Four years ago, our church partnered with the North Hollywood Home Alliance to provide a once-a-week hospitality program to persons experiencing homelessness in our neighborhood. Our Tuesday Drop-In Program succeeds because it’s a program founded on relationships characterized by justice, equity and compassion.
Four years ago, and you’ll remember that four years ago was the very beginning of the COVID Pandemic when we were all in lock-down, wondering how to protect ourselves and our loved ones, and struggling to imagine how community-based organizations like churches could survive when it was unsafe to gather in person, our congregation launched a new program.
For four years, every Tuesday, our congregation has operated as a host-site for a program that officially belongs to the North Hollywood Home Alliance, but is actually a roughly equal collaboration between our two organizations: a drop-in program, directed toward homeless individuals in our neighborhood but open really to anyone who wants to be here.
Our neighbors who show up at 8:30 AM on Tuesdays, are greeted by friendly volunteers, mostly from our church plus a few others. From our open front doors our guests can get a cup of coffee and a bowl of cold cereal or hot oatmeal. There are comfortable places to sit on the benches beneath our tree, or at tables and folding chairs. If the weather is cold or rainy, we set up tables and chairs in the Fellowship Hall.
There’s a power cord set on a small table where people can charge their phones.
The door to the restroom by the church office is open, so people have a clean and private place to use the bathroom, or wash up in the sink.
About six months ago we made arrangements with the city to provide a shower truck every week, so now a complete shower is available to those who want it.
There’s a book cart so folks can help themselves to reading material.
We have a well-stocked and well-staffed clothes closet where folks can avail themselves of clothing items they might need: a replacement pair of shoes. Clean socks and underwear. A pair of pants, a tee shirt, a jacket.
When I arrive around 10 AM to report to work, I find about 50 guests settled in relaxing, socializing. There are always a few people seeing what’s available at the clothes closet. There’s always someone in the bathroom and another person or two waiting. I say hello to Joyce Fidler, Bonnie Burroughs, Chris Sloan, Pam Geller and whoever else happens to be staffing the clothes closet that day. And I say thank you for their work.
Then I grab my coffee mug from my desk, and Stan’s coffee cup from the office and I get us both a coffee from the big urn the volunteers have made. I join the line and I listen how graciously our volunteers serve our guests: Rich Suter, Chris Long, Reid Swanson. When it’s my turn, I thank them for the coffee and their service.
If Stephanie is there helping folks get online to connect with social services, I give her a tip of my hat.
After I’ve delivered Stan’s coffee to him in the office, and before I start my work, I walk over to the kitchen where another team of volunteers is preparing the 50 hot lunches we provide every week. There’s Jane Swanson, and Christina Mathers, and Georgia who just joined the church, and Peter who I understand is an expert at chopping vegetables. There’s Chris Kirchner and James Scuillo. If I’m not too late, I can sometimes say hello to Shankar who comes early to make the oatmeal. All the meals are laid out in recyclable individual boxes with recyclable utensils. It all smells and looks delicious. Healthy food, with vegetables from the farmer’s market, and made with love. Our church makes most of the meals but we’re also supported by other congregations who contribute on a regular basis.
Our church provides the bulk of the volunteers, and the space. The NOHO Home Alliance pays us rent of a dollar a month, plus a weekly cleaning fee of $50 to hire a janitor to come in Tuesday afternoons and tidy up the well-used restroom. The city provides the shower truck. Every few months, the County arranges for a program fair. They set up tables in the parking lot with staff and information so our guests have access to services like getting ID cards, or a vaccine, or enrolling in food or financial assistance programs. The NOHO Home Alliance pays for a security guard to be on site. You remember, Brandon. It’s comforting to know he’s there. Pam Geller is the driving force behind keeping the clothes closet stocked with items. Nithya Ramen, the city council member for our church’s council district funds the expenses for the program from the discretionary money available to her office.
So you can see that although our Tuesday Drop-In program is a true and awesome program of our church, the program is also an example of and expression of, how this congregation is connected to other organizations in our neighborhood. That acknowledgement and affirmation of the fact that congregations are not isolated organizations, but are connected into networks of support, is the theme of the fifth task of interim ministry.
Along with History, Leadership, Mission and Vision, which we looked at earlier this year, examining our congregation’s Connections to a larger world of resources, sister churches, the UUA, interfaith partners, and other local organizations, like the NOHO Home Alliance, helps prepare a church to make the transition from one chapter of ministry to the next. Knowing that we’re not alone in our work, and knowing who to call when we need some help, is a key to making a new ministry successful. So over the next several weeks I’m going to name some of the organizations we’re connected with.
I also want to use this sermon series to take a deep look at the Seven Principles of our faith. The Seven Principles are a faith statement, actually part of the Bylaws of the UUA, written in the 1980s and meant to be a summary of what we hold in common. It’s not a creed, which is a statement of shared beliefs, because Unitarian Universalists hold many different beliefs. It’s not a mission statement, because it doesn’t require our congregations to do anything together. Rather, our faith statement is a set of principles: seven guidlines. Our faith is described not by what we believe or what we do, but by how we will do, whatever we choose to do. The Seven Principles are framed as a covenant, saying, if you wish to join our community, this is how we all agree to be with each other, in our personal lives, our congregational life, and our lives in the larger world.
Last week we looked at the fourth principle, the center of the seven, and also central to our identity as a liberal religion: a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.
Today, in thinking about our Tuesday Drop-in program and our connection to the NOHO Home Alliance and other service providers, I want to lift up our second principle: Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.
Our Tuesday program is all about relationships. Volunteers and Guests. Our church and the NOHO Home Alliance. When I arrive on Tuesday mornings, I see “human relations.” I see the proof of George Odell’s assertion in our Call to Worship that, “We need one another.” “All of our lives we are in need, and others are in need of us.”
I see the living out of the text of the of our Opening Hymn: “We’re all children of one family… If you cherish one another, love and friendship come to you. This old world can be a garden, full of fragrance, full of grace; If we love our neighbors truly, we must meet them face to face.”
I see neighbors loving neighbors on Tuesday morning, and it’s a beautiful thing to see. I see folks among our guests who have made friends, who know each other, who support each other. And sometimes argue and yell at each other, too, people being people. I see relationships between our volunteers and the folks they serve. Many guests come week after week. They are greeted by name. We notice if they haven’t been around lately. We watch out for each other. We know who needs cream in their coffee, and who wants to put extra sugar on their Frosted Flakes.
When we had our listening session with the congregation about the drop-in program last January, I was struck by how well our volunteers knew some of our guests. We get to know whole life stories. We get to know present struggles, and future dreams.
I don’t know anyone that well. But there is one gentleman that intrigues me. I’ve never spoken to him. But I see him every week. He’s well-dressed and neat. And after several times seeing him here on Tuesdays, I noticed that he’s also often on the bus with me from the Universal City subway station to Whitsett. We’ve traded glances so I know he recognizes me, too. I’ve never spoken to him because I want to respect his privacy.
And then, more recently, I realized that he rides the subway with me, too, all the way from downtown. I had assumed that all of our Tuesday guests live in our neighborhood. But here’s a neighbor, who travels a long way, to join us on Tuesday mornings.
Though I don’t speak to him, we have a relationship. I look for him. I care for him, and for the others who show up on Tuesdays, and for the volunteers who do the work. We are in relationship. And according to our second principle, when we have human relations with other people, our faith demands that those relationships be guided by three values: justice, equity, and compassion.
What do those words mean?
Last week, on one of the days I came into church, not Tuesday because I was sick this last Tuesday, as I walked from my apartment to the subway stop, I came across a woman at the street corner. She had a small suitcase open on the sidewalk, and she was bent over, rifling through her belongings with clothes spilling everywhere. As I waited for the light to change, she turned to me, a haggard face and a dirty hand outstretched, and she asked me for a quarter.
To be honest, I felt irritated, before I felt sorrow. I shook my head, and said “No”. And then I stood there awkwardly wishing the light would change more quickly.
Of course I had a quarter. So I lied. I had a lot more than just a quarter in my wallet. But I said, “No.” and turned away. Was this a relationship of justice, equity, and compassion?
My first feeling was irritation because in the three blocks between my apartment and the subway stop, I had already been asked for money once before. I said “No” to that guy, too. It’s not unusual to be solicited for money multiple times every time I step out of my apartment. That’s the reality of living downtown. So early on after moving there, to spare myself constant moral conflict, I made it a rule to say no to everyone.
So my irritation was that I had already had my compassion tested that morning. And now I was tested again, and again I felt sorrow at what I couldn’t do for a neighbor in need.
But she didn’t need my sympathy, she needed a quarter! So would justice have demanded I give it to her?
Justice is a tricky concept.
We have a sense we know what justice is. The Bible calls it righteousness. It’s fairness. It’s one of the four cardinal virtues, along with prudence, fortitude, and temperance, that contain all the others. Meaning it’s virtuous to carefully consider the right path in life, to stick to the path without flinching, to hold oneself back from excess, and to treat others fairly; with justice. At its simplest, justice can be defined as it was by the Roman Emperor Justinian in the sixth century AD as, “the constant and perpetual will to render to each his due.” But from that simple start, justice becomes quickly complex.
If justice demands we give to “each” his due, then what do we do when we have a limited resource (like the amount of money in my wallet) and the needs are greater than the resource?
If justice describes situations in which a person is “due” something, then why should a person who hasn’t committed a wrong feel any obligation to make an unjust situation right? Maybe that woman was “due” a quarter, but not from me.
Or in a social sense maybe it is me that owes her a quarter. She and I are part of a social system, where I came out ahead and she behind, partly due to my effort but partly due to luck, I admit. I got lucky with who my parents were, and I enjoy undeserved advantages like being able-bodied, and being a white man in a system that favors white men. In a democratic system, we’re all responsible for each other, and for creating laws in a democracy. But does my satisfaction in knowing that I vote for a robust social safety net, justify my not also giving personally when asked? And what of the people sleeping on the sidewalk I step around who don’t even ask for my help? Do I owe them nothing?
Our legal system intends for justice to be applied equally in all circumstances. People in similar circumstances, with similar needs, should be treated similarly. Our symbol of justice is a woman with her eyes covered by a blindfold. But it’s not so simple. Everyone actually is different, in thousands of ways. No two people are every completely similarly situated. So which differences we tend to be sensitive to, like debating whether it’s better to be race-neutral in our policies, or make special accommodations based on race, or differences we tend to ignore, like the ability that some have to hire the best lawyers, make meeting out equal justice difficult.
Or, to name one more complexity, to make justice requires that there be an agent with the power to enforce justice: to give and take and redistribute and punish and reward. But in much of life there is no agent like that available. Some imagine a God responsible for that kind of justice work, but that God didn’t give that woman what she needed, nor force me to do it.
When O. J. Simpson died earlier this week, a friend of mine, on facebook, posted the news with the single comment, “Karma.” I didn’t ask him what he meant, but it struck me as wrong. If you think of Karma as a guarantor of cosmic justice, then in what way would O. J. Simpson’s death make justice for the murders of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman? Everybody dies, so that’s not a special punishment. Nor does O. J.’s death at 76, make up for the lost years of life of Nicole and Ron, dead at 35 and 26.
In fact, what possibly could make justice from the murder of two young people? It’s a wrong for which there is no right. There is no un-doing of the past. Tragic events just sit there, permanently awful. No after the fact balancing, karmic or legal or otherwise, repairs the damage.
If it’s justice you seek, you’ll probably be frustrated.
Which is why, in our second principle, in our human relations, we don’t seek justice alone, but justice, equity, and compassion.
If we treated our guests on Tuesday morning with justice alone the program might look very different. We’d have to deal with questions of what do these people deserve? Are they similarly situated? Who wronged them? Who’s responsible? Instead of the same box lunch for everyone, it might be just to give some people more, and some less, and the minister who shows up with his coffee mug might have to be turned away entirely. If it’s justice alone we’re seeking, we might have to ask ourselves whether our Tuesday charity program is merely propping up an unjust economic system designed to keep people dependent instead of enlisting them in a protest campaign to change the system.
That might be justice. But it wouldn’t be compassion.
Like Jesus in the Beatitudes who weds righteousness to mercy, in our second principle we ally justice with compassion.
So when I see Stephanie hunched over a computer screen with a guest researching benefits programs, or I see Pam sorting through a rack to find a particular coat for a particular person. I’m not so worried about what’s justice, I’m simply loving the compassion.
Compassion means “feeling with.” It’s not attempting to fix troubling situations; it’s companioning through the trouble. It’s making connections. Person to person. Neighbor to neighbor. Bearing up in, “This old world full of sorrow, full of sickness, weak and sore;” as we work to create a better future, rather than the futility of trying to fix a broken past.
I believe there is a future in which every person in Los Angeles has a permanent home, not just a tent, or a car, or a bush. I know how difficult that task is. How much money and time we’ve already spent. How much suffering continues as we work and wait. I imagine a future in which we can announce, “All in” as everyone finds their home. That would be a picture of justice, perhaps, and equity, sure. Until then, I want to announce, “All in” to a community of human relations based on compassion.
It’s compassion we offer on Tuesdays. In every coffee cup. In the shade of the tree. Compassion resting in every section of the box that the hot lunch comes served in, a slice, a scoop, a just and equal (as much as we can make it) helping of compassion.