Rev. Susan Lee of Fall River (Episcopal)

Inspired by the Inauguration 2009 Sermons and Orations Project of the Library of Congress’s American Folklife Center, the Globe invited local clergy to e-mail the texts of inauguration-related sermons and prayers for posting here on the Articles of Faith religion blog. You can find all of the submissions by clicking on the Inauguration Sermons category in the blog’s right rail.

Sermon by the Rev. Susan H. Lee, rector of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Fall River:

This week marks an historical event in the life of our nation, the inauguration of our first African-American president. It’s fitting that President Obama will take the oath of office the day after the Martin Luther King holiday. What a long way our nation has come since the civil rights marches in Washington with Dr. King! Only four or five decades ago blacks were not allowed to vote in many parts of the country, and public schools for blacks were in decrepit condition. And yet this Tuesday, a black person will enter the highest office in the land. It’s certainly a tribute to the ability and charisma of Barack Obama. But it’s also a credit to the American electorate. Many, many people voted for a black man for president in the last election, something that was unheard of until recently. America has changed since the marches of the 1960s, and it’s a great day for our nation that this color barrier has fallen. President Obama’s example will encourage many people of color in this country and around the world.

And what does God think of this event? As Christians, we try to look at things through God’s eyes. Surely God must be pleased at the justice of a black man becoming president, after so many wrongs against blacks in our country. But I don’t think God would stop there. President Obama is not just breaking down a color barrier. He is acceding to a position of great power, at the head of the most powerful nation in the world. Great power means great responsibility! The president leads this great country, and I think God will look at Obama with stern expectation. It’s not enough to rest on the laurels of winning the Presidency. Now he has to produce.

And what will President Obama do? He takes office during troubled times, with the economy in serious recession and American troops involved in two separate wars. Those issues will no doubt take up a huge amount of the new president’s time and attention. But if he wants to do God’s will, Obama will have to find time for the least of those among us. As Jesus said, “Just as you have done it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you have done it to me” (Matthew 25:40).

Recently, I wrote a paper on female-headed households, who are thought to be among the poorest of the poor. One of my conclusions was that the neediest group was lone mothers with minor children, mothers caring for small children without the father around to help. Some of these women are widows, some divorced, and some never married. However their households formed, they have to take care of the kids – shelter them, feed them, clothe them, give them medicine when they are sick, and try to get them some schooling. It’s a tall order, when women usually have lower income than men and when they have to shoulder all the household chores in addition to working and child care. Because it’s so hard to support children on your own, lone mothers with young children are among the very poorest. We got several calls for assistance before Christmas here at St. Luke’s, and they all came from single mothers with young children at home, struggling to pay the bills and provide their children with a little Christmas cheer. It’s even harder in the developing world where so many people are poor and unable to help single mothers and their children. The poorest children in the world are the children of these lone mothers. If we want to help poor children, we have to help the mothers who take care of them.

Some time ago, I mentioned in a sermon that an appalling number of children die every day from preventable causes. The figure I remember was 28,000 children a day, dying from preventable causes. That’s over 10 million children a year! They die from causes such as malnutrition, diarrhea from drinking unclean water, and curable illnesses such as malaria and pneumonia. I went online to see if this figure had improved any, and it has – now there are only 27,000 children who die every day!! Not a huge improvement. OK, so now it is slightly under 10 million children a year. But we can do a lot better, this rich world of ours. Sometimes the solution to these child deaths is extremely inexpensive – rehydration therapy, low-cost vaccinations, a mosquito net, all very low-cost solutions. It doesn’t take a lot of money to save a poor child’s life!

In looking for the child death figures, I came across a bill that was introduced in the Congress to help these poor children. It’s called the Global Child Survival Act, and it aims to provide funds to help needy children in low-income countries. It’s part of achieving the Millennium Development Goals, those eight targets to help reduce global poverty by the year 2015. The bill was introduced in Congress in May 2007 – and virtually nothing has happened with it. In the House, it stalled in committee. In the Senate, it was reported out and then forgotten about. The bill asks for $600 million for low-cost solutions for poor children, not a lot when we think about the $700 billion for the financial rescue plan, or the $800 billion for the economic stimulus bill. Compared to those figures, $600 million is just a drop in the bucket! Yet it couldn’t get through Congress. Poor children don’t fly to Washington on private jets to testify, and no one is worried that they are too big to fail. Poor children don’t make the news. We didn’t hear about them in the presidential campaign. They are just off the radar screen. And that’s why we still have 27,000 children dying – every day – from preventable causes.

If President Obama wants to be a great president, he will have to do something about poor children. He will have to remember poor female-headed families, at home and around the world, with mothers struggling to feed their children. He’ll have to think about the 27,000 children dying each day. He can’t just pay attention to the rich and famous, clamoring in Washington for more money. Jesus wants Barack Obama to remember the very least among us, the poor children of the world.

Let us pray.

Gracious God, you have blessed our country with great abundance and wealth. Even in hard times, our country is wealthy and full of resources. Bless our new president and help him to remember those who do not share in our abundance, poor and struggling families here at home, and the poorest families in the developing countries of the world. Open our hearts and minds to the needs of others, and help us to share from our abundance. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.