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Rev. Carrie Holley-Hurt
May 3, 2026
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org
If…Then…
If we hold values such as equity, interdependence, and justice, what are we obligated to do when we encounter situations that violate those beliefs? And what do we do when we feel overwhelmed by the number of situations that violate our beliefs? Can we do anything? Rev. Carrie explores these questions through the lens of May Day using our UU values.
Welcome
Chalice Lighting
This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon systems of oppression until they are no more. This is the warmth we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.
Call to Worship
NOT NICE
M Jade Kaiser of EnfleshedNo more nice.
Nor excusing.
Not passive nor placating nor patronizing.
No more of what makes tomorrow more of the same
when it could all be different.
Not nice.
But still, tender.
Tender like “in touch with pain.”
One’s own. Others’. Ours. Everyone’s. (but particularly and differently.)
Tender like knowing from experience.
Tender like there’s too much at stake not to be.
Tender like fiercely fighting for
the soft parts of us trying to make it,
the possibilities of right relationships,
the justice that changes everything.
Affirming Our Mission
Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.
Anthem
“One More Day” (Wood Brothers) – Russell Holley-Hurt, voice and mandolin
Reading
“But the poor person does not exist as an inescapable fact of destiny. His or her existence is not politically neutral, and it is not ethically innocent. The poor are a by-product of the system in which we live and for which we are responsible. They are marginalized by our social and cultural world. They are the oppressed, exploited proletariat, robbed of the fruit of their labor and despoiled of their humanity. Hence the poverty of the poor is not a call to generous relief action, but a demand that we go and build a different social order.”
– Liberation Theologian Gustavo Gutierrez
Centering
Music for Meditation: “Thais Meditation” (Massenet) – Valeria Diaz, piano
Sermon
As the daughter, granddaughter, and great granddaughter of people who did lots of hard manual labor so that I could be here in front of you today.
Happy two days after International Workers’ Day! Happy May Day, y’all!
I love a day to commemorate the efforts of the people that did and continue to work for workers’ rights.
Like Lucy Parsons, Deloris Huerta, and Chris Smalls.
The people who fought for 8-hour workdays at a time when working 100 hours a week was normal!
For safety standards that addressed problems that were literally maiming and killing people.
The Family and Medical Leave Act… Is it perfect? No…is it better than having to decide to work within hours of delivering a child or losing your job.. yes. And so much thanks to those who continue for real leave protections!!!!
Speaking of children, labor organizers helped end child labor. The practice of putting children as young as 4 year olds to work in mines and dangerous factories.
So happy May Day with so much deep gratitude and appreciation for all those who sacrificed.
To all those and their families who faced intimidation, violence and even death for the humanity of others.
And those who keep working to protect the humanity of others.
Because that is what we are talking about.
Humanity.
The labor movement, past and present are prime example of what it means to allow our values to compel us to action. The IF and THEN of it all.
For example, IF we have respect for all people’s humanity, THEN we have to work to protect people from those in power that would see them only as tools for their wealth.
IF we see their humanity, THEN we have to ensure that they can not be taken advantage of or dehumanized.
Humanity is at the core of Unitarian Universalism. It was all throughout our 8 principles and now in our values or what I think of our principles put into action.
We center love, we center people’s humanity.
The whole person… seen through a lens of love, justice, equity, interdependence.
It is humanity that I think of most when I heard the story of the 46 year old man who died in an amazon warehouse outside of Portland, just last month. According to news reports, his job was to run shipping containers up and down the massive warehouse for hours.
On April 6th, He collapsed on the warehouse floor. MSN reported that
“his coworkers were instructed to keep working and “not look,” while his body lay on the floor for more than an hour.”
Turn around. Just ignore it. Pretend it isn’t happening because we have orders to fulfill.
No one’s humanity was being honored at that moment.
Not the humanity of the person who just took his last breath. Not the humanity of his co-workers who had to suppress their natural response to a tragedy. And not the management that was giving those orders.
No one’s humanity was being honored…
Amazons employee training video teaches their new hires that they don t allow unions because Unions go against their business model which is quote “speed, innovation, and customer obsession.” Apparently, they are obsessed with us as consumers not people but as the consumers who bring in unimaginable wealth.
The training video goes on to say that if they didn’t focus on those three things (i.e. if we allowed unions) then everyone’s job would be at risk.
“No pressure! But it you unionize, you will make yourself and all of us starve.”
This isn’t a new tactic by any means. There have long been messages saying that organizing is bad for the economy and for consumers.
It’s an old and effective strategy to prevent people from organizing. A strategy that builds walls that separate us. Making it more likely that we will participate in dehumanizing systems that keep us looking away… and getting back to work.
Howard Zinn wrote in his book “A People’s History of the United States” that during the 17th and 18th centuries, the small group of powerful elites who had settled on this land were terrified that the free and enslaved black people, indigenous people, and poor white servants would organize and overthrow them. And so they purposely made laws that restricted movement, prohibited interracial marriage and then finally figured out that the white middle class would be what could break any attempts at solidarity.
Zinn wrote
“for [t]hose upper classes, to rule, [they] needed to make concessions to the middle class, without damage to their own wealth or power, at the expense of [enslaved people], [indigenous people], and poor whites. This bought loyalty. And to bind that loyalty with something more powerful even than material advantage, the ruling group found, in the 1760s and 1770s, a wonderfully useful device. That device was the language of liberty and equality, which could unite just enough whites to fight a Revolution against England, without ending either slavery or inequality.”
This wall between the ruling class and those who keep them in power and wealth was created by the white middle class. A wall propped up by the lie that they had more in common with the ruling class than the oppressed class, that they were free because others were not…. which we know as a people who believe in the independent web of all existence just isn’t true at all.
As Fannie Lou Hamer taught us,
“nobody’s free until everyone’s free.”
Moving forward in time by 300 or so years, I have seen this same situation play out. In the late 1990s, as I was preparing to move out of my hometown of Odessa, Texas, a huge black cloud coming from the south side parked itself over parts of the city. It turns out the new company in town, called Huntsman was burning off 10s of thousands pounds of chemicals like ethylene, propylene and hundreds of pounds of benzine and butadiene. The people started getting sick. Numerous symptoms from respiratory issues to nausea. It was coined “Odessa syndrome.” Then there were reports of higher-than-average cases of kidney cancer.
Eventually, the company was made to pay money to those who were harmed, or at least those who were able to report being harmed.
But through all of that…
– When people were complaining about becoming sick
– As a black cloud hung over parts of the city that were populated by mostly
brown and black people,
– while fellow citizens were becoming ill
– Mostly white business owners started putting up stickers that said “We Support Huntsman.”
The amount of loyalty that those business owners and others were paying to a multi-million-dollar corporation that, through neglect, incompetence, or hubris, poisoned their fellow citizens was and is astounding…
And it makes perfect sense when you think of all the work, the policies, the propaganda, the messaging you from birth about who is deserving and who is not. Who you should be loyal to and who you should not.
And I can’t help but think, Are we… we in this church doing that now?
What are the things that we learned subconsciously from white supremacist hetero-patriarchal system we were born in that we haven’t examined yet? Haven’t been able to dismantle yet?
What are we being loyal to at the expense of solidarity with those who are being most oppressed?
Because if we are people who believe in the humanity of all people. If we are a people who see the inherent dignity and worthiness of all people and if we are a people who cry justice…then we have to remove ourselves from what is blocking us from being in true solidarity.
Solidarity with those who are being exploited.
Solidarity with those being marginalized, targeted, imprisoned, and murdered.
Because no matter what we have been sold, no matter how much privilege we have, the powers that be do not protect us.
As we have seen with the ways laws are applied unequally. With high numbers or black men serving long prison sentences for non-violent crimes, while those in the Epstein list have faced no consequences.
The numerous Supreme Court cases that have strip civil liberties – Especially the latest, in which they rolled back the voting protection under the Voting Rights Act.
It will only protect itself.
We do not owe them an ounce of loyalty.
but we sure do owe it to one another.
That’s what I see when I study the labor movements.
That a commitment to being with and for one another is how we protect one each other.
Because they need us way more than we need them. Maybe that’s why they are so obsessed with us.
Because they know that, even though the narrative is otherwise, we have power.
Gene Sharpe, an American political scientist wrote,
“By themselves, rulers cannot collect taxes, enforce repressive laws and regulations, keep trains running on time, prepare national budgets, direct traffic, manage ports, print money, repair roads, keep markets supplied with food, make steel, build rockets, train the police and army, issue postage stamps or even milk a cow. People provide these services to the ruler through a variety of organizations and institutions. If people would stop providing these skills, the ruler could not rule.”
Without us doing what we do, the systems fall to pieces. And y’all know it’s so much bigger than just labor right.
Labor is the intersection of racist, classist, sexist, homophobic, ableist, and xenophobic systems.
Systems that require our help in running.
So how are we going to move towards our values Towards solidarity in a way that we make a break from those systems?
How are we going to get so spiritually grounded that we take the risk we need to disrupt systems?
How do we break down false walls of separation so that we can work in solidarity?
Labor movements of the past and the present are full of inspiration for us.
Like being intentional about building, or better yet, joining in solidarty movements. Movements led by those most impacted. Building relationships of service to one another.
How about intentionally making ourselves uncomfortable? If they are so obsessed with our consumption, we should use that to our advantage.
We know general strikes work.
We know that boycotts work.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott challenged violent segregationist bus policies and won.
The global anti-apartheid boycott put pressure on South Africa and was key in ending the violent apartheid system.
And if you have been following the current boycott against Target, for capitulating to the administration and disrespecting nearly their entire customer base by rolling back DEL… well they are feeling it. With some estimates putting the loss at $20 BILLION in shareholder value.
Boycotts work but to do it well you are going to have to get a little uncomfortable… Especially those of us who have gotten so used to the conveniences of modern life and same-day delivery.
And finally, we have to stay centered in what is right, just and equitable and then be unrelenting in our work.
We have to stay centered in our values. Grounded in our faith.
Because if we really, truly, and faithfully hold our values, then we must allow them to shape how we navigate through this world. Who we side with and who we give our loyalty to. So that they will carry us towards actions of systems-changing solidarity.
Extinguishing the Chalice
We extinguish this flame, but not the light of truth, the warmth of community, or the fire of commitment. These we hold in our hearts until we are together again.
Benediction
Our benediction today is a Beltain Blessing,
– Author unknownBlessing on you and those you love
May your imagination serve you, not scare you
May what you create flourish and recreate you in return
May your joy lead to prosperity and your prosperity to joy.Go in peace
Another world is possible
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