As you might guess, I was extremely disappointed in this week's news. I really hoped, after two long, hard years of bitter struggle that Brittney and KFed could find a way to make things work, but alas, it was not meant to be.

        There was other, more hopeful news. Alabamians voted to increase their property taxes to fund education, and that is a great victory.  With respect to all of the other news this week, I appreciate that it was a mixture of joys and concerns, depending on where you are on the political spectrum.  This was my first general election as a resident of Alabama, and for those who always are trying to pigeon hole me, I'll have you know that I split my ballot.  

        Apart from my own obligations as a citizen, I take seriously my responsibility to minister to congregants all along the political spectrum. Wehave Republicans, Independents, and Libertarians in our congregation. The pastor in me felt compelled to minister to our Republican friends who may be a bit discouraged this week. However, I honestly felt that it would be inappropriate to make a pastoral visit to our Republican members until I could wipe the silly grin off my face, and, I must confess, I haven't been able to do that yet.

        The preceding remarks, of course, are all meant to be in good fun. Before anybody gets either too excited or too discouraged, we should remind ourselves that the political pendulum will swing back.  There is an ebb and a flow to such things. As a Unitarian Universalist congregation, we struggle with how political we should be.  There's a teaching in the Christian tradition that says, be in this world but not of this world. As a cautionary note about materialism, it's a good teaching.  As an excuse to do nothing in this world except to wait for the next one, it is a teaching most UUs reject.

        We aren't the first people to struggle with their role in this world.  The Hebrew scriptures describe an ideal society in which righteousness and justice rule and they describe a very real society that failed to live up to this standard and the consequences for failing to do so.  I would be the first to say that most of us would not embrace this ideal in its totality.  Yet, one of my themes is that all the world's great enduring religions have something positive to offer to us and that none of them should be embraced or discarded on an all or nothing basis.  We must be careful, if I may mix metaphors, not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  In three weeks,  I'll be discussing homosexuality and the Bible. That sermon will have more to do with the Bible than homosexuality. It will be about how we read the Bible, how we put it in context, and how we may, with integrity and without it being wholly self-serving, take what we want to leave the rest. As I said, I'll have much more to say about that on December 3.  For today, though, here is something to take:

        The ancient Hebrew people were displaced, removed from their land to Egypt where they were enslaved and, after 400 years, freed from bondage and eventually returned to the land that had been promised to them.  The Hebrew scriptures remind the people over and over again of this heritage and their obligation never to treat others as they have been treated. From Deuteronomy 10: 17-20: For the Lord your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves strangers, providing them with food and clothing.  You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt."

        When the Jews referred to orphans and widows and strangers, they meant that literally---that is, these were social codes for the treatments of various classes of persons-and they also used that phrase more generally to refer to the dispossessed, the marginalized, and the oppressed.  Psalm 82 reminds them, "Give justice to the week and the orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked."

        In its ideal, the vision for the Israelite society was somewhat egalitarian. I say somewhat because clearly they approved of slavery and their society was both patriarchal and hierarchal. Yet, those on top-landowners, heads of households, and others-were required to share their wealth and care for those who had less. As the story goes, when God was leading the Jews from Egypt, he provided them food in the form of manna, and he ensured that everyone had enough.  Summarizing this story, the Apostle Paul later wrote in his second letter to the Corinthians, "The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little." 2 Cor. 15.

        Indeed, economic equity-that is, the fair distribution of goods and services and the laws regarding the sale and ownership of property-is a central theme of the Torah, or first five books of the Hebrew scriptures. Note that I used a different word here: equity. Equity refers to fairness. Equality, in the mathematical or economic sense, refers to an equal amount.  Yet, there is no pretense that everyone should have the same amount of money or land or personal property.  There is a point, though, when the amounts become so unequal as to become unfair, and that's what really is behind the phrase income inequality. What we're really talking about is a society that is fundamentally unfair.

        Thus, we get these verses from the prophet Micah, condemning those who obtained their wealth by exploitation: "They covet fields, and seize them; house, and take them away; they oppress householder and house, people and their inheritance." (Mic. 2:1-2)  Amos warns that God's punishment will fall on those that "sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals-they who trample the head of the poor in the dust of the earth and push the afflicted out the way."  Amos 2:6-7a.  Back to Micah, speaking for God: "Can I tolerate wicked scales and a bag of dishonest weights? Your wealthy are full of violence; your inhabitants speak lies, with tongues of deceit in the mouths." Mic. 6:11-12

        To keep the wealthy from becoming too wealthy and the poor from becoming too poor, the ancient Jews were commanded every seven years to cancel debts and free their slaves. This was called the shmita or sabbatical year, or sometimes just Sabbath year. Scholars disagree, by the way, whether this ever was done; it was the ideal, though.  Anticipating that they may not follow the rules, the law also said that after seven Sabbath years, the next year shall be a jubilee year. From Leviticus: "You shall make the fiftieth year holy. You shall proclaim liberty throughout the land for all its inhabitants." Lev. 25:10

        For all the idealism in the economic system prescribed in the Torah, implicit in the Sabbath year and the Jubilee year, is a recognition of human limitation and fallibility. What these verses are saying is that, every now and then, before things get too far out of hand, you have to stop and reset everything.  The ancient Jews knew that human nature would produce social disorder, and the Sabbath year and Jubilee years were meant at least in part to re-establish that order.

        We should use these verses to ask ourselves several questions. Is it time to re-set our social order?  Has our income inequality become so acute as to become fundamentally unfair? If we don't address this, might this be done for us and in a way we may not like?  

        I'm about to give you a whole bunch of numbers, and I appreciate that it's hard to process that by hear. So, I've made copies of the summary report sheets from which those numbers were taken that you may take after the service.  The bottom line is,  the gap between rich and poor is big in Alabama and getting bigger at a rate faster than almost every other state in the nation. Here are some details:

        According to an analysis by the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities  of census data, Alabama ranks 16th in income inequality, one being the worst in this case.  In terms of dollars, the average household income of families in the poorest fifth of Alabama's families was 11,722 dollars. At that same time, the average household income for families in the richest fifth was 65,876 dollars. That's a ratio of 5.6 to 1-for every dollar a poor person earned, a rich person earned 5.6 dollars. By the early 2000s, the respective household incomes for the poorest fifth compared to the richest fifth was 14,765 dollars and 105,337 dollars, respectively-a ratio of 7.1  So, the gap between the richest Alabamians and the poorest Alabamians keeps growing.  You may be tempted to think that this gap is growing everyone, and you would be right. In Alabama, however, the gap grew faster than most other states. I noted a minute ago that our gap ranks us 16th among the 50 states, with one being the worst. In 1980, we were 26th among the fifty states.

        Now, here is where I must separate my message. For my friends at a certain place on the political spectrum, we must acknowledge that poverty is in some ways overstated when you only look to such numbers. What separates most of our country's poor from the 3rd world poor is an extensive social safety net that collectively has reduced the number of Americans below the official poverty level from 58 million to 31 million.  Among the most effective components of this safety net are Medicaid, food stamps, the earned income tax credit, and the supplemental security income program, which benefits people with sever mental impairments.

        On the other hand, to my friends who might be found elsewhere on the political spectrum, we must acknowledge that the safety net still leaves 31 million people in poverty, and that's a lot of people.  Moreover, the federal poverty guidelines set a pretty low standard and even getting all Americans over that line is nothing to be especially proud of.  This year, the standard for a family of four in the 48 contiguous states is $20,000; for a single person, it is $9,800.  Further, there are a lot of barriers to people getting the benefits to which they are entitled. Only about 60 percent of those eligible for food stamps actually get them, and on that score, Alabama is right at the national average.  Only half-50.4%, to be precise-of Alabama's doctors accept Medicaid patients. The participation rate in Georgia is 70%, and in Mississippi, it's 67%.

        Let's put away all of the numbers. How does our heart respond when we ask the question, is our society fair?  Is there an entire class of persons in our country who are disconnected from the American dream?  Our society is composed of several discrete but overlapping elements, including government, the faith communities, civic organizations, and individual initiative.  For our society to be fair, all of these elements must manifest fairness, or, if I may use the words used by the Jews of the biblical world, righteousness and justice.  In each of these areas, how would you say we are doing?

        What might a jubilee look like in America? How might we re-set our society?  I'm going to ask you in a minute for your views on this. I'd like you to think about the usual list of things, universal health care, living wages, and so forth. I'd also like you to think more broadly about how we include or exclude people from our larger society. Let me give you just one example that has been in the news a lot because of the elections. Alabama is one of only 10 states that bars felons from voting for life. We have the third highest disenfranchisement rate in the country. Over 200,000 people in this state are barred from voting for life, 70% of whom have completed the sentence. Fifteen percent of the entire population of African Americans in Alabama are barred from voting for the rest of their lives. What might jubilee look like for them? It would mean that people who have done the crime and done their time, as the saying goes, will be allowed back into our civil society as full and equal partners.  

        In closing, I urge us to heed these words from the prophet Isaiah. With all due respect to our mission statement, this is as good a mission statement as any faith group

        "Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow." (Isa 1:16c-17)

        May it always be so.