Great Speech Obama, But So What?

Where were you on April 4, 1968? Well, a few of you here were not even born, and our dear young friends here from the UK, I dare say maybe even some of your parents were not here in ’68. But for those of us, who were around then, do you remember that fateful day, 40 years ago and what you were doing when you heard the news of the assassination of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on that Memphis balcony? As I shared with some of you this past January, I was 17 years old, at a after school job, Robinson Studio, a photographer’s shop on Front Street in Indianola, Mississippi and one of my co-workers came running into the room announcing that Martin Luther King, Jr. had been shot in the head and I went numb. I couldn’t believe it. And later that evening, I received the intelligence that Martin King was dead and in the early morning hours of April 5th, 40 years ago, I found myself on the corner of Roosevelt and Hannah Streets just walking and a car full of white youths sped around the corner and one of them yelled out the window, “we got Martin Luther Coon!” And I felt rage, but more than that I felt a whole plethora of emotions that came cascading in on me almost at one time. I felt rage. I felt fear. I felt frustration. I felt anxiety, but more than that I felt alone. I felt all by myself. I felt lonely. I felt deserted, because my advocate had been taken away. I couldn’t get the picture out of my mind, Martin Luther King, Jr. dying on a balcony of hate and prejudice. His head had been opened by a 17 cent bullet of violence and there he lay drowning in his own blood; drowning in the blood of his love; drowning in the blood of his commitment; drowning in the blood of the actualizing of his oratory. And I felt rage. I felt frustration; I felt lonely; I felt deserted because my advocate had been taken away.

Martin King was a voice for the voiceless. I cannot explain it, but he knew how to take all of my feelings of inadequacy. He knew how to take all of my feelings of being Black in America and he could take all of that collage of emotions and wrap it in language and regurgitate it and I could say in union that’s me, that’s what I have been feeling. He was my voice. He could articulate my feelings. When I could scream and nobody would pay me any attention, because who was I just another Black boy from the Delta of Mississippi, yet this Black preacher from the red Clay Hills of Georgia could come to the center stage of life and declare my inner feelings and the whole world listened. He was my voice. But more than my voice, he was my conscience. He made it uncomfortable for everybody. He said when the architects of this great Republic wrote the magnificent words of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution; in a real sense they were signing a promissory note that every person has “the unalienable right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” But instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given her people of color a bad check and it has come back marked insufficient funds. He was white America’s conscience. He declared in that address at Riverside Church on a time to break the silence and it is amazing how relevant those words are for our time, for substitute Iraq for Vietnam in that speech and it is a warning to us today. He said, “It is not right for you to cross the seas and stand up in an unjust war and declare that God is on your side. God is never on the side of injustice. He declared, “I speak as a child of god and a brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak, he said for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America, who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at homes and death and corruption in Vietnam.”He was white America’s conscience, but more than the conscience of white America. He was the conscience of black America and of all people of color. Because he told Black America that you can no longer sit in comfortable churches on comfortable pews and wear the evidence of your new found prosperity while other folks are suffering in the pit of degradation. But all of us have got to stand up for justice and freedom and go to jail if necessary and even put your life on the line…”rise up O people of God, have done with lesser things. Give heart and mind and soul and strength to serve the God of the universe.” He pointed out the enemy, those who used dogs and fire hoses and bombed our homes, but he never gave us permission to hate them. He said that’s your enemy, now love them. And when other voices said hate them. Martin said, “Love them, love your enemy, and bless those who curse you. Do good to those who persecute you. And pray for them who despitefully use you. Love is more powerful than hate.”And they killed him and I stood on that street corner in Indianola, Mississippi filled with rage, frustration, emptiness, and loneliness. My conscience had been wiped out. My voice had been taken away. My dreamer had been annihilated. My dream had become a nightmare. I was one angry young black person. But 40 years later here I stand in this pulpit from Mississippi and Memphis in the middle of Manhattan not defeated, destroyed or hopeless. In spite of that tragedy 40 years ago, I’ve still got a voice. I’ve got a dream and I’ve got a conscience. It’s because Martin Luther King, Jr. was not the voice. I found out that all he was was an echo. There was a voice before that voice. Before that voice ever voiced its voice. There was a first voice and the second voice heard the first voice and the second voice echoed the first voice. It was the voice that declared before there was a then or there, when or where, let there be light and there was light. It was the first voice that declared God is love and love is of God. It was the first voice that declared, let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. So the enemy didn’t have its day 40 years ago… all the enemy dealt with, was an echo. But the first voice went untouched.
And there are still echoes all around. We are never left without a witness. There are echoes of love and peace; Echoes of hope, healing and reconciliation. One of those echoes, not the only one, but one of them. And I am not making an endorsement today. This is by no means my purpose here. I might be giving myself away slightly, but whoever you are for in the presidential campaign, I hope that you can hear me that it is about more than a candidate or a campaign, but it is about our country and world and the choices we have to make. For we are as Martin King often reminded us “tied together in an inescapable network of mutuality and whatever affects one of us directly, affects all of us indirectly and we must learn to live together as sisters and brothers or we will surely perish together as fools.”

Barack Obama in that speech on race in Philadelphia a few weeks ago extended a powerful challenge to all of us. A challenge that understands how injustice does indeed breed frustration and anger, but that to remain stuck in past anger and present frustration can be counter-productive and even self-destructive. We heard a vision characterized not by incendiary recrimination but by the possibility of changing the realities that have kept us stuck in a racial "stalemate" and a mired in a "cynical" and "static" view of America's painful divides. We heard in that speech from a young black political leader who, can also sympathize with white resentment and frustration over racial politics, and who can see both the anger of a black mentor and the racial stereotypes of a white grandmother as both part of him and part of America. The most honest and compelling speech about race in decades could open the promise of a deeper national conversation about our racial past and future than we have had for some time.
And you know honesty is rare in public political discourse, not because it is in the nature of politicians to be untruthful but because they do not sufficiently trust the American people to believe in their capacity to handle the truth, especially when it is ambiguous and difficult. It is in this way that Obama and his Philadelphia speech stand apart from so much of our public talk. He took the considerable risk of trusting the American people to take his words seriously, to gaze into the tortured history of race in this country, and to move beyond the dividing bitterness of our time with a candor both hopeful and refreshing.

How easy and cowardly it would have been to disown the preaching of his former pastor. As Peter Gomes of the Memorial Church of Harvard University said, “Those of us who preach are flattered to think that someone might believe we would have some influence on the thinking of anybody, let alone on a candidate for the highest office in the land, for most of us are tolerated, patronized, and ignored. Can anyone name the last presidential pastor whose sermonic influence affected policy in the White House? It may surprise many in white America, for whom Martin Luther King, Jr. is the only black preacher of whom they have ever heard, to learn that there are a lot of Jeremiah Wrights out there who week after week give expression to that classic definition of prophetic preaching that is to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." After all what would one expect of a black preacher whose Christian name is Jeremiah? The surprise is that there are not more Jeremiah Wrights who, from the view of their own pulpits, indict America for the failure to live into its own heroic vision of all people. To criticize America is not a sin, but it is a sin to mistake America for God, and it is both sin and dereliction of duty to fail to note the difference.

Obama's speech leaves the choice to us. The issue now is whether we will choose not to allow the angry and frustrating past prevent a more fair and hopeful future; or whether we will be forever bound by that past. To the question of whether race will continue to divide and conquer our hopes for a better America, Barack Obama had his answer, "Not this time." Now we each have to answer the question for ourselves. Great speech Obama…Amen, say it, tell it like it is, right on brother, but so what? What can I do? What ought I to do? What must I do?
It is the question of our text as another young leader from another time and place made a great speech; gave a powerful sermon. It is Peter, disciple, follower of Jesus. People were moved by his words. He told it like it was. He told the good people of the city who had gathered that the very one they had rejected was the one whom God had raised up and given a name above every other name. This one you thought you had gotten rid of on April 4, 1968 is bigger, stronger, larger and more powerful in death than he ever was in life! This Jesus you thought you had gotten rid of; God has vindicated and raised him up. You only knocked out an echo, but God is still speaking. And when they heard this they were “cut to the heart.” Their hearts were moved. When they heard what God had done and how God was still speaking, and how there was still hope for them in spite of what they had done and maybe even failed to do, they turned to Peter and the others and started saying, so what? What shall we do? What can we do? What ought we to do? Peter kept on preaching, he didn’t miss a beat, and he said this is what you ought to do: You ought to repent! You ought to repent of the sin of racism. To repent, says John Howard Yoder, is not to feel bad, but to think differently, to come to a new understanding. To repent doesn’t mean to grovel in self-hatred or pious sorrow. When you repent you turn around; you change directions; you choose a different path; you make a radical rupture. And so the first thing we must do as we listen to Obama and Peter and the words of Martin and Malcolm and Mandela and Sister Mary and Mother Theresa and the inner voice in our hearts. The first thing we must do is deeply personal. It is not easy. It is being real. Repentance is between us and God. It requires an internal, spiritual exercise. It isn’t easy. Repenting means no more masks worn, no more pretense, no more keeping up a front. It is coming clean with God; being honest with God and with ourselves, dropping all of our rationalizations and justifications, saying to God from the bottom of our hearts, I am sorry. I know I have not done my best. I’ve let you down more than I care to remember. I have been selfish and self-centered. “It’s not my sister or my brother, but it’s me O God standing in the need of prayer.” That’s repentance, deeply personal. Repentance is coming out of our state of denial. Civil Rights icon, Joseph Lowery said that “in this country we are often guilty of creating a 51st state, the state of denial.” But repentance is coming out of our state of denial, coming clean with God and seeing ourselves as we really are. Nothing much is going to happen until there is a deeply personal response that involves a private examination and a personal determination to change what we have been doing. Peter said in his speech that there has to be repentance, but then he says be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven. The first thing we have got to do is deeply personal. But we can’t stop there; we’ve got to do something that is drastically social. The first step is a private examination followed by a personal determination, but the second step is just the opposite. It involves a public demonstration of our personal determination. I can’t just talk the talk; I’ve got to walk the walk. What am I going to do to demonstrate to myself and others that I believe the song that I sing? It starts with a personal determination, but it always ends with a public demonstration. Can we hold that as a framework for our ongoing conversation on race and reconciliation and our mission as a congregation…personal determination, but always a public demonstration?

I want to close this morning with a story that Senator Obama shared in his speech on race about this young, twenty-three white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for his campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there. And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her Mom. She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat. She did this for a year until her Mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too. Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice. Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition of the common humanity between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not even much. But it is where we start. And if we are willing to make a personal determination followed by a public demonstration, there is always hope. Amen.

Heschel-King Interfaith Service

The congregations of both the Park Avenue Christian Church and the Temple of Universal Judaism joined together for a service honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his trusted colleague and friend Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Dr. King and Rabbi Heschel both fought for civil rights in America and interfaith relations internationally.

The 5th Annual Heschel-King Award for Interfaith Activism was awarded to Rabbi David Saperstein, the head of the Center for Religious Action of Reform Judaism in Washington, DC.

We were treated to readings of the words of Dr. King and Rabbi Heschel, the music of Reggis Harris and Rabbi Jonathan Kligler, and a call to action from Rabbi Saperstein. A special treat was a new musical work, "In Memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." by Karl Jenkins, performed by Laurie Singer on cello and Andrew Adams on the church's magnificent organ.

The congregants, led by Reggie Harris and Rabbi Kligler, ended the service by joining together in a rousing rendition of "We Shall Overcome."

Rabbi Saperstein, Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor of TUJ, and I joined the congregants in the Idleman Parlor for fellowship after the service.

We're looking for leadership, Mr. Bush

“The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them…they will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain.” Isaiah 11:6-9

Among the contrasts of this amazing season, none is more striking, nor more unsettling, than the biblical motif of peace – peace on earth, goodwill among all people, the Prince of Peace, the lion and the lamb together and the reality of the world where every day there is another report of death, destruction, war, terror, fear, insecurity and tribalism. Woody Allen once observed, “on the day the lion and the lamb lie down together, only the lion is going to get back up.” That may be and yet we hope and yearn and search for peace.

Our nation and world are crying out for leadership. Bold, determined, visionary, decisive, imaginative, gracious, generous, a non-anxious presence in our midst is the great need of our time. Leadership not driven by polls or popularity, but by principles. Leadership not based on mere charisma, but character. Leadership not driven by calculations, but by convictions.

And we have a whole host of people who are offering themselves to lead this nation of 300 million. We will elect one of them our President a year from now, but in the meantime we have George W. Bush as the leader of our nation and the free world.

This coming year is an opportunity for Mr. Bush and for us to model a new kind of leadership for the world. I sincerely believe that our President, George W. Bush had something good in mind when he used the phrase “compassionate conservatism” at the beginning of his administration. His father, George H.W. Bush had a similar phrase that he used at the beginning of his administration, “a kinder and gentler nation.” I like it better. It is less loaded with partisan connotations.

I think that was what George W. Bush was trying to get at with his term “compassionate conservatism.” But you know politicians are famous for making these kinds of phrases. They have professional speechwriters who sit around for hours trying to craft these catchy phrases, trying to find some immortal line that will last and last. They want to get elected, but after the election, they generally go with business as usual. Some keep their promises, but most of them forget them altogether.

Before the election there they are out on the farms with the people, milking cows, visiting school yards, chatting with people; on talk shows like Oprah, Jay Leno and David Letterman; in factories wearing over-alls and hard hats; at picnics eating watermelon and drinking beer; in hospitals comforting the sick and athletes who have been hurt on the field; at the train and bus stations shaking hands with the commuters.

It’s so false, and once it’s over you can’t find them on the farms, in the schools, at the factory gates or in the hospitals or at the train stations.

But suppose, however, we were to take Mr. Bush's original ideals seriously and suppose that he could still be moved by the same spirit that moved Isaiah: “the wolf living with the lamb, the leopard lying down with the goat, the calf and the lion together and a little child leading them.” Maybe the vision of Isaiah that possessed him when he was a candidate for President could possess him again now. After all he has heard these words before. Suppose he could see anew the vision of the cow and the bear feeding together and their young ones lying down together and the lion eating straw like the ox.

And if he could, what ought he to do in his last year in office? For seven years, it has not gone so well. He got us into this war. We have had Katrina and wire taps. He has not been a uniter, but a divider. But we have got to live with him for another year and he is really concerned now about his legacy. What ought he be doing and what should we be doing?

Well, first of all, if he really means to build a compassionate, kinder and gentler nation, he ought to keep on saying it. He ought to get louder and louder with it. He ought to say it here and there and everywhere! He should not whisper it now and then, but let everybody know where he stands.

The police chiefs in Roanoke, Virginia, Long Beach, California, Flint, Michigan, New Haven, Connecticut ought to know that the president wants a compassionate kinder and gentler nation. In Miami, in Maine, in Memphis, in Washington, DC and Washington State we all ought to know that the president wants a compassionate, kinder and gentler nation. All the mayors of our cities, the governors of states, the heads of school systems, the president of banks, the heads of corporations, all the members of congress ought to know that the president goes to bed at night praying for a compassionate, kinder and gentler nation.

He ought to tell the composers to write some music about it. Tell the people who write marching songs for high school bands to write some marching music about a kinder and gentler nation. He ought to tell the congress to change the national anthem and rather than singing about bombs bursting in air, start singing about brotherhood and sisterhood from sea to shining sea… a kinder and a gentler nation!

The playwrights ought to write Broadway musicals about it. Don’t just whisper it in the Rose Garden every now and then, but go on CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX, CNN with it… a kinder and gentler nation.

If you mean it, tell everybody! After all Isaiah had a vision and Martin King had a dream and the whole world knows about it. Everybody ought to know about it. If that’s what you want Mr. President, tell it everywhere you go. When you show up…folks will have to say there’s that man… he doesn’t seem to have but one speech!

Let the whole world know…this is what we are doing in America building a compassionate, kinder and gentler nation! We need something to celebrate in this country. My God we need something to celebrate. We are in such a moral slump and stupor. We don’t have any great themes, no great causes. Our young people have nothing to light candles about anymore. They don’t get wax on their fingers anymore. They don’t climb any high hills anymore. What are we doing? Where are we going? Our colleges and universities with academic freedom, free to do whatever they want to do. Free to sing and shout about whatever engrosses the mind, but without anything to celebrate.

But imagine what could happen if Mr. Bush really did devote his final legacy-making year in office building these United States into a compassionate, a kinder and gentler nation. Indigent elderly in their illness would be cared for in clean places with warmth and compassion. Young criminal offenders would be put into the hands of competent guardians and counselors to give them a lasting new beginning in life.

The working poor would be enabled to buy modest apartments and to begin to acquire equity in homes of their own. All little children would be provided patient understanding and creative teaching to illuminate their young minds with imagination and curiosity to grow into compassionate, kinder and gentler adults.

Suppose that Mr. Bush, even as he talks about the doctrine of pre-emptive strikes and the imminent possibility of World War III, really does want to get us out of Iraq. Funds now committed to over-kill would be redirected to the enhancement of life in our small rural communities and in our desperate cities. This compassionate, kinder and gentler nation would divert some of the funds now dedicated to the destruction of the planet to the healing of the nations… clean water for thirsty people in those dry, parched and barren lands so familiar to us.

This nation would build new roads, bridges and power plants for those countries that were drained of their resources by 300 years of occupation by western powers. This nation would support reforestation of mountains and hillsides, burned and charred by tribal wars and depleted by misuse.

As the leader of this compassionate, kinder and gentler nation, Mr. Bush would invite the people of the world who fear us and who suspect us, who distrust us, who hate us... he would invite them to sit down at the table and to study war no more. He would lead the world in beating spears into pruning hooks and swords into plow shares. And that would be a remarkable legacy.

So, Mr. Bush, you are right on time. You have a whole year to make the world a different place a more compassionate place. Just get yourself a megaphone and shout Eureka! I have found it! A compassionate, kinder and gentler nation, a new national slogan. Let school children draw posters about it and put it on our postage stamps…the calf and the young lion and the fatling together and a little child shall lead them. A compassionate, kinder and gentler nation.

We’ve got a lot of cleaning up to do. We’ve got a lot of praying to do. We’ve got a lot of repenting to do. We’ve got a lot of working to do. And Mr. Bush, you need to know that you have a lot of company. You need to know that you are not alone.

You need to know that we too want a compassionate, kinder and gentler nation, non-violence, peace and prosperity at home and abroad. We are with you. We are your allies. We are going to hold you accountable. We haven’t held you accountable for seven years, but we are going to hold you accountable for this last year and what a legacy to leave the world – a compassionate, kinder gentler, nation and world.

What do you say, Mr. President?

Installation and Covenant

Photographs by Bill Miller.

These pictures are from the Installation service held on October 21, 2007.

What's In A Name?

Many of you have asked me what do I prefer to be called. I have usually responded with “please feel free to call me Alvin,” but in public settings my preference would be Pastor J or Pastor Jackson.

This no doubt feels awkward and maybe even archaic for some of you here in a small close-knit community like ours, where we greatly value intimacy, familiarity and collegiality. And of course one of the signs of these values is that we are all on a first name basis with each other. It is really one of the attractive and appealing characteristics of our community. I like it as well, but it could also be one of the things that impede our community from becoming the growing thriving multi-cultural community that I think we all desire.

Now I am sure on the surface that sounds preposterous, for how could a little thing like what the minister is called impede our growth? Well, consider this we all come to this community with different experiences and backgrounds.

As a child growing up in the Delta of Mississippi, I never called my minister who served the little church that I grew up in for 54 years by his first name, though he became a very dear, close and personal friend. He was always Elder Harris to me. Even as I delivered the eulogy at his funeral this past October, Tommy Harris remained Elder Harris for me.

I guess one never quite gets over growing up in the 50's and 60's in the days of raw racism, segregation and Jim Crowism where sport was often made of calling older Black people by their first names, even by young white children as a way of disrespecting them and “keeping them in their place.” My father and other professionals like him often used only their initials to keep people from calling them by their first names. In my father’s case it was C.C. I was a teenager before I knew that my father's name was actually Clyde Cullen. That was how tightly it was held!

We certainly shouldn’t let names, titles and positions get in the way of our building the kind of community we all desire here at the PARK. But what I would ask of us is that we would at least have sensitivity to the histories, backgrounds and experiences others bring to our community -- particularly people of color.

But more than putting a salve on the wounds of past slights and rejections, what I am really calling for is not my personal elevation, but the elevation of the office of Pastor. We are all ministers! Every member of this congregation is a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But from among many ministers some are called to serve as Pastors to teach, to lead, to love, to care, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith (Ephesians 4:12a).

So, call me what you will. I will answer to most things. There is an old African proverb that says, “I am now what you call me, but I am what I answer to.” Yes, call me Alvin and I will gladly answer to it, but I want to also be your Pastor.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog. I am very excited to be able to share the wisdom of our faith with you, along with some of my own thoughts and experiences.

Reverend Dr. Alvin O'Neal Jackson