, prophesy to my people Israel"' (Amos 7:15). Similarly, John’s announcement of his message is the same as Jesus’: “Repent, for the Kingdom of God has come near.” The prophet has to know this while accepting a situation in which the prophet is in the power- down situation with respect to the person in power. That is the appropriate sense of self-importance so clearly spoken by both Amos and John.

The person who speaks truth to power has a sense of being part of something greater than him or herself – something that is more important than ones personal agenda, personal status, or petty peccadilloes. Who speaks truth to power? Not the powerful themselves. Rather, it is those who are considered least likely to do so. People who speak truth to power aren’t always the ones in the spotlight. Well known people are often expected to speak truth to power, so there may actually be less impact when they do. It’s the common person who has no right to speak, the one whom nobody expects to do it, that will have greater impact on the powerful. Whenever you find yourself tempted to say, “What difference could my voice make?” remember that it has mostly been people who didn’t think they could make a difference who made a difference when they spoke truth to power.

That was the kind of impact Gandhi had. While he became a person of stature through his struggle, he started out as a common person. He was able to have the impact he had because he understood that speaking truth to power required a spiritual strength that had to be developed. And he dedicated most of his energy to developing that spiritual strength.

Throughout history it has been mostly the unsung heroes rather than the historical icons we tend to elevate to hero status who have made the most significant changes. Howard Zinn proposes some alternative heroes for our nation’s history.

Why not recall the humanitarianism of William Penn, an early colonist who made peace with the Delaware Indians instead of warring on them, as other colonial leaders were doing?

Why not John Woolman, who, in the years before the Revolution, refused to pay taxes to support the British wars, and who spoke out against slavery?

What about grassroots heroes like Fannie Lou Hamer, the Mississippi sharecropper? Mrs. Hamer was evicted from her farm and tortured in prison after she joined the civil rights movement, but she became an eloquent voice for freedom. Or Ella Baker, whose wise counsel and support guided the young black people in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the militant edge of the civil rights movement in the Deep South?

Today also there are heroes speaking truth to power, like thousands of students on more than 100 college campuses across the country who are protesting their universities' connection with sweatshop-produced apparel; and the four McDonald sisters in Minneapolis, all nuns, who went to jail repeatedly for protesting against the Alliant Corporation's production of land mines; and the thousands of people who have traveled to Fort Benning, Georgia, to demand the closing of the murderous School of the Americas. (Published in the June 2000 issue of The Progressive Unsung Heroes by Howard Zinn)

The spirituality that undergirds this ability to speak truth to power has to do with moving from a reactive mode to an active mode of being. This is true whether it involves a public political protest, a child standing up to a parent, an employee standing up to a supervisor, or a customer relating to a shopkeeper. Personally, I have found it more challenging to speak truth to power on behalf of myself than on behalf of others. About 25 years ago I took a battery of tests that revealed how I respond to things when I’m in a reactive mode and how I respond when I’m in an active mode. For example, when I didn’t feel that people were respecting me, I went to my reactive response, which was either to withdraw or to relate to them as a compliant child. On the other hand, when I felt respected, I could access the broad range of active skills and abilities that I have and respond fruitfully.

Over the years I’ve learned that I have the option of choosing to respond from an active mode even when I am experiencing a lack of respect, by consciously accessing either healthy anger by restoring boundaries in a relationship, or by disengaging from the relationship because I realize the other person doesn’t respect me, and that I don’t want to be in relationship with that person. When I combine that awareness with the realization that I am participating in something that is greater than myself, I can choose to remain engaged, and channel my anger to speak truth to the one who claims more power in the circumstances, but who doesn’t really have more power in the larger scheme of things.

Another aspect of spirituality for speaking truth to power is the importance of maintaining a combination of love and anger, along with the courage to speak when it’s dangerous. St. Augustine wrote: “Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.” But it is also important for the spokesperson to stay connected to the love for the people that motivates the speaking truth to power in the first place. As William Sloan Coffin said, “We have to hate evil, else we’re sentimental. But if we hate evil more than we love the good, we become good haters, and o those the world already has too many. However deep, our anger must always and only measure our love.”

We see this balance in Amos. God shows three scenes to Amos in Amos 7: locusts ready to eat the harvest, a shower of fire that dried up the sea and ate up the land, and a plumb line. In the first two cases, Amos begged God to relent of the plans for destruction, and God did relent. In the third case, which is today’s passage, God inserts a question to Amos after showing him the plumb line: “Amos, what do you see?” God hadn’t asked that the other two times. Once Amos acknowledges that he sees a plumb line (a tool of measurement rather than an instrument of destruction like the other two), God proceeds to reveal plans for destruction. This time Amos does not beg. What happened? Did Amos lose his love and patience for the people? Or did he finally see what God saw: the discrepancy between Israel’s calling and its conduct.

The demand for justice required dramatic action to make the wall “plumb.” The wall that was Israel would never be able to support the structure of God’s call on its life without the needed correction to straighten the wall. A building whose walls are not straight (or “plumb”) will collapse under its own weight. In that case, love requires convincing the owner to invest in making the necessary adjustments.

I have a friend who just added a room onto a house. Last week the inspector came and said the city had denied the building permit. At this point, my friend will try to negotiate with the inspector to allow the room to stand, perhaps paying a fine. But if the inspector refuses, my friend will have to tear down the addition, which cost about $15,000. At a certain point, it does no good to argue. It is time for action.

Some of you may be following the news about the current spat between labor unions. At a time when workers need unions to be advocating for them more than ever, some of the largest unions are trying to recruit members from each others’ ranks. Whatever else one might say about that, it demonstrates a disconnection between the anger that leads people to fight for justice and the love for the people that evokes that anger when the people are hurt.

We have our own struggles to keep love and anger, justice and peace together. It turns out that this is one of the great challenges of taking up the mantle to speak truth to power. It is the message of the Psalm for today – Psalm 85: “Will you be angry with us forever? Show us your steadfast love, O God, and grant us your salvation… Steadfast love and truth fill meet, justice and peace will kiss each other. Truthfulness will spring up from the ground and justice will look down from the sky.”

Must we speak truth to power? Yes. Do we need to do that from a spiritually centered place? Double yes. As Immanuel continues to engage our anger at injustice by participating in struggles for justice for many groups of people, I pray that we will be able to do it in ways that also reveal our love and build bridges of peace. For otherwise, our justice work will just be clanging gongs and noisy cymbals.