You've Got to Be Carefully Taught

YOU'VE GOT TO BE CAREFULLY TAUGHT  
— Rev. Robert P. Starbuck, M.Div., Ph.D.
​

 
THOUGHTS by Edna K. Starbuck
 
They come to my mind at night mostly
when I want to rest or sleep
Or – just to be still.
They come sure as day.
Like footsteps in the dark.
Quiet and far away at first.
Then closer and heavier,
Almost staring, it seems, 
Into – my mind's eye.
Not giving me any peace
Until I get up to let them out.
Then with pen and paper
I sit down and set them free.
 
 
THIS POEM, written by my wife, exemplifies her poetic talent and her ability to engage with the deeper meaning of life. We have been married for nearly twenty years, and no expectations or strings have been attached through the years. She has always set me free (much more than I have set her free) to do what God intended me to do with my life. And to be as creative as she is, with the thoughts she puts down on paper, with the movements of her hand and the aid of a pen.
 
Such a gift of freedom comes only through one’s absolute commitment to Jesus Christ, who can set us free. As a youth stated at our Texas Annual Conference a few days ago: “Once we make this unconditional commitment, we are ‘set free’ to love others no matter who they are or what they look like.”
 
It is 5:57 AM, Thursday morning, June 6th. I have just returned to my motel room with a cup of hot coffee and the tragic news of the death of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. The morning before, I woke to find my radio and, later, television telling of his hospitalization following the blast of shots, which wounded five other people at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. I thought again of the lyrics of a Rodgers & Hammerstein song. A song I have quoted from on several occasions. The words seem so appropriate that I offer them to you, your children, and mine –– once again.
 
You've Got to Be Carefully Taught
South Pacific – Rodgers & Hammerstein
 
You've got to be taught to hate and fear,
You've got to be taught from year to year,
It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.
 
You've got to be taught to be afraid of people
Whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a different shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.
 
You've got to be taught before it's too late
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate
You've got to be carefully taught.
 
The same hatred for the Jewish people by Robert F. Kennedy's assassin is possessed by many people in this land, this community, and churches for people of another race. Most of the time, its possession is on an unconscious level, but every so often, something is said, or some action is taken, and all that pus–flowing ugliness and hatred comes to the surface and filters the air with its fear, and poison, which intoxicates –– the best of us.
 
I stood in this pulpit a stranger in your midst a year ago. My sermon title was You Are Accepted. As I talked about your acceptance and mine and how it comes about through God's grace, I shared the following words of theologian Paul Tillich with you.
 
“In the light of this grace we perceive the power of in our relation to others and to ourselves. We experience the grace of being able to look frankly into the eyes of another, the miraculous grace of reunion of life with life. We experience the grace of understanding each other's words. We understand not merely the literal meaning of the words, but also, even when they are harsh or angry. For even then there is a longing to break through the walls of separation.
 
We experience the grace of being able to accept the life of another, even if it be hostile and harmful to us, for, through grace, we know that it belongs to the same Ground (the same God) to which we belong and by which we have been accepted. We experience the grace which is able to overcome the tragic separation of the sexes, of the generations, of the nations, of the races, and even the utter strangeness between man and nature. Sometimes grace appears in all these separations to reunite us with those to whom we belong. For life belongs to life.” – Paul Tillich
 
Do you remember the death of Dr. Tom Dooley, the great American Missionary in Laos?
 
In his book The Night They Burned the Mountain, he tells of the personal battle he fought against cancer while healing the sick in the jungles of Asia.
 
At first, Tom Dooley was unwilling to be accepted by his Creator even though he ministered to the people of Laos to set them free. In this instance, his unwillingness to accept his Creator was his unwillingness to face the reality of his disease. Still, such acceptance was to come to this great person, and he was to write; 
 
“From my hospital bed in New York with the same white light of revelation I had known once several years before, I saw what I must do. After Communion that morning, Tuesday, the first of September, my God, and my dream commanded me.
 
I must, into the burnt soil of my personal mountain of sadness. plant the new seedlings of my life –– I must continue to live. I must cultivate my fields of food, to feed those who cannot feed themselves.
 
The concept came to me as strongly and as powerfully as if a peal of bronze bells proclaimed it. There was no more self-sadness, no darkness deep inside; no gritty annoyance at anyone or anything. No anger at God for my cancer, no hostility to anyone. I was out of the fog of confusion standing under the clear light of duty. The jagged, ugly cancer scar went no deeper than my flesh. There was no cancer in my spirit. The Lord saw to that. I would keep my appetite for fruitful activity and for a high quality of life. 
 
Whatever time was left, whether it was year or a decade, would be more than just a duration. I would continue to help the clots and clusters of withered and wretched in Asia to the utmost of my ability. The words of Camus rang through, “ln the midst of winter I suddenly found that there was in me an invincible summer.”
 
You are accepted! No strings attached. In giving your life to God you are set free. The children of Tom Dooley's favorite Texas family wrote him from Ft. Worth, having composed new words to the tune “Hang Down Your Head, Tom Dooley.”
 
Lift up your heart, Tom Dooley,
Your work will never die.
You taught us to love our neighbor
And not just to pass him by.
 
We'll pray for you, Tom Dooley,
Your cure and your patients, too.
We’ll send in our dimes and dollars
For work that's left to do
 
Lift up your head, Tom Dooley,
Life up your head, don't cry.
Lift up your head, Tom Dooley,
Cause you ain't a-goin to die.
 
Even though his physical life was taken, Tom Dooley never died, and neither did John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, or all the others who have given themselves for freedom's sake. So much more significant than you and me, so far ahead of us in our thinking than we can and must but follow them. No strings attached.
 
It is a new day shared by all faiths and all denominations, by all who will participate in it and not be afraid of losing their own life. For if they lose it for His sake, they shall find it.
 
This was my first annual conference of Methodism in the state of Texas.  I was deeply impressed by the growth and creativity that went on in Houston this past week.
 
As the Pharisees would have denied the woman communion with Jesus, we often refuse those whom we consider less righteous than ourselves a fellowship in the Church of Jesus Christ.
 
“Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon; do you see this woman? I came into your home, and you gave me no water for my feet, but she has washed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You did not welcome me with a kiss, but she has not stopped kissing my feet since I came. You provided no oil for my head, but she has covered my feet with perfume. I tell you, then, the great love she has shown proves that her many sins have been forgiven.”
 
I dream that we, too, shall be forgiven for all our sins with no strings attached. That is, only the string of love that we might love others. I have a dream that the good in this church, in this nation, in this world will overcome the evil, be it the violence of an assassin’s bullet or the verbal expression of utter hate and hostility.
 
No wonder one great martyr was able to write, “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low. The rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountains of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to work together, pray together, and struggle together...This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning, 'Let freedom ring.' 
 
So, let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. But not only that. Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi, from every mountainside; then we allow freedom to ring when we let it ring from every city and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last, Free at last, Great God a-mighty, We are free at last.'” 
 
—Martin Luther King Jr., I Have a Dream
 
 
Amen
 
 
 
Sermon delivered at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Beaumont, Texas, on June 9, 1968 – three days after the death of Senator Robert Francis Kennedy.