One of the annual services that we can count on having around the same time every year is our early January celebration of the lives of those who have passed in the previous year, lives that touched and inspired us, even if we just come to know these good souls on that Sunday.
As I prepared for that service a couple of weeks ago, I knew that Jimmy Carter would be included. So much did I know this that I preemptively entitled the service with Jimmy’s name in the heading, along with our friend Jack Waddell.
It didn’t take long in my preparations for it to become clear that there is more ‘there there’ (as Gertrude Stein would say) than just the typically brief one-minute glimpse when it comes to James Earl Carter, Jr.
Before we get knee deep into why that is, let’s appreciate a few Jimmy Carter trivia tidbits that are not widely known.
Jimmy was the first president born in a hospital. Although mom, Lillian, a nurse, had planned to deliver at home as was usually the case in 1924, her boss the hospital administrator asked her to just use an empty hospital room to complete the birth because he wanted her to get back to work asap.
Three years later, nurse Lillian would help deliver her future daughter-in-law, Rosalynn.
17 years later Jimmy would’ve been valedictorian of his class, except his skipped school one day to go to a neighboring bigger town with his friends, and the zeros he got that day cost him the top spot.
Needless to say, Jimmy had the last laugh. Not only was he the only one out of his tiny graduating class to become president, but he was also the only one from that class to even go to college.
The years rolled along, and Jimmy quickly rolled through local and state politics before winning the presidency.
It took him no time to exude who he was an accessible/every-man’s president, as evidenced by when he defied the advice of the secret service and started a new tradition continued by every president since then… walking, not riding, from the Capitol to the White House during the inaugural parade.
Another example of his down-home-ness…he was one of the few presidents to return to live in the same house he had resided prior to presidency. He and Rosalynn had lived in a modest ranch house in Plains since 1961, and chose to continue living there until the end of their lives.
As I was coming to learn about such details of his humility, it occurred to me that Jimmy Carter is like St. Francis in a way. There’s a universal appeal of their inherent goodness that supersedes category…Republican – Democrat, Catholic – not Catholic.
People sense righteousness (for lack of a better word). It’s in our DNA to recognize someone who is good… especially good. Special because of their goodness.
I’m not so sure that we fully appreciated the level of goodness of this man while he occupied the highest office in the land.
It’s just like Joni Mitchell said…You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone.
I feel this way about Carter, and I’m not so much speaking about his post-presidency humanitarian efforts.
We definitely knew we had a gem on our hands then.
But over and over through the years we’ve heard that he was better after his presidency than he was during it, and I bought into that. But now I’m not so sure.
My skepticism has to do with what’s going on in our country now. I don’t have to tell you.
I’m trying to make sense of things, to take a step back from this new and troubling landscape to get some perspective.
What keeps coming to me is that this could be a wake-up call. That our values really do matter – the values of decency and honesty and character and looking out for each other instead of just #1.
These values so matter because they comprise the heart of any group…a sports team, a family, a book club, a church, a nation.
And I wonder if we’ve fallen asleep to a degree…those of us that proclaim to espouse such values. In other words, those of us who are woke’… I wonder if we’ve actually been somewhat drowsy.
I wonder if we’ve been quietly but surely sliding into slight slumber for some time now. And I wonder if this new landscape is off-center enough to fully wake us up.
The killing of George Floyd was a stirring for us, bringing racism front and center.
So, maybe what’s happening now is a more overarching Wake up! for us.
There was a man who came to call us to awake-ness. His initials were J.C. This man came from very modest background. He was a carpenter, turned teacher, a man of faith whose public life was based on his relationship to God.
He spoke and he spoke, and the masses heard but most didn’t heed. He was a prophet who had more to say…a teacher who wasn’t looking to create a disturbance, but instead a new, better way of doing and being and seeing.
But instead of ultimately being heard and heeded, when the people were asked what to do with him, the answer came back .Be done with him. And so it came to pass that way.
As we heard in our first reading, a prophet is not given honor is his own home, in his own time.
As you might guess, the description you just heard could be applied to the J.C. from Nazareth or the one from Plains, Georgia.
In Jimmy’s case his prophecies had to do with calling out racism, working against mass incarceration, decriminalizing marijuana.
He was way ahead of his time in his environmental efforts, working to cut fossil fuels, elevating energy conservation, and drawing attention to climate change.
These tend to fall into the political spectrum, but as it is a vast majority of the time, things don’t fit neatly into siloed categories.
There’s a blending – potentially anyway – of politics and VALUES. That’s because we exist simultaneously in these arenas, we were made to, and so one begets another, one profoundly influences the other.
And so, when an authentic person arrives it’s the real deal…what they stand for is resolute beyond borders – globally and personally.
And that is what made Jimmy Carter special.
AND he was unassuming, accessible and plain spoken. He was a person that you felt like you could have over for a meatloaf dinner.
As I have examined his life, his career, his personhood, I’m increasingly drawn to him because of how he concretely embodied our covenant to continue the work that Jesus started.
In a nutshell I think that was his passion, which manifested into political leadership for a portion of his life.
It was about that stage of his life, his career, that a book entitled Prophet from Plains was written about him.
It places Carter in the company of Old Testament prophets who took uncompromising stands for peace and justice.
In this book it says that he resisted the role of an above-the-fray elder statesman, and instead thrust himself into international problems in ways that some would find meddlesome and others would find heroic.
Isn’t meddlesome often synonymous with heroic with it comes to shedding light, initiating ideas that stretch us out of complacency and drowsiness?
Since my job here with you I will forever associate the word meddling with our dear Dave Gaffron. This is because it is with some frequency that he will slide up to me following a service and say, “Well, you sure did some meddling this time!”
I’ve come to appreciate that this is code for “You are making us think, pulling us out of our comfort zones.”
And that is precisely what Jimmy Carter did, which is why many in retrospect have referred to him as a prophet. Or as Al Gore might call him, an ‘inconvenient truth teller.’
And this contributed to the losing of his second bid for the presidency. But like a true prophet, a follower of the truth, a follower of Jesus, he remained steadfast in his message and, as importantly, to his living out of that truth.
Jimmy Carter was the antithesis of an above-the-fray elder statesmen, because what burned in his soul/ his passion was love and respect. And he brought it with him wherever he went.
The truth-telling of a prophet is never honored in his own time and place. I think we’re only starting to understand the significance of this man’s offerings… to this nation and to the world.
Here’s another truth, that may be more or less convenient to some of us. The call that he responded to is one and the same with yours. And mine.
Our question is, how much do we heed ours?
In one tidy sentence, the reason we are highlighting this man today is because of his phenomenal demonstration of love and respect that each of us are called to in equal measure.
I can’t stress to you enough how important this is…
How important this is to you as an individual, and how significant this truth – about you – is to the world.
What you are hearing today is the key to fulfilling what you proclaimed your purpose/our purpose is… continuing in your life what Jesus started in his…
The demonstration love and respect.
A couple of weeks ago I was fluctuating about going to a meet and greet at the Democratic Party headquarters here in town. Lisa has been wanting to become more involved, to try to actively make some difference through engagement, given what’s going on these days.
So she had mentioned attending this meeting. I was lukewarm about going. On that late, cold winter’s afternoon I preferred to be home.
Then I happened to listen to the eulogy that Jason Carter did for his grandfather.
Here are some of the things I learned:
Sometimes it felt like he had to share his grandfather with the world, but really his grandfather shared the world with him, through mindfully appreciating the power of an atom, the beauty and complexity of a forest.
Jason said several times in his 12 minutes that his famous ‘PawPaw’ was the same in private as he was in public, whether he was talking about the majesty of a minnow or eradicating a disease that had incapacitated millions of people, or facilitating peace between warring nations.
This is all inspiring, for sure. Feels good to hear about it, especially these days.
But it must mean more. What do we DO with it?
In that instance a couple of weeks ago it spurred me to want to go to that Democrats meeting.
What do you do with the example of Jimmy Carter in your life? How do you incorporate such an example in your own circles…
in your marriage to spur the other one to be their best selves, in your families and with your grandchildren about wonder and awe and respect, in your social circles to perhaps speak an inconvenient truth?
In a couple of moments we will move to our response time, when you’ll be invited to share a concrete answer to the question…when are you heroically meddlesome as Jimmy Carter was… prophetically bringing the message of love and respect?
Just before we do that, I will share with you some images of this person who embodied the words of an old hymn…From the moment I wake up til the moment I lay my head, I will sing of the goodness of God.
As you see the images, you’ll hear a version of John Lennon’s Imagine. This was performed by Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood at Jimmy’s funeral.
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