First Parish Unitarian UniversalistKing’s Radical Revolution of Values
A sermon preached by the Reverend Diane D. Teichert
First Parish Unitarian Universalist - Canton, MA
January 20, 2008
Reading
Excerpt from Dr. King’s speech “Beyond Vietnam—A Time to Break Silence” at New York’s Riverside Church, on April 4, 1967. Addressing the anti-war group Clergy & Laity Concerned, he called for an end to the Vietnam war. But in what he said went way beyond an end to the war.
“In 1957, a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years, we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which has now justified the presence of U.S. military advisors in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counterrevolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Cambodia and why American napalm and Green Beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru.
It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth…A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." … A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
(Listen, now, to the his next paragraph, and substitute for his word “communism” the buzzword in our time, “terrorism” and see just how timely his words are still today.)
“This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war…These are days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness.”
Sermon
Yesterday, I attended worship at Boston University’s cathedral-like Marsh Chapel. I felt I was on hallowed ground.
Howard Thurman, the great liberal theologian and mystic, gifted preacher and builder of multiethnic congregations, was the first long-term Dean of the Chapel, an African American. I once devoted an entire sermon here to Thurman’s visionary life. Yesterday, I felt I was on hallowed ground.
Thurmans’ first year as Dean of Marsh Chapel, 1953, was Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s last year of graduate school at BU. King attended Chapel services regularly, according to his roommate [“Remembering Howard Thurman,” in The New Crisis, nov/Dec1999]. Indeed, Thurman was a close seminary friend of King’s father “Daddy King” and his wife was a college friend of King’s mother.
In King’s last year at BU, Thurman became King’s spiritual advisor. The roommate said, Martin "always listened carefully when Thurman was speaking, and would shake his head in amazement at Thurman's deep wisdom- Thurman had a personal spiritual influence on Martin that was lofty and helped him to endure. Thurman's concept of integration, community and the interrelatedness of all life also influenced King significantly."
I felt I was on hallowed ground yesterday. Maybe I even sat on a hallowed pew!If someone inherited Howard Thurman’s mantle as gifted American preacher who is also African American, it would have to be the Reverend Dr. James Forbes, recently retired from New York City’s Riverside Church. He was preaching yesterday at Marsh Chapel. So I went.
He is a gifted preacher. Different from King, softer spoken, lacks the ringing cadences, and (most obviously) has no real movement to lead. But Forbes is charismatic, in how he draws you into his discernment process and then appeals to you to join him in it. He draws on Biblical verses and imagery as did King, but with less exhortation. Yes, Forbes makes references to public issues. Yesterday, he referred to the current primary election campaigns as America’s “beauty contests” and said our “world needs healing” but he doesn’t—or didn’t yesterday—delve into public issues the way King did, from the point of view of oppressed peoples, with righteous indignation, unafraid to take unpopular stands.
Yesterday, Forbes told a story about himself and Howard Thurman. Forbes was at a book-signing for Thurman’s new (in 1979) autobiography, With Head and Heart. He expressed to Thurman his frustration with his congregation for not joining him in social justice work. Thurman looked up at him from autographing the book, and then down again. He handed the book back to Forbes. Inside, Thurman had written, “God doesn’t shine his light on your path for other eyes.”
God doesn’t shine his light on your path for other eyes.
Today, this weekend, and especially tomorrow, we Americans celebrate the life of someone—a fellow-countryman, great leader and preacher—someone who saw with his own eyes—and accepted—the path God’s light lit up for him. Other eyes saw it, millions, and followed him on his path. For him it led to assassination. Some eyes saw his path, made it their own, and carried it on, after he was killed.
And, today, we who remember the life of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Junior must see God’s light on our paths with our own eyes, and not frustrate ourselves that others don’t see it too.
The path God lit up for King was a much tougher path than the one the holiday rhetoric celebrates. His path was not merely a path toward integration of black and white people, though he did champion that, as we all know. On his path, he overturned boulders of prejudice and racism, yes.
But he also came out against the Vietnam War and for the Memphis sanitation workers strike. He demanded that our government give up war in favor of diplomacy and he critiqued American capitalism for perpetuating poverty. He told the church to get off its duff and work for peace and join the oppressed in their struggle for justice.
His themes were timeless, and they are timely for us today.
Sometimes, I come across a speech by Dr. King and I stop in amazement at the breadth and depth of his vision. For example, the speech he gave in April 1967, excerpts of which were our Reading this morning. In it, he bravely stepped out of the civil rights arena and impassionedly called for an end to the war in Vietnam.
According to the website for the proposed Washington DC memorial to Dr. King, to be build not far from the Lincoln Memorial, fundraising for it is now 87% complete. I read there that Rev. Forbes and three other prominent NYC pastors each pledged $10,000 this week, in fact. About the memorial, the Baltimore columnist Colman McCarthy wrote in 2000 when they launched the fundraising, “Any memorial to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that doesn’t forcefully remind us of his strong opposition to war ought to be in Disneyland.” [The Baltimore Sun, Monday 17 January 2000]
In King’s April 1967 speech, he went way beyond an end to the war. He called for what he termed a “radical revolution of values,” as we heard this morning, and exclaimed, “When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
With his words ringing in our ears, it seems ludicrous to ask the question posed in recent weeks of primary election campaigning: who was more important to the achievement of civil rights for African Americans, MLK or LBJ, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. or President Lyndon B. Johnson? A radical revolution of values requires both kinds of leaders: the visionary, organizationally savvy movement leader and the wily politician who can pull in the legislative votes.
But, a radical revolution of values needs also, and most of all, the people. You and me, us. King might have called them his “foot soldiers” and LBJ his“constituents.” We, the people.
Yesterday, Rev. Forbes used a metaphor for us people: “leaves on the tree of life.”. Each of us is a leaf. (And he left the pulpit, as I am now, to pluck a branch of leaves from the flower arrangement on the altar table. And he pulled one off, and gave us a botany lesson, saying the leaf is two-sided, you see. And through photosynthesis, it takes in carbon dioxide and puts out oxygen—it takes one person’s breath, uses the carbon dioxide and emits oxygen for the next person to breathe in.). Like leaves, he said, we each must both receive and give.
He went on to explain that he found his metaphor in the last chapter of the last Book, Revelations, in the Christian scriptures. In it, growing along the banks of the crystal clear river of the water of life, is the tree of life. The tree of life produces twelve kinds of fruit, and—here comes Rev. Forbes’ leaf metaphor—“the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.”
He invited us to join him in being leaves. He implored us each to know what it is that we need to receive and what it is that we are best suited to give for the healing of the world. To live a balanced life, he said, to eat healthy foods, and exercise, and take time for prayer or meditation, and to be in right relationship with those we live or work with—this is what we all need to take in like oxygen, one way or another.
What we may each let out, what we may each give, depends on our gifts—our talents and time and passions.
For example, if your gift is a passion for the earth, you might be taking steps to end global warming, in your personal habits or through advocacy efforts. Or if your gift is a passion for underachieving children, you might be teaching in an urban school. Or if your gift is a passion for democracy, you might be giving time and/or money to your favorite candidate, or to organizations promoting election reform. If your passion is gay rights, you might be volunteering for PFLAG, and someone whose passion is helping survivors of domestic abuse might be working in a shelter perhaps. If you have a passion, but no time, you may just be keeping yourself informed, or if you have even less than no time, your effort may simply be to keep your hope alive.
This leaf metaphor suits perfectly the participatory piece planned for this sermon today. You were given post-it notes and pencil as you entered this morning. I am going to ask you to take a few minutes to consider where your passion is, what is the healing of the world that you feel called to do or care about?
I’m going to ask you to take a few minutes to think about this.
Please use a few post-its if you have a few passions, and write an issue or cause or concern about which you are passionate on each, one per post-it. It could be 1) an issue in support of which you give money, or 2) in support of which you give time as a volunteer, or 3) in support of which you are working in your job, or 4) an issue about which you stay informed. Just write the issue, not what you do about it. And, if you might be willing at a later date to tell the congregation why it is your passion or share a story related to it, please add your name to the back of the post-it so that we may contact you.
The post-its will be collected in the vestibule from those going out the front doors. For those going to the parish hall for fellowship and Coffee Hour, there is a display set up on which to post your post-its. Those collected in the vestibule will be posted there as well. The display will show us what our passions are as a congregation of individuals—we’ll see where the common interests lie and we’ll also see which passions have led individuals to stay informed, to choose a job, career or volunteer involvement devoted to that passion, and/or to give money.
Let’s take a few minutes to do that now…
Let us close by remembering Howard Thurman’s book-inscription for James Forbes, “God doesn’t shine his light on your path for other’s eyes” but, let us also realize, on the other hand, it is just fine for others to know what path you are on and what your passions are. Whatever radical revolution of values we hope to see will definitely be hastened if we support each other. In fact, the history of the civil rights movement shows, that it will only happen if we join together.
Closing Hymn
In the year 1900, our closing hymn was composed by J. Rosamond Johnson, with words by her brother James Weldon Johnson, a high school principal and lawyer. In 1920 he was the national organizer for the NAACP, and later served as US consul to Venezuela and Nicaragua. It is regarded by many as the African American national anthem, and tells a story of struggle and hope that is both particular and universal. Please find in your gray hymnal, #149, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
Benediction
In words attributed to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step.”