There is an old African Proverb, “Until the lions can tell their own story, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”

Intuitively, the United Church of Christ, and those who have come before us—like our forebears in Old South, have understood this parable. Until the voiceless are granted voice, their hopes and expectations, triumphs and tragedies will never be articulated, leaving us and them to wonder—like the sound of a tree falling in the forest that no one hears—if they really ever existed at all. So, for us, this is a question of justice. And that’s why media matters.

This congregation has seen many “firsts,” in the media. You are the proud owner of two copies of the Bay Psalm Book, the first book published on this continent. Your first minister, Thomas Thatcher, wrote and published the first medical tract in North America in 1677.  In 1704, Old South member Bartholomew Green launched the Boston News-Letter, the first continuously published newspaper in North America. Forty years later, Thomas Prince founded the first religious journal printed in North America. Samuel Sewell, a deacon at Old South published the first anti-slavery tract in 1770. And, in 1773, Phillis Wheatley, baptized and confirmed at Old South, became the first African American published author.

            You are no strangers to understanding the importance of media. It is in your DNA. Hundreds of years later, we celebrate these firsts and recognize their importance as incidents that shaped colonial society and fostered principles that became foundational for our nation. Whether it be 18^th century pamphleteers or their latter day cousins in the blogoshpere, you understand how media helps us form who we are, and what we say and believe about ourselves and one another. That’s why media matters.

            Fast forward almost 200 years. In 1959, my predecessor in the UCC—Dr. Everett Parker—formed the Office of Communication of the United Church of Chbrist, Inc.—an independent organization within the UCC whose express purpose was to ensure that historically marginalized communities—especially women and people of color—had access to the airwaves. In 1967, based on a suit filed by the UCC, the Federal Appeals Court ruled that WLBT television in Jackson, MS—the strongest station in the mid-south—must forfeit its FCC license because of its failure to serve the African American community in Jackson. WLBT would routinely eliminate news and information about the civil rights struggle that was swirling about them, replacing news feeds with the slate, “Sorry, Cable Trouble.” In addition, the court established standing on behalf of the public before the FCC. Prior to this, only corporate entities could challenge license renewals, but in UCC v. FCC, this new precedent empowered citizen groups to petition the FCC. That’s why media matters.

            Fast forward another 40 years. When the networks refused to let us air our commercial a year ago December—and then refused again this year—we were given a gift. Through a controversy not of our choosing, the UCC was suddenly catapulted into the limelight in ways that we never could have imagined—or paid for. Since the campaign began, we’ve had more than 2,000 stories written about the UCC in major periodicals around the country, and even overseas. Last spring, there was a ten-day stretch where the UCC was prominently featured in four unrelated articles in the NY Times. Before the campaign, we had 80,000 unique visits per month on our web sites. Now we have 700,000, almost a ten-fold increase. We’ve had ¾ of a million people visit our find a church function. We’ve had people in prison and people on death’s door contact our pastors because of this exposure. We’ve had thousands of e-mails in our offices in Cleveland, saying thank you for your welcoming message. I’ve had more than one person tell me that they wept when the ad came on. That’s why media matters.

            For those of you visiting this morning or who are new to the UCC, you may recognizing the branding we use: our red and black banners, large commas and the phrase “God Is Still Speaking.” We have used these distinctive marks to proclaim who we are and what we believe. Focus groups in preparation for the commercials we produced revealed to us how wounded people have really been by the church. Our commercials, in response to that learning, use evocative images like night club bouncers and church pews equipped with ejector buttons to make one simple point: Jesus didn’t turn people away; neither do we. No matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here. This principle is magnificently represented in this historic congregation, in the heart of this historic city—a church whose doors remain open all week to all who would enter in. The networks’ rejection was based on the notion that the ad was too controversial—an advocacy ad because among those whom we welcome are gay and lesbian, bisexual and trangendered persons. Hence, network executives in New York were determining what kind of religious message could be seen over the airwaves—a dangerous development for our democracy. There is no incident in recorded history where religious freedoms were denied while personal freedom was honored. That’s why media matters.

Larry Hollon, my counterpart in the United Methodist Church says, “in a media saturated culture, if you are not on TV you do not exist.” The UCC as a denomination and congregations like Old South seek to engage this reality and proclaim the distinctive witness of the United Church of Christ in bold and exciting ways so that, like the prophet Habakkuk says, “those who run may read it.”

            Some say this effort is trite, based on a bumper sticker theology. One quick story can illuminate the depths to which we are called to b e faithful. Vicki McGaw is Director of Christian Education at Pilgrim Congregational UCC in Ohio and a trainer for the stillspeaking campaign, learned about the rapidly deteriorating health of a man in her congregation who was desperately in need of a kidney transplant or would need to go on dialysis to stay alive. Vicki took a test and discovered she was a match for this man and, after prayer and conversation with her husband Mike and their kids, believed that God was speaking to her through this situation. She decided to donate her kidney to this man.

A week before the operation, Vicki and I were talking about the training session she was about to do for the identity campaign, and the conversation shifted to her upcoming operation. As I spoke in awe of her generosity, Vicki said “It’s really only another expression of hospitality.” Another expression of hospitality! This is the depth to which we are called in this effort. This is the openness with which Christ challenges us to be faithful, that we would literally give a part of ourselves to another, and see it as an expression of welcome.
      

            In his 1994 inaugural address, Nelson Mandela proclaimed, “Our worst fear is not that we are inadequate; our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure…We ask ourselves, ‘who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God, your playing small does not serve the world.”

            But how do we take the gift of our historic legacy, how do we marshall the extraordinary talent among our members and move into the future in this complex, media-saturated society in which we live? When confronted with such cosmic questions, I often find it helpful to look to scripture. I see the beginning of an answer to that question in the 12^th Chapter of Genesis:

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed. So Abram went, as the Lord had told him.

The Genesis writer offers us a good three point sermon.

The first point is God’s command “to go.” Dr. Ephraim Agosto from Hartford Theological Seminary speaks of an intense study undertaken around the Hebrew word that has been translated here. Experts from across the country gathered and offered papers and perspectives. After significant scholarly input and intellectual deliberation, the conclusion was that the Hebrew word translated as “go” actually means “GO.”

Simple. Direct. Don’t just sit there. Go.

The second point is that God does not say where to go—“to a place that I will show you.” At the time of departure, there is no land of milk and honey, but there is a “promised land” because God says that God WILL show Abram where to go…just not yet.

The third point is that God offers Abram greatness, a blessing, if he goes. He will not be able to hide in the shadows but his light will shine on the hill.

The implications for the ministry that lies ahead of us seem obvious. Because, as Genesis says—Abram went. No hesitation, no elaboration. He just WENT. And his name became blessed.

This sentiment is replicated in the first chapter of Mark. (I love the Gospel of Mark; the writer’s economy of language implies a sense of urgency and immediacy.) Jesus comes upon some young guys fishing on the Sea of Galilee. He calls out to them, “follow me” and immediately—“straightway” in the King JamesVersion—they follow him. No hesitation, no knowledge of the destination. They just follow—immediately…straightway.

If we are to be faithful, we too are called to risk, to go forward boldly and creatively into a world where we will be unable to hide from media exposure, even though we cannot predict our final destination. We must proclaim who we are and offer Jesus’ extravagant welcome all along the way. We must engage the society that surrounds us. We must speak truth to power. The time is now. The task is ours.

            Why? Because the moral values debate in this country has been hijacked by a relative few, who would lead us to believe that they speak for Christians everywhere. They have set the parameters of the debate and we have not been invited to the table.

We did a study recently on the Sunday morning talk shows.  Over the past eight year, we discovered that Gary Bauer, Richard Land, Pat Robertson, Gerry Falwell and James Dobson had more than 40 appearances among them. How many appearances were there among the leaders of  the 35 mainline Protestant churches that comprise the NCC, representing 100,000 congregations and 45 million members? NONE! The religious voices that dominate the media landscape don’t represent people who live day by day in the trenches of real ministry. It is time your faith story is told, because the hijackers of the moral values debate don’t want the things you care about to get an airing. That’s why media matters.

Forty-six million people don’t have health care and are led to believe that somehow it is their fault. Is that your moral value?

Black and brown kids are assaulted with images on TV of super-predators that are—black and brown—characters carefully crafted by media execs driven only by the bottom line. Is that your moral value?

Between 1990 and 2002, for every additional dollar earned by taxpayers in the bottom 90% of the population, those in the top one-one hundredth of a percent made an additional $18,000. Is that your moral value?

Thousands have died and the hundreds of billions dollars have been spent on a war in Iraq based on sloppy intelligence, a first-strike philosophy and an intimidated press. Is that your moral value?

The media is essential to our understanding of who we are and how we relate to one another, so if we are to demonstrate extravagant welcome or evangelical courage in our age, we must engage the media, invoking all the wisdom, all the sensitivity, all the compassion, all the talents, all the resources, all the energy, all the imagination at our disposal for this task. We can do no less.

Perhaps, it is imagination that is key: that human quality that moves us to dare to dream, that emboldens us—that dimension of our heart and mind and soul that, when coupled with faith, moves us to ever deeper understandings of ourselves and our God: Imagination.

I close, not with the words of a futuristic communications expert, or some internet guru, or a cutting edge film director, but with the words of a freed slave. For those who have ears, may you hear Phillis Wheatley’s poem, On Imagination, and understand why media matters:

Imagination! Who can sing thy force?

Or who describe the swiftness of thy course?

Soaring through the air to find the bright abode

Th’empyreal palace of the thund’ring God

We on thy pinions can surpass the wind

And leave the rolling universe behind:

From star to star the mental optics rove,

Measure the skies, and range the realms above.

There in one view we grasp the mighty whole,

Or with new worlds amaze th’unbounded soul.