Pentecost 6, Proper 7A – June 22, 2008                                                                          “Blowing the Whistle”

Jeremiah 20:7-13; Psalm 69:8-11, 18-20; Matthew 10:24-39

St. Giles Church, Northbrook IL – The Rev. Cynthia J. Hallas

 

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”  MLK spent his adult life speaking out about things that matter.  He was known for it; he was respected for it; he was killed for it.  King spoke truth to power; he was a prophet.  Some might even him a whistle-blower.

 

Whistle-blowers have been in the news a lot during the past several years.  But it’s not an easy role to take on.  It’s not particularly safe, either – just ask Federal Air Traffic controllers Peter Nesbitt.[1]  Nesbitt was a veteran controller who moved from Austin, Texas to Tennessee to work the night shift at Memphis International Airport, a job he enjoyed.  Shortly after his arrival, he noticed a procedure that seemed to him unsafe and potentially catastrophic was being carried out routinely during times of high traffic.  Fearing a potential disaster, he asked his bosses about the procedure and was reassured that it was acceptable and that in fact, the Memphis airport had a special waiver from the FAA allowing them to carry it out.  But the night that Peter Nesbitt witnessed a near miss – two planes coming with 800 feet of one another, not a lot of clearance for two large aircraft – he decided to speak out, reporting the incident to both NASA and the National Transportation Safety Board.  It turned out that the airport did not have a waiver to land planes in that fashion after all, and Memphis International was told to stop.  But they kept it up.  So Nesbitt reported them again.

 

The workplace retaliation began almost immediately.  Nesbitt was decertified ‘for alleged performance issues’ (NPR).  In his own words, “I’ve tried to do the right thing and enhance safety, and I’ve paid the price.”  (NPR) 

 

Peter Nesbitt is not alone.  Other Air Traffic Controllers have come forward to report unsafe conditions, and suffered similar fates.  They’ve been put under investigation by their superiors, demoted, had their responsibilities taken away – in short, competent employees with integrity have been reduced to on-the-job irrelevance.  One, Anne Whiteman of Dallas/Ft. Worth, reports attempts to run her off the road, as well as repeated episodes of a male co-worker walking by her workstation and knocking her down.  It’s not easy being a whistle-blower.

 

Just ask Sherron Watkins, Cynthia Cooper, and Coleen Rowley.[2]  These three women were named TIME Magazine’s Persons of the Year for 2002 for their roles, respectively, in exposing corrupt corporate practices at the Enron Corporation and WorldCom, and the FBI’s failure to investigate in proper fashion the threat posed to national security by one Zacarias Moussaioui.  Watkins, Cooper and Rowley risked their careers and livelihoods, and the security of their families, to speak truth to power, to speak about “things that matter”.  In fact, in a twist of irony, that quote by Martin Luther King that opened this sermon was one of several ‘inspiring’ quotes that adorned note pads passed out to employees at the Enron Corporation.  Sherron Watkins had one such note pad.  For their trouble, these women endured the hatred of colleagues as well as workplace isolation, reduced or eliminated job responsibility, and emotional stress.  It’s not easy being a whistle-blower.

 

Just ask Dietrich Bonhoeffer, or Karen Silkwood, or Nelson Mandela.  Like those whistle-blowers of more recent years, they spoke truth to power, they spoke about what matters.  In the face of persecution, punishment, and the threat of death – a threat that was carried out in two of their cases - they did not remain silent.  They were modern prophets.  Their stories are well known.

 

Or consider a man who residing some 2700 years ago in the village of Anathoth in Judah, a man named Jeremiah.  His story is well known, too; we just heard a little piece of it.  Called to the role of prophet at a young age, you may recall his respone: “Ah, Lord God!  Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.”)  But God would brook no excuses.  And Jeremiah discovered early on just how relentlessly punishing and threatening and miserable the calling of prophet, truth-teller, ‘whistle-blower’ could be.

 

Our first lesson is one of Jeremiah’s laments or lamentations, one of a series of several such combination of prayer, tirade, and agonized soliloquies that mourn what living life of a prophet has done to him, what it cost him.  It’s not a pleasant existence – Jeremiah rails against the life God has called him to lead: as a result of it Jeremiah is the object of laughter and mockery, forced to speak words he’d rather not speak; he wants to stay home and keep his mouth shut but it doesn’t work for him that way.  God’s people have been worshipping idols, God’s priests have been too caught up in their own power struggles to call them back to repentance and God is angry so he has ‘enticed’ Jeremiah to speak on his behalf, to ‘blow the whistle’ on this unfaithful behavior.  As a punishment the priest Pashur has had Jeremiah put in the stocks overnight, prompting the Lord to rename Pashur “Terror-all-around”, and when Jeremiah is released he begins his lament.  God has enticed him and he’s been enticed; God has overpowered Jeremiah and God has prevailed.  This is the language of seduction and betrayal, not faith and praise.  Then the people get the idea they can try the same methods that God used: perhaps they can  entice Jeremiah, and  prevail against him, and take their revenge on him for speaking out against them.  But the people cannot do what God has done.  Still, even his close friends are watching for Jeremiah to stumble.  It doesn’t get much lonelier than that. 

 

The consequences of prophetic truth-telling are further spelled out in the Gospel.  Jesus’ disciples, if true to our calling, won’t fare better than he.  Nevertheless, whatever truth there is that whispered about; whatever is important but goes unsaid or is only hinted at needs to be proclaimed, broadly and boldly, no matter the personal consequences: derision, suffering, lost familial relationships, physical harm, even death.  Jesus spoke truth to power all the time: he blew the whistle on the power of corrupt governments that enslaved people economically, physically, and spiritually; on the power of religious authorities who preferred personal aggrandizement over serving to God and were in league with the people’s oppressors; and he blew the whistle on individuals who failed to recognize the power within themselves to change the world’s trajectory by taking up their cross and following him.  All those issues that Jesus addressed in his own time are still plaguing us today.  And when Jesus speaks about the rewards and consequences of acknowledging him and denying him, I don’t think we can afford to take that only to mean giving lip service to a belief system.  Jesus meant for us to get out and into the trenches of the world’s need and follow him physically.  And make no mistake, that can be costly.

 

There’s just no way to sugar-coat any of this.  To paraphrase the title of the Oscar-winning song from the movie Hustle and Flow, “You know it’s hard out there for a prophet.”  This isn’t ‘nice, pretty religion’, this is Biblical truth.  This isn’t coming to church and going safely home again; this is coming to church and going out into a harsh and often hostile world.  But it’s in going out into that world for Christ’s sake that we lose our lives in order to find them. 

 

All Christians, by virtue of our baptisms, are called to that prophetic, truth-telling, whistle-blowing witness in the world.  It may not take the shape of hugely public exposure.  For most of us, it’s how we interact on a daily basis with those with whom we come in contact.  It may be defending the child who gets bullied on the playground, or confronting the “Mean Girls” (or boys) in our school.  It might mean refusing to tolerate the racist or sexist or homophobic attitudes of close friends or family members, or the unethical practices of a work associate.  It might mean prodding the Church away from ‘business as usual’ and into a new phase of mission and ministry.  And remember: any time we speak out in the service of God’s truth – when we speak about ‘things that matter’ – we are inching a bit closer to that ‘kingdom come’ that we pray for every time we say the Lord’s Prayer.  And that, dear friends, is the Good News. 

 

 

[1] Information on air traffic controllers mentioned in this text comes from “The Perilous Path of FAA Whistle-Blowers” by Wade Goodwin, aired June 12, 2008 on the NPR program All Things Considered.

[2] Information on Watkins, Cooper, and Rowley is from “Persons of the Year” by Richard Lacayo and Amanda Ripley, TIME Magazine, December 22, 2002.