1/19
Remembering the life and ministry
of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I begin
by scrambling around trying to remove all the last Christmas decorations. I
smile. Dzieci has done such a good
job returning everything to just like it as that they restored the Christmas
decorations even when I was glad they were gone.
Dion has arrived in time to lend
me a valuable hand helping me to set up.
We start with Sweet, sweet
spirit…(Oh how that takes me back to he days of Andrea Bradford and Larry
Woodard, easy 14-15 years ago…that was his trademark opening..
( http://www.larrywoodard.com/).
And then Oh Freedom…
Our scriptures begin with Isaiah 49:1-7.
We saw Dr. King reflected in the
suffering servant. How as one deeply
despised and abhorred, his voice
rang out across the nations…how he
called the US to be the best it could be, even a light to the nations.
After we read John 1: 29-42, I
explained how when they called Jesus rabbi, that was teacher, like not a
priest, not a mediator, a teacher. Just like in our tradition, I am a teaching
elder. Son of God could apply to anyone who embodied God’s reality, fulfilled
the commandments, lived a godly life. Even someone like Dr. King. And Messiah could have all kinds of
meanings. And that at least one level, Jesus’ work in his day and time and
King’s in his were comparable.
The main text of the day course,
was King’s I have a dream speech:
I am
happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest
demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five
score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today,
signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great
beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the
flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long
night of their captivity.
But
one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later,
the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation
and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a
lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.
One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of
American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come
here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a
sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects
of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the
Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every
American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men
as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is
obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her
citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America
has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked
"insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of
justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in
the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this
check -- a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the
security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America
of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of
cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to
make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and
desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the
time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid
rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's
children.
It
would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This
sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until
there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three
is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow
off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation
returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in
America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of
revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright
day of justice emerges.
But
there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold
which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful
place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our
thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We
must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline.
We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again
and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with
soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community
must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white
brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that
their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their
freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
As we
walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn
back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When
will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is
the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be
satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain
lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot
be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to
a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of
their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For Whites
Only". We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote
and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we
are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like
waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am
not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and
tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you
have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the
storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have
been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that
unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go
back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to
Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern
cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not
wallow in the valley of despair.
I say
to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and
tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American
dream.
I
have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true
meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all
men are created equal."
I
have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves
and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the
table of brotherhood.
I
have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering
with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be
transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I
have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where
they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their
character.
I
have a dream today.
I
have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its
governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and
nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls
will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters
and brothers.
I
have a dream today.
I
have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and
mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the
crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be
revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This
is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this
faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.
With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our
nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be
able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together,
to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This
will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new
meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every
mountainside, let freedom ring."
And
if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring
from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty
mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of
Pennsylvania!
Let
freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let
freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But
not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let
freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let
freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every
mountainside, let freedom ring.
And
when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from
every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be
able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men,
Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and
sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last!
thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
We take turns with the reading, passing it around
so that King’s voice is black, white, Asian, gay, straight, male, female…That
his words must go beyond one persons’ witness to an idea, a vision that is
owned by a community. When Glen read, having grown up in Alabama, he got very
emotional.
And at the end of our reading, we sang, Free at last…
We marveled at well crafted the speech is. How it
calls on the American dream, taking seriously what the country has tried to
believe about itself.
How easily the Biblical texts flow
in and out, Isaiah, Amos, prophets. And a patriotic hymn as his framework. But
mainly, his vision, his imagination, painting pictures we could see. Concrete
enough to work for. And towards.
We reflected that he would only be
82. The same age as my mother. He could still be vital and on the scene. How
would he have changed? Where for example, would he be on marriage equality? I
reflect my frustration that the version of an overture to the national church
being voted on by our presbytery only allows ministers to perform same gender
marriages where the law allows…as opposed
to the proposal by West-Park which removed that language. Once you’ve made
provision for an act by reason of conscience, you cannot then have ecclesiology
bound by civil law. For example. Back when interracial marriage was illegal in
some states, would we have passed a similar
overture only allowing ministers to perform interracial marriages only where the law allows?
We concluded our service by
joining in a circle an singing We shall overcome/nosotros venceremos,
the classic song of the movement.
Roselyn was with us today, not
just as a journalism student but as an active participant.
A good day of memory and imagination.
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