Good morning! My name is Rod Wendt, and I am the President of the United Valley Interfaith Project. I am delighted to be here at St. Barnabas as part of our “UVIP Connects” program!

I cannot utter the words “UVIP Connects” without raising up the name of Barbara Whitman, the stalwart UVIP volunteer who organized this whole thing – creating teams of visitors from one UVIP church to another, arranging to have visitors here today from Our Savior Lutheran in Hanover, from Meriden Congregational in Plainfield, and from St. Paul’s Episcopal in White River Junction. Tragically, Barbara was killed in a traffic accident in Hanover on Monday. It is a horrific loss to her husband Bill, her family, Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Parish, and to all of UVIP. She will be sorely missed. But as we continue to connect ourselves one UVIP person to another, one UVIP church to another, let us always remembers Barbara’s gentle connectional spirit and always-stepping-forward demeanor.

My theme comes right out of this morning’s Gospel lesson – Bartimaeus the blind man suddenly receiving his sight simply because he took the risk, summoned the courage to put his faith into action. He had the audacity to call out loudly to Jesus, and call him the “Son of David” which everyone knew meant Messiah. He didn’t care if the Romans could hear him or not, he would not be deterred. And for his courage in putting his faith out there, his eyes saw the world for the very first time. In some ways, that is what UVIP is doing for many of us who are deeply involved.

The United Valley Interfaith Project is all about striving for, advocating for, pushing for social justice. Let me dwell on this idea of “social justice” for just a minute, because it is the essence of UVIP. Before we can do anything about the injustice around us, we must be compassionate to those for whom justice is denied. We must show compassion toward people who are hungry, people who are homeless, people with disabilities, people who are poor. We must feel, deep inside, the sense of hopelessness and futility and even rage that justice denied brings to our fellow human beings. We as church people are pretty good at compassion. We are active in the soup kitchens, we support the Haven, we support Listen Community Services, we volunteer in all manner of ways.

But if we are to have “social justice” we are called to do more than just show compassion. We are called to ask, “WHY are people without housing, short of food, short of health care, unable to make a living, and HOW CAN THAT BE CHANGED?” We are called to take on the systems that create these injustices, and make them compassionate and just.

It’s hard. To paraphrase Bishop Dom Helder Camara from Brazil some years ago: “When I gave food to the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked WHY there were so many poor, they called me a communist!”

And this brings me back to the United Valley Interfaith Project. We seek to deal with the systemic injustices that perpetuate people being hungry, people being homeless, people being poor. We want to move beyond direct, compassionate service to people in need to changing the unjust systems that create those needs in the first place. We do it by bringing people of all faith perspectives together and working on issues we all agree are important to a just society. We build our collective power by building our relationships with one another as we are doing in a small way today. As we share our stories, each of us sees the common threads in our lives together, and out of that comes the power, the energy, the determination to do something about the injustice we see.

And just like Bartimaeus the blind man, we have to put our faith out there. We have to make noise sometimes. We have to confront the powers that be sometimes. We have to summon the courage not to worry if the Romans are listening, knowing that our cause for social justice is right. But it takes courage, as it did for Bartimaeus.

This advocacy thing can be frightening at times. I know it has been for me. Most of us are more comfortable being nice to everybody. Confronting someone about an injustice – especially someone in power — that gets the knees trembling sometimes!

But this advocacy thing can be exhilarating, too. On a sunny Sunday afternoon last May, we had our first Public Action, in which UVIP confronted the powers that be about the lack of adequate, safe transportation to Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital. 15 public officials –- Lebanon City Councilors, NH State Reps, our NH Senator, others — heard us press our case. The most powerful part was hearing the stories of people who had real problems getting to the hospital safely because of the lack of public transportation. And seated behind the public officials were over 200 people of faith, some of whom are here today, in silent support for those with transportation needs. The pubic officials, particularly the Lebanon City Council, were amazed that we could turn out so many people in support of our concerns. All of a sudden, our issue was on the public agenda, and the City Council and the State Reps were very receptive to working with UVIP to reach solutions. Shortly thereafter, the Regional Planning Commission convened all the stakeholders, and we began a process to come up with better, safer transportation access to Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital. We are now on a march to make things permanently better for people we care about.

So, like Bartimaeus, we had the courage to ask for what was right and just, and we can now see with our eyes and our hearts. We can see the power of people of faith, joining together in a just cause. We can see the power of relationships, when the Christ in me connects with the Christ in you and we both connect with the Christ in Lynne Anderson. Lynne testified at our Public Action because she could not get the half mile from her home to the hospital for treatment. And as UVIP we can see God working through all manner of people of faith, from all persuasions and creeds, finding our common ground as we strive together for God’s justice for all God’s people. It is through UVIP that I , a Congregationalist from Plainfield, worked side-by-side with Barbara Whitman, a Roman Catholic from Lebanon, talking to people from the Listen Community dinners and the Senior Centers and the Senior Affordable housing complexes about the difficulties they were having getting to Alice Peck Day Hospital. I will miss Barbara deeply and personally.

In closing, I would like to quote Marcus Borg, one of my favorite theologians. He said, “The Kingdom of God is what life would be like on earth if God were king and the rulers of this world were not.” We pray for that kingdom every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy Kingdom come, they will be done, on EARTH as it is already in Heaven.” THAT is the kingdom we at the United Valley Interfaith Project seek! THAT is the Kingdom of God Barbara Whitman worked so tirelessly for.

Amen!