Rev. Tutt's 2009 Worship Service invocation

The following invocation was delivered by Rev. Timothy Tutt, pastor of the United Christian Church of Austin on January 13, 2009.

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We gather here today, in the sun of a new day, on the cusp of a new legislative session in Texas, on the eve of a new administration in Washington, and in the early days of a new year on the calendar. With all of this newness, there comes a sense of hope. A hope that is invigorating, that is exciting. But hope is not just a pretty word that makes our skin all tingly and our eyes all misty.

Hope is the real need for justice for those who live with injustice. Hope calls us to face with honesty the problems of today so that we will work for a better tomorrow. Hope is grounded in reality - the reality that the world needs to change.

The prophets of the world’s religions were often people of vision, of dreams, of hope.
But they were also people of honesty, of reality, people who called for justice because they recognized injustice.

In my Christian tradition, Jesus spoke of poverty, he talked about illness, he knew there were blind people and lepers. He talked about and talked to foreigners who were unwanted in their new lands. When grownups disregarded children, Jesus called them out. And when King Herod ruled unwisely, Jesus even spoke truth to the power of the throne and called the old king a fox.

Jesus was a dreamer, a vessel of hope. But he was also a realist.

So in that tradition, we, too, are called to be realists - realists about the Texas that is, as we hope for a Texas that can be. In the Texas “that is:”

- Almost six million Texans do not have any kind of health insurance.
- Many Texas schoolchildren go to bed hungry. And when they go to school, the food they get is not as nutritious as it should be.
- Texas air is too dirty.
- Texas’ death row executes over half of all the people executed in the country. Poor people can’t afford legal representation.
- And right here in Texas, people are bought and sold and carried from place to place against their will.

The list could go on. It’s a sad list. It’s a long list. It’s a list that could be described as “depressing”.
But it is an honest list. And it is a list that demands hope. A list that cries out for justice. A list that begs us to do more.

And so, facing the reality of the Texas “that is,” we turn towards the Texas that can be.

And to help us see that Texas, as people of faith and people of unity, I turn to my colleagues Sheik Abdulhakim Mohamed and Rabbi Steve Folberg, to speak further of the justice we seek, the justice we need, the justice that gives us hope.