Hearing the Call

This is my point on this Martin Luther King Sunday: what Rev. Dr. King did was remarkable. Well, that's not news. We knew that already, right? He was an American hero and we know why: because of his oratory, which was great. Because of his vision, which was continental and profound. Because of his success, which was majestic, though incomplete. Because of his story, because it was tragic. Well, sure, but that's all too easy: he was great, continental, profound, majestic, tragic—which puts him well beyond the scope of ordinary Joes like you and me.

No—more and more I am convinced that with all those categories, honoring his greatness, we are blind to what really set him apart. What makes him great is simple, and extraordinary. He heard the call. He heard it, he discerned what it meant, what it required, and he answered, he made himself the answer and in so doing he gave the answer, and himself, to all of us.

One young colleague has expressed being tired of the older, ministerial generation patting themselves on back for marching in Selma. Boy, does this make me mad—because who knows if my generation will do as well. Our senior colleagues are right to be proud. They heard his call and answered.

We look back on history and it all seems clear. How things unfolded and why. How history turned on a dime at a crucial juncture—if things had gone differently, then it all would have gone this way or that way. If it weren't for this person, that development, this change, that lucky fluke, this foresight, that perception...it's all so clear.

But in reading history, we often learn how unclear paths seemed at the time. Who to trust? What information? Which perception? What solution? What will make things better or worse, peaceful or violent, lasting or temporary is often debated, contested, unclear, even controversial. Even people who really care, really disagree. Look at the British appeasement of Hitler, the world's disregarding of Haile Selassie, as many examples as we can imagine of people who didn't know what to do at the time, their time.

Our reading reminds us that there was such uncertainty at the time of the march at Selma. The Rev. Dick Leonard didn't really know what he was doing or entirely why. The beginning of his book is not gripping nor inspired nor grand. It is mundane and confused and serious. He doesn't know how long he's going for, or exactly how it's going to work. He is unsure of how serious the risks are—so he creates memorial service directions, or if he'll be away long—and goes without enough underwear or even actually telling his wife what he's doing. He is honest in his account, and more than that, he is right. Because no one knew what would happen, that people would be beaten, that some would be killed, that one of the three killed answering Dr. King's call would be Jim Reeb from our own All Soul's Church in D.C. That if other ministers had made a different choice about lunch the next afternoon they might have been killed, or Reeb might have lived. That if others had made a different choice about going to Selma, civil rights and anti-racism might be fully achieved by now, or not yet begun.

Marching in the peace march yesterday gave me little peace. At times it was fun, mostly it was cold. Some of the speakers were good, some were not, some were out of control. I agreed with some of my fellow marchers, but not all of them. I was glad some Silver Springers were there so we could share the cold and aches and mission of the day. But it didn't lift me up, and I knew why I was there, but wasn't sure that all of us being there would do any good. In the end, the peace I won this weekend was in my own heart.

At the end of a long week what I wanted to do this weekend was stay home, away from the cold, and take lots of time on my sermon. Had the sermon been on any other topic than Martin Luther King day, I might've, which wouldn't have been the right thing for me to do. How can I preach to you all about showing up for justice, when I'm hunkered down in my apartment, showing up in the abstract but not in actuality. It may be downright shameful; it's certainly human. The right thing isn't always easy, isn't always clear, isn't always effective. I don't think President Bush cares that we were all outside today telling him he is making a mistake and he does not represent our will. I think he wants to go to war, and we probably are only weeks away, if that. But there are two things that make yesterday and the way it was spent, matter.

One is that I can look at myself in the mirror on Martin Luther King Sunday without being guilty, and preach to you all about choosing to align ourselves with what we believe, knowing that I'm not too jaded or self-absorbed to keep hope alive in myself for the world, for all of us, to carry it back into this congregation of hopeful people.

The other is that if I am called on to speak for my country, my president, our foreign policy or actions, I won't feel I have to. When speaking to people within or beyond this country who ask me to account for what we're doing, I can tell them about all of us who condemn these actions, the choices of a president whose foreign policy I find arrogant and foolhardy.

Whether or not yesterday makes any difference tomorrow to the world we may not be able to judge. Maybe it was the beginning of a movement or the downfall of this foreign policy or a chance for the world to know that we take exception to the actions of the president. Or maybe it will make no difference. Nothing dramatic happened; no one was killed; maybe no one was saved. My hope is that though it clearly was not the end of anything, it was perhaps a beginning. Maybe a beginning as the one Dr. King began almost 40 years ago, taking bigger risks, with better understandings, than many of us yesterday.

At the last inauguration of a president I voted for, the only president I've ever successfully voted for, Bill Clinton said:

The challenge of our past remains the challenge of our future, will we be one nation, one people, with one common destiny, or not? Will we all come together, or come apart?

The divide of race has been America's constant curse. And each new wave of immigrants gives new targets to old prejudices. Prejudice and contempt, cloaked in the pretense of religious or political conviction are no different. These forces have nearly destroyed our nation in the past. They plague us still. They fuel the fanaticism of terror. And they torment the lives of millions in fractured nations all around the world.

These obsessions cripple both those who hate and, of course, those who are hated, robbing both of what they might become. We cannot, we will not, succumb to the dark impulses that lurk in the far regions of the soul everywhere. We shall overcome them. And we shall replace them with the generous spirit of a people who feel at home with one another.

Our rich texture of racial, religious and political diversity will be a Godsend in the 21st century. Great rewards will come to those who can live together, learn together, work together, forge new ties that bind together.

How I wish those were the sentiments, the understanding, of our current president. But they're not. The march yesterday was about fighting prejudice and contempt and the fanaticism of terror, in us and in the world where we exert such power. Prejudice, contempt, the fanaticism of terror, they are in us, as much as in the world. Together with our worldly concerns and distractions, they make it hard to see, sometimes, what is the right path towards the better world we envision. That such discernment is often difficult for us does not make us bad or even weak. We would be bad or weak if because time and energy for discernment and then ensuing action is required, we choose not to discern, not to see how intimately implicated we are, even amidst the engaging hullabaloo of our lives, with the actions of our government and leaders. But that is not what this church and our liberal faith is about. We are, in fact, all about discernment and action.

I'm lucky. The responsibility of ministry, my responsibility to you, calls me to discernment and action even when I'd rather spend my time some other way. And you're lucky because you have each other—many of whom were marching yesterday—and me—to call to you, to call you to hear Dr. King's call, to call on you not only to hear but to answer the perennial call to make this world filled with the generous spirit of people who feel at home with one another. The call echoes still. Hear it. Remember Dr. King and make yourself, again, and again, part of the answer. Even in fatigue. Even in uncertainty. Even in fear, make yourself again into part of the answer and together we will raise him from a leader to a prophet when that good day comes and the dream is real and we have overcome.

Amen