NO HERO OF CONVENIENCE
SERMON
Second Sunday after Epiphany
Martin Luther
King, Jr. Sunday
Offered by The Rev. Frank A. Johnson
I. The United Church of Christ has often been criticized for dealing with social issues instead of spirituality, as if in the minds of the critics there were no compelling spiritual experience that produced a concern for the issues. Sometimes it is difficult to be aware of that spiritual experience when we get involved in the issues of the day. I received a remarkable book at Christmas that throws some light on this subject: Picasso: In His Words, a book in which on each page there is a reproduction of one of his works of art and along with it a selection from one of his writings. On the page opposite "Guernica" (that powerful painting from the 1937 Spanish Civil War) are these words: "...artists who live and work with spiritual values cannot and should not remain indifferent to a conflict in which the highest values of humanity and civilization are at stake." And he adds on the next page, "No, painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war." What he is saying is that when we deal with spiritual issues, far from taking us away from the world of social issues, this brings us to the conflict of fundamental values surrounding these issues, and this is the arena in which our spirituality is lived out. The recognition of Martin King's birthday gives us an opportunity to explore the truth of Picasso's assertion.
II. In Harry G. Lefever's review of Vincent Harding's Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero (see For Our Reflection), he cites Harding's addressing what he calls "our national amnesia--a determination to forget or ignore Martin Luther King's demands for a radical restructuring of American society. In our amnesia, we have frozen the frame of the smiling, victorious hero, locked in the magnificent voice proclaiming the compelling dream.'" When we forget, or fall asleep, we salute the dream (that his children be judged by the content of their characters) and ignore the call for corrective action to overcome injustice. Here is the King that he would have us remember and share with our children: "So tell the children that King lives. Let them know that we saw him facing the tanks in Tiananmen Square, dancing on the crumbling wall of Berlin, singing in Prague, alive in the glistening eyes of Nelson Mandela. Tell them that he lives within us, right here, wherever his message is expanded and carried out in our daily lives, wherever his unfinished battles are taken up by our hands."
Paul Rockwell, writing in Friday's Times, and commenting on Ward Conerly's national crusade to end affirmative action initiated (ironically or cynically, take your choice) on King's birthday last Wednesday, with these words: "We must go back to the journey that King laid out," criticizes Conerly for misrepresenting King's position. He sites many examples of special opportunities offered to overcome injustice and King's support thereof. "Conerly should not pretend to be King's missionary," he states, and then adds: "The real Martin Luther King, Jr. was a 'drum major for justice' who fought and died...to bring Americans together."
III. Set King aside, if you will, for the moment, and let's take a look at Jesus. One of our Core Values says that we are inspired by the life and teachings of Jesus. I was granted a study leave by the Church Council, and for it I attended early this month the UCC's annual consultation on parish ministry, held in Orlando, Florida this year with the theme: "The Pastor as a Person of Faith, Encountering Jesus Again." Not only did the Council grant the study leave but it contributed, on your behalf, $300 toward the expenses of this venture. So thank you, all of you, for your generosity, even if you were not aware of it at the time!
Baptist preacher Samuel Proctor opened the consultation with a sermon on the theme of "When Religion Tries to Make it without Jesus." He told the story of Clarence Jordan, founder of Georgia's Koinonia Community, who spoke to a conference on urban ministry on the Sermon on the Mount. Jordan, some of you will recall, was responsible for informing me that I was related to the apostle Peter. His original name was Simon (bar Jonah), which means son of John, which means Johnson, and then his first name was changed to Peter, which means rock, so his name is really Rocky Johnson! Jordan arrived at the conference on his motorcycle, wearing overalls, and in that garb began his lecture, holding a Greek New Testament in his hand. When he got through, a questioner asked him, "you've presented a problem for me today: how can I be a successful urban pastor and still follow the Sermon on the Mount?" Jordan replied, "Well, I appreciate your dilemma, and I want to point out to you that Jesus didn't give the Sermon to candidates for successful urban pastorhood; he gave it to his disciples."
Then Proctor goes on to talk about the significance of Jesus. First is his compassion. Compassion means to suffer with. He describes one scene near the end of Jesus' ministry when Jesus was having dinner with Simon the Leper (Simon with AIDS). The outcast. The one no one wanted anything to do with. And the one no "respected" citizen would spend time with. But Jesus had compassion on people like that and did not stay away. And that did not make him popular with the religious leadership. The other factor is his inclusiveness, related to the first. Proctor points out that in one of the genealogies Jesus is traced back (through Joseph!) to Ruth, a Moabite woman, and Boaz. The message is clear; he is not just for members of the club. There are no barriers to his caring. Compassionate and inclusive. The woman at the well, a foreigner; the woman about to be stoned, an adulterer; Zacchaeus, a tax collector; Simon the Leper; children; all of these people were welcomed by Jesus and responded to him. Jesus represented a reordering of priorities, and the leadership hated him for it.
IV. Now bring Martin Luther King back into the picture, and let's see if there is a relationship between him and what I have said about Jesus. In a column in yesterday's Star, local pastor Rod Ritchie was writing about the greatness of Jesus, and spoke of Jesus as being the sin substitute (formally called the Doctrine of the Atonement, the concept that Jesus died for our sins). Certainly this is one aspect of orthodox Christian theology. At the consultation in Florida, presenter Rita Nakashima Brock offered a different perspective: Jesus didn't die for our sins; he was killed, executed, because he called for a reordering of priorities, because he challenged the value system. Because he was compassionate and inclusive. Yesterday's Times carries an account of 15 United Methodist clergy signing a statement of conscience disagreeing with that denomination's ban on same sex weddings and gay ordination (the official UMC position is that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching). A reordering of priorities; an expression of compassion and inclusiveness. That's what Martin Luther King stood for and that's why he was killed. One other person we heard in Florida was Bernice Johnson Reagon, the founder of Sweet Honey in the Rock, and Curator Emerita at the Smithsonian Institution, who told us that to follow Jesus is to take a risk. For to follow Jesus is to call for a reversal of priorities where there is injustice, to be compassionate and inclusive. This is what King did.
V. In today's lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures, we read that the word was rare in those days and that visions were not widespread (v. 1). We may take some comfort, those of us who find that the word is rare and visions not widespread, suggests Susan Johnson writing in the Christian Century. Johnson goes on to suggest that there may be a different response, that of a secret dread that the word is not rare, that the vision is clear, and that we may not want to hear what is being said. Eli didn't want to listen to the word because his sons had been at fault and he had done nothing to stop them, and he lived in the ritual dread of waiting to be caught. Rather than take the risk that hearing the word might bring we convince ourselves that we hear nothing.
VI. God's word is faithful and persistent, even when we are slow, doubtful and hard of hearing. God's word comes to us in sometimes surprising ways. Sometimes in a dream, sometimes in a homeless person as it did to Helen one Sunday morning, sometimes when gay and lesbian people confront our pious religiosity and remind us of one who was compassionate and inclusive, sometimes when new words to hymns shock us and we get a sense of what it is like never to have been included in the church's language, and sometimes when a 90's Martin Luther King challenges the values implicit in our official actions regarding immigrants and those who are poor. These are not social issues. These are situations in which God speaks to us. Can we hear? The good news is that an epiphany is a lifelong calling.