Sermon given by Rev. Frank Clarkson, January 19, 2020
I chose that hymn we just sang because it reminds us that we have more in common with other people, even those we fear or are opposed to, than what separates us. I have to believe that almost everyone longs for peace and freedom, and wants a better world for their children. That “other hearts in other lands are beating, with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.”
On this weekend when our nation celebrates the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., when we remember his life and ministry and how he called our nation to change, to live out the values we proclaim; when we remember the way he inspired so many people, how he walked with the poor and the outcast, how he and others were beaten and jailed, how he and others gave their lives for the struggle—we must ask ourselves: how am I going to live up to that legacy? What am I called to do, in these days? What kind of difference will I make, in my life? What kind of difference will we in this church community make, while we are here?
There’s a danger, of course, in this, in making Dr. King larger than life, someone we could never hope to emulate. These days I’ve been thinking about Congressman John Lewis, another lion of courage, who as a young man was beaten almost to death on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, and went on to be elected to Congress, serving now for over thirty years. John Lewis recently announced that he has stage 4 pancreatic cancer, and the news spread like a wave of sadness across our nation.
John Lewis is a hero too, of course, and one of our out-front leaders. As a child, he wanted to be a preacher, and he says he and his brothers and sisters and cousins would gather up the chickens in the chicken yard, and “I would start preaching to the chickens. They never quite said ‘Amen.’”
So John Lewis has courage and he has speaking skills, but he would tell us that he’s nothing special. He would echo King’s words, “Everybody can be great...because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”
In this month when we’re thinking about power, on this day when we remember Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, my message to you is that you have more power than you know. That there is a power we have, collectively as people, that can overcome structures of oppression and a stagnant status quo. It’s what Bobby Kennedy was talking about back in 1966, when he said:
“It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, they send forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”
The thing is, our individual acts get multiplied and amplified when we join with others. Especially when we are physically together. I know that there’s some good things about social media and that it can help people make connections and share information, but there’s so much misinformation out there too. It’s misused and it’s divisive and I fear this leads people to withdraw and retreat into enclaves of only like-minded people. Sometimes I add my name to those online petitions, but I don’t think they are going to make much difference, other than adding myself to another email list. And does anyone still think that sharing your views on Facebook is going to change someone’s mind? Particularly those who hold different views than you do? No, what we need is more face to face interaction—whether at church or in civic organizations or politics.
Because we need to get past the name-calling and character assassination and find ways to talk across the growing divide in our country. We need to get better at showing up. There was a moving Shabbat service at Temple Emanu-El on Friday night; especially important this year, when anti-Semitism is on the rise. There was great music and powerful speaking from the Temple’s spiritual leader Vera Broekhuysen, and by Pastor Kenneth Young from Calvary, and it was moving to see people from many different communities there. I am grateful for those of you who came.
This is a busy weekend around here, and that service at the Temple is a long one. A few years ago, I was at home, and feeling tired, and wondering if I could get out of going. And our teenage daughter spoke up; she said, “You should go—it’s the right thing do to.” And she was right. In other words, “Stop your complaining and go do the right thing.” Anybody else need to hear that?
The older I get, the less patient I am with words. And I’m a preacher! But it’s easy to say, “I’ll try to show up,” or “I’ll make it if I can.” Which can be a soft way of saying no without actually saying it. More and more I’m paying attention, not to what people say, but to what they do. As the poet Julia Kastorf writes
I learned that whatever we say means nothing,
what anyone will remember is that we came.
There’s a scene in the Star Wars movie “The Empire Strikes Back.” Master Yoda is trying to teach a young Luke Skywalker how to be a grownup; how to have courage and wisdom and resolve. How to stop being so passive, daunted by what seems difficult. And Luke shrugs his shoulders and halfheartedly says, “All right, I’ll give it a try.”
And Yoda snaps back, “No! Try not! Do. Or do not. There is no try.”
For our church Facebook post this week, I put up a picture of the 50th anniversary of the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. You see the leaders up front—President Obama arm in arm with Congressman John Lewis and the Obama family, and others including President George W. Bush. But what I want to call attention to is not the well-known people in the front, but rather, the thousands of people marching behind them. And you don’t always get see this. But they are there. You see the identified leaders on TV, up front, before the cameras. and you could think they have all the power. But where their power comes from is from the people. It comes from you. And if our leaders have gotten out of line, have lost track of of who they are and who they are called to serve, than it’s on you and me to call them to account!
Do you ever think, ‘What good can my little voice do? What kind of power do I have?” Do you think John Lewis has ever said that? Listen to what he said, not long ago, in a radio interview:
“We grew up very, very poor — six brothers, three sisters, wonderful mother, wonderful father, wonderful grandparents. But growing up as a child, I saw segregation and racial discrimination, and I didn’t like it. And I would ask my mother and my father, my grandparents, my great-grandparents, why. They would say, ‘That’s the way it is. Don’t get in the way. Don’t get in trouble.’
“But attending church and Sunday school, reading the Bible, the teaching of the Great Teacher, and being deeply influenced by what I saw all around me — it was this belief that somehow and some way things were going to get better, that you had to have this sense of hope, a sense of optimism, and have faith…
“One day, in 1955, at the age of 15, I heard of Rosa Parks. I heard the words of Martin Luther King Jr. on the old radio, and he was talking and preaching about nonviolence, about peace, about reconciliation, about… the ability to change things, and he was a preacher, and I wanted to be a preacher as a young child. And I had this sense that, if I believed, if I had faith in my own capacity and ability to get things done, I too could change things.”
Isn’t this kind of faith what we need right now? The faith that, when things are hard and discouraging, we don’t give up, but we hold on to our deepest values and keep on moving forward, joining hands with others to get things done and make things better.
John Lewis tells a story about the March on Washington in 1963, the day of Martin Luther King’s famous speech. He says there had never been so many black people coming to Washington at one time, and so elected leaders were nervous. To counter this, the leaders of the march went up to Capitol Hill that morning to allay their fears. Lewis writes,
“There was great concern about keeping order and peace during the march. But, when our quick series of meetings with House and Senate leaders was over, something amazing happened. We stepped outside the congressional buildings into the light of day and saw thousands in the streets. The people had started the march without us! They had heard the call to nonviolent action; they had taken the reins and were on the move together, peacefully making their point. We were technically the ‘leaders,’ but our duty at that moment was to follow. The people were marching to the voice of one spirit that was uniting them to work for change through the power of peace, and I couldn’t have been more proud.”
Thank God for the social movements who have changed our country for the better. Thank God for so many people, whose names we will never know, who marched together and sat down together and sang together, calling for a different way. Any effective movement is people powered. It’s good and right to celebrate heroes like John Lewis and Martin Luther King, Jr. But they would tell us that their power was their faith, their power was the legions of good people who had their back, who marched with them and prayed for them, and kept on moving moving forward. Let this be our prayer: Gonna keep on moving forward. Never turning back, never turning back.
Amen.