“Remediating the Soil”
Jesus went out of the house and sat
beside the sea. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat
and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many
things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed,
some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds
fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up
quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were
scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell
among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good
soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let
anyone with ears listen!”
(Matthew 13:1-9)
I grew up in Country Village, a housing
development built in the early 1960s at the southern end of Jersey City. Back
then it was sort of a little slice of suburbia in the city, its curving streets
teeming with kids riding bikes, playing ball, and the outdoor activities that
were popular before the advent of video games, cellphones, and all of the other
gadgets that capture our attention. The homes had small backyards, and most of
the residents took great pride in their little patches of lawn and flowers. Of
course, as with all with neighborhoods, there were some problems, but for the
most part it was a very safe and nurturing place to grow up.
Country Village was and still is
somewhat isolated from the rest of the city. When I was growing up, a rail line
that we all called “The Tracks” marked the eastern edge of the development,
while on the west there was busy Route 440. Today the highway looks about the
same as it did back then but the scenery around it sure has changed! Roosevelt
Stadium stood where Society Hill is today. By the 1970’s the decrepit stadium
was long past its glory days but still hosted rock concerts (with the sound
easily reaching our house), an ice skating rink, and for a few years, a minor
league baseball team. All around the stadium there were factories, some
shuttered and decaying and others still in use. It was a gritty industrial
area, not easy on the eyes or the nose. But, worst of all was what we usually
couldn’t see or smell: the soil was poisoned.
And, by the 1990s, it was discovered
that these poisons (especially chromium) had spread far and were making many
residents terribly sick. In response, a determined group of local lay people
(including our own Diane Maxon) and clergy created the ICO (Interfaith
Community Organization) to force the responsible (and stubbornly resistant)
corporations to clean up their mess. It wasn’t easy, but like David long ago,
these persistent people knocked down Goliath. It took many years of protests
and a drawn-out and complicated court case, but at last that land along the
highway has been transformed. It is now good soil, ready for new life.
The Bible opens with the insistence
that God’s creation is good, very good. We are good, very good. The fundamental
human problem is that sin pollutes our goodness. And, our sinfulness – our
greed, selfishness, and deceit – ends up polluting God’s good creation as we
spread poison into the ground and into the air, polluting the earth and
polluting other people.
Back in the 1990s, people around here
uncovered the poisons that were just beneath the surface of daily life. And,
now, for the past few months many of us white people have been in the midst of
a much more widespread and challenging uncovering as we discover the pollution of
racism and white privilege that is in our own hearts and lives, as we finally see that all of our our systems,
including law enforcement, education, the economy, the church, politics, all of
them are contaminated and in desperate need of remediation.
A few decades back, the good people of
the ICO faced a herculean battle against powerful corporations and pollution
that had seeped into the ground. May their courage and persistence inspire us
as we face a greater challenge of uncovering and remediating what’s even worse
than chromium, the pollution that is killing our society.
As always, Jersey City Together (part
of the expanding New Jersey Together) has been hard at work researching,
learning, planning, and uncovering some startling facts about just how deeply
the poison has seeped into our life in this state. For example, we have the
worst racial disparities in our prisons. African-Americans are twelve times
more likely as whites to be incarcerated in state prison. Hispanics are twice
as likely to be incarcerated as whites. And, here’s the statistic that really
shocked me: median wealth (the value of all assets) for white families in New
Jersey is $352,000 (the highest in the nation) while the median wealth for
African-American families and Latino families is $6,100 and $7,300,
respectively. Just look at those numbers and realize what that vast disparity
means for people all across the state, for us and our parishioners and
neighbors.
Just as in the past, the only way to
remediate these deep inequities is to work together. So, I hope that you
will join us on Monday, July 27, 7:30pm to 8:30pm on Zoom, when we begin to
prepare for a statewide action in August. Please register here:
njtogether.org/july27.
On Sunday we will hear one of Jesus’
best-known parables. Although commonly called the “Parable of the Sower,” the
focus of the parable is not so much on the sower but on the seeds and the soil.
From the very beginning, God has been spreading the good seeds of love and
health and justice but, unfortunately, our soil has been poisoned for so long,
and many of those seeds have died. But, God is still at work and still offers
us the chance to remediate the soil of our hearts and the soil of our society.
With God’s help, we have the chance to finally be good soil, ready for new
life.
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