The Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper, Senior Minister of Judson Memorial Church in New York City, is a activist for the progressive Christian movement.  Recently Donna delivered a sermon in Miami, FL and referred to “punishmentalist” not “fundamentalists” who encourage victimization and the blaming of others.  Donna says, “We live in a time of appreciation deficit disorder.” Here is the entire text of Donna’s sermon, “Why Do We Eat Bread Which Does Not Satisfy?”

I will save my reminiscences for the lunch after service so that those of you who are interested can listen – and I won’t bore all the wonderful new faces here today.  Thank you for the invitation to come back.  You could have made it a little warmer, but I forgive you.  That forgiveness will actually be the theme of this sermon, which starts with the song the rolling stones trinity.  “I can’t get no satisfaction.”  Repeat three times.  The sermon ends with a kind answer to the question of why we eat so much bread which does not satisfy.

The humorist Paula Poundstone gave me a great description for the automated and remote spirituality of our time.  Apparently someone has figured out how to automate confessions.  You dial an 800 number.  You can push one if you want information on how to make a confession.  You can push two if you actually want to confess something. And you can press three if you want to listen to other people’s confessions.  The theme of the 800 number is left unremarked.  Confession is required, one-way or another.  You are to find some form of confession and sing - or unsing - it.  Why do we eat so much bread, which does not satisfy?

I learned one thing above everything else from my father. He taught me that what and how we believe about God, the universe, each other and our world is crucial. It is crucial because every act we perform expresses that belief. And to the extent that this belief includes life-denying notions of any kind, our actions will manifest those notions in everything we do - sometimes only as a hint or the suggestion of a flavor; sometimes as an outright three-dimensional act. What we believe about God shapes how we live on the planet. 

Yes, we deal in the world of ideas and beliefs. But the world we mean to influence is the world of action and outcome. Theologians and ethicists have only recently begun to be aware that while we have been getting our beliefs right, our theologies and moral philosophies have ignored the reality that the majority of the human population on this planet is left to live without the means to live and ultimately without the hope to make life possible.

So whatever education we do from this time forward must forever after include and underscore the unrelenting questions that question our assumptions about life, what is good for others, what life is like for others and that demand to know how we will resist the powers that be that tell us that only the powerful, the resource-rich and the fortunate-born matter. Our education must always include an indictment of the system in which we live and in which we serve.

This is what D. L. Dykes, Jr. knew and taught. It is what he taught me. The peace and prosperity for which we all long will never be possible without reconstructing a world in which every human being has enough and no one is lorded over by anyone else.

Faith is not about thinking and believing right things; it is about righting wrong things. It’s not about our being kinder, gentler people. It’s about how we will not rest until God’s world is made right. This is what D. L. Dykes intended; this is what we will do.

your colleague and friend,
David Dykes, CEO of The D. L. Dykes, Jr. Foundation