Last week as I was coming from an early morning meeting at the Burlington Emergency Shelter on North Street, I observed a man walking in front of me. Dressed in a sleeveless T-shirt, he was clearly on his way to work with his lunch bag in hand. He stopped abruptly and backed up to pick up an empty can under a bush. Impressed, I thanked him, thinking how conscientious and obviously caring for the environment he was. The man gave me a puzzled look, like why was I giving him credit. He said: "It’s a nickel; nineteen more of these and I can buy a power ball and win millions."

I remember once hearing the odds on anyone’s chances of winning the lottery but I hardly think my friend would have been interested. My fantasy at that moment was to invite him to the action meeting of Vermont Interfaith Action on June 5th, just two blocks away at St. Joseph’s church. Here he might discover access to a different, more sustainable kind of power in which everyone has an equal share. But considering that it has taken me almost five years to really grasp myself, the genius of VIA, this was not the time to condense the message into one of those two minute elevator witness statements that UU’s are challenged to make.

So this morning let’s pretend that we’re on a very slow elevator and in less than ten minutes I will try to tell you what VIA is, its history in Vermont, and how it provides us with a great vehicle for living out our faith, for being true to the covenant that we have made as UU’s to affirm and promote our seven principles. How many of us take pride in these principles. But the hitch is that it takes a community to live them out. I’ve often thought on my own they are enough to choke a horse. The more that we join together with other faith communities the more we are able to create an environment which promotes the dignity of every human person.

VIA is an organization of faith based communities that come together around the shared values of our religious and democratic traditions to put our faith into action in the public arena. Our role is to hold governmental and policy makers accountable. Through a process of listening and relationship building we identify the most pressing needs in our communities, then do careful research and provide innovative policy solutions from the ground up. Those who have been previously bystanders in the political process become effective participants in public life.

VIA is part of a nationwide network of faith based community organizations representing over one million families in seventeen states. Because the network began on the Pacific coast, it is called PICO, an acronym which initially stood for Pacific Interfaith Community Organization. Now that PICO has gone coast to coast, it’s trying to come up with an alternative meaning for P. Regarding VIA’s history in Vermont, it has taken up where the Burlington Ecumenical Action Ministry left off. I learned only recently that almost fifty years ago BEAM brought Saul Alinsky, the renowned professional organizer, to Burlington. Alinsky won fame by helping the marginalized in more than 40 U.S. Communities to form groups to gain a voice in local affairs and improve their economic and social positions.

VIA traces its heritage to the "Alinsky method" of community organization. One thing that has finally dawned on me through our involvement in VIA is the difference between a movement and an organization. In a movement we can demonstrate and rally around causes like peace and justice. But in an organization we gain the power to negotiate, we get a place at the table where decisions are being made. When religious congregations develop into a faith based organization, they mobilize the latent power of the people. Lest some might worry that we’re getting political, William Sloan Coffin addresses that concern in his book Credo. He writes: "I’ve listened to many a Marxist accuse the churches of having a vested interest in unjust structures that produce victims to whom good Christians (and UU’s) can then pour out their hearts in charity. I’ve listened and I’ve shuddered, because so often in history it’s been so true. In other words, if there is a danger in politicizing the faith . . .there is also a counter danger, which is depoliticizing the faith.

In times of oppression, if you don’t translate choices of faith into political choices, you run the danger of washing your hands, like Pilate . . ."Coffin reminds us of the words of Jesus by which all are judged "in as much as you did it unto the least of these my brethren, you did it unto me." According to this prophetic voice, in Judeo-Christian scripture, there is "no purely spiritual answer to the pain of the poor . . . In scripture, charity is no substitute for justice, anymore than is ritual, no matter how beautiful." In the words of Isaiah, what Yahweh cares about is that "justice role down like mighty waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream."

I’m grateful to Coffin for his clarity regarding religion and politics. He says that "there is a real temptation to think that an issue is less spiritual for being more political, to believe that religion is above politics, that the sanctuary is too sacred a place for the grit and grime of political battle." He drives home his point further by saying that if you do "believe religion is above politics, you are, in actuality, for the status quo – a very political position. And were God the God of the status quo, then the church would have no prophetic role, serving the state mainly as a kind of ambulance service. "Far from an ambulance service, Vermont Interfaith Action sees the church, synagogue and all faith communities acting as a catalyst for change. In the roughly 700 interviews conducted by persons in seven different congregations over the past several months, three issues have emerged as being of the greatest concern. They are the rising cost of housing, the rising cost of health care and the need for more opportunities for youth. Personal stories have been shared that brought home the urgent need for these issues to be addressed.

VIA offers us a strategic way to mobilize all elements of society to demand solutions. In all of my twenty nine years of living in Vermont, never before have I experienced the kind of energy that this community organization has generated among the participating congregations. You will have a first hand experience of this energy when you attend the founding event of VIA to be held June 5th, from 6:15 - 7:45 p.m. at St. Joseph’s Church. I urge you to be part of this historic action, when 800 people will gather. Together we have the power to transform our communities into places where everyone’s most basic human needs are met instead of places where the most vulnerable’s only hope is a million to one shot at power ball. According to Woody Allen, 95% of life is showing up. And as the Zen saying goes: You have to be present to win. We will all be winners on June 5th if we show up in powerful numbers at St. Joseph's at 6 P.M.