Dear People of St. James’,
In a strange way, the annual commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stirs up unease in me. I fear it is steadily enfeebling the power of the contradictions in our society that he forced us to face. The holiday seems in danger of becoming a festive celebration that flattens Dr. King’s prophetic witness under the weight of parades, platitudinous politicians, and ubiquitous renditions of his eloquent “I have a dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial, but not recited in of the national protest context in which he delivered it.
A proper commemoration is good and necessary; but rarely is there mention that, when he was assassinated, his popularity was on the wane and under attack because he had turned his face against the Vietnam War and raised his voice against structural poverty in America. Few recall that Dr. King was murdered while supporting a bitter sanitation workers’ strike in Memphis. He had connected poverty and economic oppression with racism and vice versa.
Our society cannot deal with Dr. King as a modern Isaiah or Jeremiah. So, we bury his wrath against injustice under a hundred thousand rose petals – just as we have reduced the Isaiah and Jeremiah of the Bible into pious art works.
Dr. King was clear that just complaining about injustice is not enough. The Gospel must lead to action, as he forcefully wrote in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” to local clergy who told him to slow down and accept that change occurs slowly. Jesus was not one to wait for slow change. Nor should we. He surely would be even more vehement with Christian leaders, who act as apologists for the current misdirection of our nation.
We know how Dr. King would respond to the governor’s cruel decision to bar refugees from Texas. He also would assail the continuing school segregation and inferior education for minority kids, even in “progressive” Austin. Nor would anyone doubt his take on the injustice of our criminal justice system. He would challenge, in terms of ethics, using drones to summarily execute our “enemies.” He would compel us to deal with the 450 years of social and moral damage of slavery and its aftermath.
And he would protest imprisoning immigrant children, breaking up families, and rendering the asylum process a farce at our southern border. The best way to honor Dr. King is to organize to around those issues that we know he would take to task.
Last May, I joined a civil rights pilgrimage to Alabama with the Union of Black Episcopalians. For me, doing civil rights as a career was always Gospel work; and visiting places where Gospel work was met with fierce and violent oppression, even death, in the not distant past was profoundly moving. Equally poignant was the spirituality, love, and adherence to non-violence of the people who helped guide us on the pilgrimage, some of whom were personal witnesses to, and even victims of, that era’s violence against African Americans.
When I sat in Dr. King’s study at his Montgomery house and looked at his books, I felt more deeply than ever how central spirituality is for an activist life and indeed leads to such a life.
I began my journey as a high school and college seminarian, but chose a legal career instead because the church at the time lacked an active human rights project. Dr. King’s life moved me in that other direction. Five decades later, I have come full circle and am to be ordained a priest in a church community that lives human rights as Gospel work.
It will be humbling and quite awesome to celebrate the Eucharist with St. James’ on MLK weekend, honoring one of the great Christians of our era, who preached the Gospel by doing it. And my prayer will be for the wisdom and strength to follow his example and in thanksgiving for being part of the St. James’ community.
The Rev. Jim Harrington
