In yesterday's sermon, my pastor juxtaposed two 24 hour periods which coincidentally occur next to each other at the beginning of this week. This past Sunday was the Sanctity of Life Sunday and today is the Celebration of Martin Luther King Day which commemorates the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. who was born on January 15th. In his sermon, our pastor mentioned these two significant dates as he shared his thoughts regarding what it means to Become A Child Again...and what it means to Receive and Release the Grace of Forgiveness.
After the service, I was in conversation with a couple who were probably in their early twenties during this turbulent period in the 1960's. As they shared their experiences of what that period was like, the elderly white man fought to choke back tears. He said.."Why do people have to hate so much...Why?" Then he turned to me and asked..."So what does the Celebration of Martin Luther King Day mean to you?"
It's interesting that this sermon and this conversation was taking place just after what has been termed "The Most Segregated Hour in America." I live in Grand Rapids, Michigan which has more churches per capita than any other city in the United States. If that remarkable statment by Dr. Martin Luther King is is true, that means each week, for a couple of hours, I am in a place in which the dark cloak of religious observances obscures an even deeper darkness within the human heart. For you see, today...almost 40 years after Martin Luther gave his I Have A Dream Speech, only 7% of churches nationwide are integrated!
Grand Rapids, Michigan is home to some mega churches. Mega church is a term descriptive of congregations above 2,000. In fact, some statistics indicate that mega churches are the fastest growing churches in America. Yet even these colossal structures struggle to integrate their gigantic audiences on Sunday mornings. In Grand Rapids, we also have access to Christian TV. Invariably, a quick glance at the screen reveals who is speaking by the color of the audience.
So, I've been thinking about it. What would the workplace look like if business followed the same rules that have continued to dictate the norms of church goers? What would our universities produce in the way of scholarship and academics if people of color were excluded? What would happen to our hospitals if doctors and nurses from other countries were limited to a paltry 7%? Who would clean our hotel rooms and harvest our produce if the 7% rule combined with the brown paper bag test to determine eligibility for work? And where would our military be if bravery was restricted to what you looked like instead of what you were able to do on the battlefield?
Today, in all aspects of American life, integration works because it has to. To compete on the world stage, we can't afford to negate our talent and intellectual wealth on the basis of the color of the skin. But, in the place where it counts the most...the heart, Americans still struggle. Prejudice, by the way is not an American thing...it's a human thing. It's that dark side of the human psyche that urges separation, disdain and disregard for another human being. It's the small part of i which must step on another in oder to feel significant enough. It's the cowardly side of me which fears what I do not know or understand.
And...it is a taught thing. No baby comes into the world possessing it. Children have to be socialized to absorb the fear. And then life's experiences reinforce the mistrust. I grew up abroad. Yet, I went to school with a lot of white kids. From time to time they would forget that I was a different color and talk frankly about Africans. Now, these were missionary kids. Children whose parents were on a mission from God...to save lost souls in a foreign country. In exasperation one day I said..."Don't you guys realise that you're talking about me when you say these things?" They looked at me in surprise. It was then I understood another powerful revelation about prejudice.
Prejudice is largely an unconscious evil. We have to be deeply separted from the intimacy of the human experience to blur recognition of ourselves when we encounter another human being. This poison seeps so deeply into the human soul that many of us can no longer touch it or acknowledge its control in our lives. In prejudice we entertain a deep level of absence from who we are created to be.
We may be largely unaware that our choices are determined by a perverted guidance. We may never have questioned it and so it remains largely unexamined. So, that is why, after working all day in environments in which we meet all sorts of different people, some of whom become friends...we retreat to our private domains. And none so fiercely as the cloistered ranks of Sunday Morning Church.
On Sunday evening, ABC News carried a broadcast about a small largely black church in Ohio which has determined to close it's doors once a month and go to visit it's neighbors in their churches. When Pastor Biggers was interviewed he spoke about "Closing His Doors" and "Opening His Heart." Pastor Biggers understands that prejudice is as much a black thing as it it a white thing as it is a red thing or whatever color you want to put on it. He gets it...Its a human thing.
And that's the crux of the issue...the condition of our hearts. So when my pastor spoke about forgiveness yesterday and the need to become like a child, he was absolutely right. We can never truly honor the sanctity of life and understand what Martin Luther's Dream was all about until we forgive each other from the heart. It is childlike humility and openess which allows the scars of the past to be exposed to the light and the power of forgiveness which enables us to reach out and touch our brothers and sisters without malice. And the truth is...that we must do this for ourselves. Because avoidance dehumanizes and dimishes all of us like it or not.
So, what does the Celebration of Dr. Martin Luther Kings' birthday mean to me? Well, it is a call of personal and communal affirmation. It means that once again the nation remembers its' higher calling. It is a reminder that our deepest connection is a spiritual connection which transcends all the divisions which superficially separate us. It is a stark reminder that we will know that our nation has truly begun to heal when Sunday Morning begins to look like the rest of America does during the week.
* As an additional note, An Event is being planned for June 29th, 2008 called Missions Sunday. This event is aimed at encouraging congregations of different races to visit each other. The goal is to have 1000 churches participate with their members across America .
*These pictures were forwarded to me by fellow Active Rainer Carol Smith from Toledo, Ohio. Thank You Carol. I hope this article portrays the Spirit in which you sent them.
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