Welcoming Congregation

by Carol Stephenson

One of the things I love most about my job is my title.  I love having SOCIAL JUSTICE COORDINATOR on my business card.  I love telling people that's my job.  As most of us here, I have family members that don't exactly share my political viewpoint and I especially like telling them my job title.  So, after about 6 months of reminding those family members that I am a Social Justice Coordinator, my sister-in-law finally said to me "Carol, What IS Social Justice?" 

I thought to myself: Well!  If you have to ask, you just must, well, just not know.  But then I had to answer the question.  I must say my answer that day wasn't what is should have been for some one who's job title includes those very words.  I've thought about that question since then and here's what I've come up with:  For me, social justice is making change towards a more just world.  Now, we can make that kind of change in many ways.  Each one of us can make change within ourselves, like the work of the inclusion group.  We can make change as a group like this congregation as we are through the global warming campaign.  But for me, the most compelling changes we make are the ones that are outside these walls.  The effect that we can have on local, national even international levels, and among those people who have different political viewpoints, that's my kind of social justice.  And that is what is being presented to you today. 

As I have admitted to many of you already, my past includes having practiced law.  I wanted to be a lawyer because I thought that it was the best way to make social change.  But it didn't really work for me.  I mean, I still believe that our legal system is probably the most important vehicle for change.  In fact, what you have before you are wonderful, one is amici brief, which allows the congregation to weigh in on a court decision that we're not a part of and the other is a statement that weaves together the principles of Unitarian Universalism and the principles of our US constitution.  What I found with being a lawyer was that it teaches you to argue BOTH sides of an issue. And, in words of Rudy Acuna, the great Chicano activist, sometimes there IS no other side. 

The fact is that every movement for justice has had people of faith invoking our laws to set a moral compass.  When it comes to civil rights, like we're talking about today with marriage equality, there simply is no other side.  But it takes faith communities to point that out by providing the moral perspective.  If you approve these statements today, it will allow each of us, as social justice ministers of this church, and me, as the social justice coordinator, to present the moral voice of First Unitarian Church of San Jose.  And, although my job title is pretty great, that's the best part about my job.