My involvement with ISAIAH began about 5 years ago when dear friend, innocently invited me to a meeting. The meeting, here at St. Joan of Arc, was a meeting of the ISAIAH Metropolitan Equity committee. I didn't know anything walking in. When I walked out committed to setting up a team visit with a newly appointed member of the Metropolitan Council. Little did I know that would be only my first step on a Spirit-led journey that continues today.

You may or may not know that ISAIAH is an organization of about 80 congregations, currently all Christian congregations, from across the Twin Cities area and the St. Cloud area. These congregations, including St. Joan of Arc, have committed themselves to building community, developing leadership, and to acting together publicly for racial and economic justice. We do this because we believe it is what we are called by our faith to do. We believe that it is in community with others that we are most fully human and closest to God. Together, we remember that we have a higher calling than the siren call of consumerism. We find hope through one another that drives away the fears that keep us from answering that call. We believe in the dignity of all people, and together we envision a just world, where all people are able to live in dignity and realize their potential. Looking around us, we envision a Minnesota that is better for everyone. We believe it is through democracy that we and all people can have a voice, and our shared values can shape our common future.

We as congregations come together in ISAIAH because we know that we must act together if we are to have an impact. St. Joan of Arc belongs to ISAIAH because we know that even as active and as creative and effective as we are, we can't change the world alone. Together in ISAIAH, working across geographic and economic and cultural and denominational differences, we can be an effective voice in the public conversation about the future of Minnesota and of the nation, helping to build a just community on the foundation of the common good.

In ISAIAH, and in all of the 60 organizations like ISAIAH that make up the Gamaliel network, we work together using a methodology called faith-based community organizing (CO). Many of you here know better than I do what community organizing means. I didn't know anything about CO when I went to that first meeting, but I saw the results. I participated in effective, organized campaigns for affordable housing. We met and strategized with elected officials, with business and community leaders, and with other advocacy groups. We educated people in our congregations. We lobbied in all kinds of creative ways. We evaluated everything we did, so that we could get better at it.

But what really interested me were the ISAIAH leaders making this all happen. These leaders were ordinary people, doing extraordinary things. I saw mild-mannered suburban women enthusiastically cornering state senators at the Capitol, and new immigrants in difficult situations speaking out boldly about injustice. I wanted to understand how it was that they had come to stand up so powerfully for human dignity and responsible community in the face of all their societal and personal obstacles. So I began to go deeper into leadership in ISAIAH, learning and practicing the attitudes and disciplines of faith-based community organizing. Interestingly, I see ties to community organizing in each of today's scripture readings.

Community organizing starts with relationship. Relationship between whole and holy human beings, who come to know one another. Relationship where we invest in one another because we know our destinies are intertwined. Paul, in the letter twe read today, recognized and named the wholeness and dignity of Philemon's converted runaway slave, asking that he be welcomed and taken in no longer as a slave, but as a partner, as a brother. That is the way we work to understand and to treat one another, as capable partners, as brothers and sisters.

Within these relationships in ISAIAH, we ask each other to identify our passions, what we care about, what drives us, and where that comes from. I look back to the basic beliefs and values I learned from my parents and others around me in my early years. They taught me that all people are God's children, that we are meant to take care of each other, that God is love, and that love is powerful. They taught me to treat people fairly and kindly, with dignity and respect. They taught me to believe in the promise of America and our proud democracy: liberty and justice for all.

Within these relationships, we also challenge each other to name what we want, who we want to be, what our path is. In the OT reading today we heard about how hard it is for us to understand what God intends for us, and how difficult it can be for us to find what is within our grasp. The reading reminds us that it is only through the wisdom and Spirit of God that we can find our paths. Inside ISAIAH, we help each other discern what God intends for us.

We also ask each other to identify our obstacles, our oppressions, what holds us back. As we heard in the Gospel reading today, following God's path is a choice that carries costs and risks for each of us, each of us carrying our own cross. It is not a choice made once, but day by day. The more clearly we see our obstacles, the better equipped we are to overcome them. The gospel also reminds us that we have to consider our choices strategically, in the real world, another idea at the heart of CO.

In ISAIAH, based on these relationships we build and on our shared values, we work together to build power so that we may transform the world, beginning with Minnesota. That word 'power' is difficult for many of us. But when we begin to talk about our passions and our dreams for a just and democratic world, it becomes clear that power is what we need if we are to make those dreams come true. Afuture built on human dignity, justice and the common good will not happen by default. So we do what Paul Wellstone famously reminded us to do: "Organize, organize, organize."

As we are all too well aware, we organize in a difficult climate. Some of us feel like Minnesota has lost its way. We seem to have lost our sense of being a forward thinking state, a state that values quality of life for all, a state that invests in public infrastructure and in our people, especially our children --a state that values the common good. In our state government at the moment the highest value appears to be "No new taxes." It trumps values like caring for the neediest and assuring every child a fair start in life, values like planning and building for our future. Those are the terms of the debate in state government, and often we feel forced to frame our arguments within those terms.

The terms of the debate are shaped by what we could call the dominant worldview. A the concept of worldview is like the idea of culture; based on underlying values, it shapes how we see and understand and react to our world. Like culture, when we are inside of it, we are unaware of it, it is invisible like the water is to a fish swimming in it. It's just the way it is. Worldview is powerful. It frames how we understand words and phrases, for example.

For example in the current dominant worldview, with its hyperindividualism, politics is bad, dirty, something most people don't talk about much less participate in, rather than the being our means of public conversation and debate, the means by which we shape our community and determine our common future. This understanding of politics keeps people away from the public square, and out of the public debate.

In ISAIAH, we began a year ago to learn about and reflect on this idea of worldview and how we might be intentional in beginning to shift the dominant worldview. We have been working collectively on articulating our values and our worldview, and using it to frame our work. As part of that process, you are invited to join in one of three facilitated conversation with other St. Joan of Arc folks in the weeks ahead, exploring our values in the context of our society, what matters to us as citizens and as people of faith. Over 60 of these conversations are happening throughout ISAIAH. I encourage you to participate in one; I think you will find it worthwhile.

This process of articulating a worldview has also shaped our upcoming F in D gathering. This fall, in the run-up to the elections, Gamaliel affiliates are organizing large public meetings in 26 cities across the US. Our event here in Minnesota, will be Sunday October 10, at the Roy Wilkins auditorium in St. Paul. It is going to be a tremendous event, bigger, better and different than anything ISAIAH has done before. We will celebrate with fabulous music, thanks to the leadership of Anna Vagle and others. We will be joined by many allies, including Archbishop Flynn and by dozens of state legislators, including their caucus leaders. We have also invited the Governor and the members of our Congressional delegation to join us.

More than any other ISAIAH event in the past, I think it is crucial that we, St. Joan of Arc, be there in force, to participate in this very public declaration of shared values, this declaration of our intention to act collectively and with our allies through our democracy to see those values put into action in public policy. We will stand together that day with others and declare our commitment to begin to move Minnesota and our nation from isolation to community, from fear to hope, toward a just society where all share in the abundance of opportunity and possibility. We will invite our elected officials also to join us in this work for the common good, especially around public education, transportation, domestic violence, and the civil rights of immigrants. And we will mobilize multitudes to get out the vote, to energize our democracy.

The F in D gathering will be a community building event, and we hope to demonstrate that even in how we arrive. Latino congregations are planning to march down to Roy Wilkins from the Cathedral, with Aztec dancers in their midst. Others congregations are planning to come together in school buses from their own churches and communities. That is our plan here at St. Joan of Arc, which is why we are asking you to sign up in advance.

Ath this pivotal moment in our public life, let us stand up and be counted. Let us bring the values of our faith into our democracy, and let us renew our faith in the possibility of democracy. I am proud that St. Joan of Arc is at the center of this growing movement and this exciting event. I hope that you will join one of the conversations, and that every one of you will ride the bus to the Roy Wilkins auditorium on October 10th. You can get more information and sign up in the vestibule after mass, and also next week during our social justice "fair" after the masses.

Thanks to all of you for being part of this incredible community. See you on October 10th.