Dr. King

 

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.

 

Today our nation honors Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Today our nation inaugurates a new president.  Today our nation still struggles with segregation and separation, with hatred and harming each other.  Today our nation still wrestles with the question from the musical Hamilton, “Are we a nation of states, what’s the state of our nation?”  That is, what really unites us? 

 

Pause…pray that question.  What really unites us with neighbors, community, from sea to shining sea?

 

Unfortunately, my mind wonders if it is money and our desire for just a little bit more?  Scanning the news, I wonder if it is the way we continue to “other” people, because we are all convinced that “they” are the problem?  Is the way we refuse to recognize that we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality ~ that our Seamstress God has woven us together along with all creation with threads of love that have become unraveled and revealed a world that most of us were not taught in school about what our nations is all about? 

 

This week, I want to return to the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail.  If you would like to discuss the whole letter, which is very much worthy of a read in such a time as this, please join Sacred Conversations on Race this Wednesday at 3 p.m.  Each day, I will offer a quote from the letter.  I want you to read the quote three times.  Read it first to see what word or sentence jumps off the page at you?  What emotions are provoked and evoked in the reading.  Pause, sit with what is stirring in you.  Read the words a second time, this time pondering where do these words challenge you?  For example, how in the world do I live in our country today where the “outside agitator” ideal is played out nightly on the news?  That stretches me beyond my own ability.  Pause, sit with what is stirring in you.  Read the words a final time to see how God, who is still speaking, is singing to you in these words.  I pray you find ways to let Dr. King’s words settled, sting, speak, stretch, and search your soul and mine as we seek to be the people of God in such a time as this. Amen.