Sermon given by Rev. Frank Clarkson, January 8, 2022.
The other day, Maggie and Di were here, taking down the Christmas decorations, which were so lovely. They decided to leave a few of them up, so the change wouldn’t be too abrupt, and that made me glad. I love Christmas—the story, the celebration and the carols, and I also love the quieter days that follow. And this simpler beauty we have before us now seems to me a lovely symbol of the invitation of these January days. Which is this: how do we intend to carry the spirit of Christmas, and the other holy days of December, into this new year? How will we bring the spirit of light shining in the darkness, of hope and courage in a time of fear, of Love breaking into our world, into the days ahead? How are we going to help keep alive this Spirit, not just at Christmas, but all the year ‘round?
This is why Howard Thurman’s words resonate; because they speak to this pivotal moment:
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost, to heal the broken,
To feed the hungry, to release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations, to bring peace among the people,
To make music in the heart.
The work of these days, Howard Thurman is saying, is to take the Love that Christmas stirs up in us, and make it tangible and real. To put that Love into action, to let it animate our lives, to let it guide our hands and feet.
If you were to ask me to sum up in a couple of words what is this work of Christmas, I’d say it’s the building of beloved community. And it just so happens that’s our worship theme for this month of January! For which we have Tori to thank. Several months ago, when we were doing some planning, Tori suggested this, and said she was specifically thinking of beloved community as articulated by Martin Luther King, Jr.: as the work for civil rights and against racism, and the shaping of our society toward more justice, toward reconciliation, and away from division, hatred, and violence.
Though he didn’t invent the name “beloved community,” it was Rev. Dr. King whose ministry and witness shaped and expanded that vision. King was transformed by a pilgrimage he took to India in 1959. He traveled there because he was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolent struggle for freedom from India’s colonial oppressors. The success of that movement, based on a spirit and practice of nonviolent resistance, directly informed King’s transformational leadership in the Civli Rights Movement.
We heard this in his words a few minutes ago: “The end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opposers into friends. It is this type of understanding and goodwill that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age. It is this love which will bring about miracles in the hearts of men.”
Can you hear the depth of spirit in these words? And in Howard Thurman’s words too? They are talking about a transformation of the heart, that opens us up to a different way of seeing and thinking, beyond the dualities that so often divide us; they invite us into a more healthy and holistic view in which we are all connected, all worthy of love and care. This is a vision which celebrates difference and diversity rather than being threatened by it. And it is a huge transformation they’re calling for. And it’s sorely needed these days, isn’t it?
Building the beloved community is a big project, that will take time and effort. And isn’t it what’s needed for our big, diverse, interconnected world? How else are we going to get along, and work through our problems, unless we start to see one another as siblings and kin? As the lovely politician from Lowell, Paul Tsongas, used to say, “We may have come here in different ships, but we’ll all in the same boat now.”
The good news is, you already know something about this. These days I keep hearing from folks about how caring and loving you are; all they ways you reach out to one another, especially when someone is hurting or in need. I love how openhearted and generous you are, and it’s this spirit which has helped us come though these last couple of years as well as we have; it’s this spirit which has kept us together.
We have this solid foundation of being a welcoming and caring faith community, that we’ve been building for some years now. Another part of that foundation is the work we’ve been doing around racism and other kinds of oppression, learning how to build relationships across difference, how to use our privilege to be a force for good. And we’re getting something of a reputation in the wider community for this good work, for showing up, for walking the talk of justice.
So the time is ripe, in this month when we remember the life and ministry of Martin Luther King, Jr., and others who were on the front lines of the struggle for civil rights, the time is ripe for us to take the next steps of building the beloved community.
We won’t all do this in the same way, which is why we need a community for this transformative work. Some of us will be more actively out there, showing up and speaking out. Others will be making different kinds of contributions: teaching and learning, building friendships, writing letters, sending money, lending a helping hand.
And for all of us, building the beloved community will require a stretching of our hearts and minds. Because we have grown up and been formed in a culture that has taught us to see difference as threatening, to see winners and losers rather than siblings and kin, to see violence as an acceptable way to solve our problems. But all around us we see that this kind of distrust and division is the road to ruin.
"The end is reconciliation;” Martin Luther King said, “the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opposers into friends. It is this type of understanding and goodwill that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age. It is this love which will bring about miracles in the hearts of men.”
On Christmas Eve, we shared the light from our chalice flame from candle to candle to candle, until everyone was holding a light. The invitation of that holy moment is to carry out with us the love we felt in our midst, to remember how we shared the light, how it can spread from one to another, ’til all were blessed by its glow. To remember that we each have ben given a light, and we are called to let it shine. That we are here to share our light and our love as widely as we can, while we are here.
This is the work that lies before us:
To find the lost, to heal the broken,
To feed the hungry, to release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations, to bring peace among the people,
To make music in the heart.
To lift up our hearts, and lift up our light, and let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
Amen.