Sermon: The Beloved Community, Then and Now Rev. Nancy Bird Pellegrini The Unitarian Church in Charleston May 20, 2018

Transcription

1 Sermon: The Beloved Community, Then and Now Rev. Nancy Bird Pellegrini The Unitarian Church in Charleston May 20, 2018 What inspires you? What sparks your energy and drive? What urges you to keep on going even in the face of what may seem like insurmountable odds? I am especially inspired by the vision of the beloved community espoused by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the belief in the concept of love in action and the idea that the universe is bending toward the good. Way back when, when I was in high school, I used to go to the school library and listen to recordings of King s speeches on vinyl records played on a turntable with big earphones. My youthful self was stirred by King s eloquence and moved by the power of his message. Much later in my life when I was studying for the ministry, I had the privilege of taking a class on the theology of Martin Luther King Jr. at the Howard University School of Divinity in Washington DC. Once again I listened to King s words, this time on my computer with ear buds. 50 years later, King s vision is every bit as compelling as it was then. As we recognize the 50 th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King Jr. this year and as our own church year is drawing to a close, I would like to share with you some of the insights I gained from my class at Howard. We ll look at King s concept of the beloved community, what the beloved community means for Unitarian Universalism, and then talk about how we can work to create the beloved community here in our own church and city today.

2 2 Then; King s Vision of the Beloved Community Looking back, one of the first times that Martin Luther King Jr. referred to the beloved community was during a speech in 1956 in the midst of the Montgomery Bus Boycott after Rosa Parks had refused to move to the rear of the bus. King said, the boycott was but a means to a noble end, the creation of a beloved community. He defined the beloved community, not just as a desegregated society, but as a fully integrated society based on love. 1 King s concept of the beloved community rested on two main axes agape love and the moral laws of the universe. 2 3 Regarding agape love King declared, Agape is not a weak, passive love. It is love in action. Agape is love seeking to preserve and create community. It is insistence on community even when one seeks to break it. Agape is a willingness to go to any length to restore community Agape means a recognition of the fact that all life is interrelated. 4 King advocated applying the concept of nonviolence and loving one s enemies to create the beloved community. He regarded agape love as a powerful force for social transformation. 5 He said, There will be no permanent solution to the race problem until oppressed men develop the capacity to love their enemies. 6 King stated that we should love our enemies because returning hate for hate multiplies hate, hate damages the hater, and love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. 7 1 Rufus Burrow, God and Human Dignity: The Personalism, Theology, and Ethics of Martin Luther King, Jr. Annotated Edition, (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), Gary L. Herstein, The Roycean Roots of the Beloved Community. The Pluralist. 4, no. 2: , 2009, Burrow, Martin Luther King, Jr., A Testament of Hope: the Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr., edited by James M. Washington, (New York:Harper & Row, 1986), John Ansbro, Martin Luther King, Jr.: Nonviolent Strategies and Tactics for Social Change, (Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 2000), 3. 6 Martin Luther King, Jr. Strength to Love. (New York:Harper & Row, 1963), Ibid., 53.

3 3 In his later writings, King applied the concept of the beloved community to global society with his metaphor of a world house that included all races, cultures and religions. He wrote, We have inherited a large house, a great world house in which we have to live together black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Moslem and Hindu. 8 In addition to agape love, the other foundational element of King s concept of the beloved community was his belief that there is a moral order to the universe. King stated, The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice echoing the words actually from a sermon by Unitarian minister Theodore Parker in King believed in a personal God at the center of the universe, a God not just above everything, but present with us and active in history. 9 King believed that God s justice and truth would have the last word. 10 He contended that God and humans through the church are co-workers in striving for justice. 11 King s belief was that working toward the establishment of the beloved community is not the burden of persons alone. God eternally shares in the struggle toward this end. 12 Based on his faith in a moral order and moral laws, King believed that the beloved community was achievable in history rather than being simply an ideal. 13 In his speech 8 Martin Luther King, Jr.,Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968), Noel L. Erskine, King among the Theologians, (Long Island City: Pilgrim Press, 1995, 144). 10 Burrow, Lewis V. Baldwin, The Voice of Conscience: The Church in the Mind of Martin Luther King, Jr., (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010, Burrow, Ibid., 179.

4 4 the night before his death in Memphis, King said, I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we as a people will get to the Promised Land. 14 King actually witnessed what he viewed as a microcosm of the beloved community as a current reality at the Montgomery airport after the Selma to Montgomery march in Looking at the many demonstrators at the airport he said, As I stood with them and saw white and Negro, nuns and priests, minsters and rabbis, labor organizers, lawyers, doctors, housemaids and shopworkers brimming with vitality and enjoying a rare comradeship, I knew I was seeing a microcosm of the mankind of the future in this moment of luminous and genuine brotherhood. 15 Now; The Beloved Community for Unitarian Universalism Today Martin Luther King Jr. s concept of the beloved community has had significant impact on Unitarian Universalism today. As stated in a Unitarian Universalist Association Commission on Appraisal report, One of the deepest convictions that unites us as Unitarian Universalists is a belief in the possibility of a beloved community among people, whether members of a family or the most diverse representatives of humanity. We affirm that such communities are in part a natural outgrowth of human life, but that they must also be deliberately formed and reformed, nurtured and renewed. 16 For Unitarian Universalists today, the concept of the beloved community taken from King is frequently discussed in two different ways. Firstly, the idea of the beloved community is used in terms of making our churches more multicultural. Secondly, it is upheld as a goal for our world at large. 14 King, Testament, King, Where do We Go from Here, Interdependence: Renewing Congregational Polity, A Report by the Commission on Appraisal, Unitarian Universalist Association, June

5 5 Unitarian Universalists have a long way to go to achieve congregations that resemble the beloved community. Truly multicultural Unitarian Universalist congregations are a rarity. Our denomination is largely white and generally well off without a great deal of diversity. Rev. Mark Morrision-Reed, one of the relatively few African American Unitarian Universalist ministers, concludes in his book Black Pioneers in a White Denomination that Unitarian Universalism is a class-bound religion. 17 Morrison-Reed assesses that class can be a significant barrier to entering the liberal religious community. He asserts that liberal churches tend to welcome those who come with middle class values. 18 UU Minister Paul Rasor suggests that many liberals actually fear community, despite the lip service paid to it, because of their fear of the other. He says that this fear is evident as manifested in liberal ideas of autonomy and self-reliance and reluctance among liberals to give up anything. Rasor stresses that liberals need to re-conceptualize the idea of community to expand the self outward toward the other. 19 Adapting in order to encourage diversity is something Unitarian Universalists need to consider if we are truly serious about wanting our congregations to reflect the beloved community. Last month the UUA Commission on Institutional Change published its report on hiring practices in the Southern Region. 20 They found serious problems with inclusivity, openness, and fairness in this process. I would urge you to read and consider this report. 17 Mark Morrison-Reed, Black Pioneers in a White Denomination, (Boston: Skinner House Books, 1994) Ibid., Paul Rasor, Reclaiming Our Prophetic Voice, in Soul Work: Anti-Racist Theologies in Dialogue, Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley and Nancy Palmer Jones eds. (Boston: Skinner House Books, 2002), Commission on Institutional Change Report: Study on Spring 2017 Southern Regional Lead Hiring Process. (April 9, 2018),

6 6 The second way Unitarian Universalists often discuss the beloved community is as an ideal for how the world at large should be. In their book about Unitarian Universalism A Chosen Faith, Ministers Forrest Church and John Buehrens state, Today, our challenge is to codevelop what Dr. King called the Beloved Community the work of love being shared and justice being done in a realm where that which is greater than all is present in each. 21 Liberal religions such as Unitarian Universalism generally have views of paradise that move earthward rather than being otherworldly. As described by theologian Rebecca Parker, progressive religions hope for the recognition and realization of paradise on earth. 22 This vision is in line in many ways with the practical view of the beloved community as expressed by King in his description of what he saw at the Montgomery airport. Rebecca Parker writes that Martin Luther King Jr., galvanized the civil rights and antiwar movements in the 1960s. The Dream, the Mountaintop, the Promised Land, the Beloved Community the images King used and the concepts he advanced made Christian faith into a this-worldly struggle for justice and love, fueled by trust that God s divine purposes are at work in history to bring about the kingdom of heaven on earth. 23 Martin Luther King Jr. s concept of the beloved community continues to have a strong influence on Unitarian Universalism today. It has provided inspiration for Unitarian Universalist goals to create congregations that are multi-cultural communities. It has served to encourage work for justice in the wider world based on the ideal of a community where peace and love prevail. As Unitarian Universalists, it is our task to 21 John A. Buehrens, and F. Forrester Church, A Chosen Faith: An Introduction to Unitarian Universalism, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1998), John A. Buehrens and Rebecca Ann Parker, A House for Hope: The Promise of Progressive Religion for the Twenty-First Century, (Boston, Mass: Beacon Press, 2010), Ibid., 8.

7 7 keep the concept of the beloved community alive, to keep redefining what it means for our time, and to keep striving to do what it takes to make it a reality. As a congregation we here at the Unitarian Church in Charleston need to continue to build and rebuild the beloved community. As we honor our young people here today who are graduating from high school and moving on, we celebrate our church s religious education program and the strong foundation that it has given them. What is it that we want to teach our children about building the future and how? We often lift up the concept here of deeds, not creeds and letting our actions speak louder than our words. It seems to me the best way we can teach our children is by example. And we are doing just that. Looking at our church s annual report shows that people in this church are engaged in many activities for the good of the church and the good of the community. For example, last month many of our church members showed up at the Charleston Area Justice Ministry Nehemiah Action meeting to demonstrate their support for affordable housing in Charleston. Some of our members spent months doing detailed research and preparing for that meeting. Members of our congregation have marched for gay pride, Emancipation Day, women s rights, and sensible gun laws among other things. We practice environmental responsibility at our church with our Green Sanctuary Movement. Members of our Caring and Pastoral Visitors Committees provide assistance and a caring presence to those in our congregation with special needs or who cannot get to church easily. These are just to name a few things we do. Countless church members toil quietly away on numerous committees to keep the church running. There are many unsung heroes.

8 8 We have much to celebrate and be proud of in this church. We are not without problems, but I would like to lift up today all of those here who work tirelessly and show time and time again that they care deeply about their fellow church members and are dedicated to what we are trying to accomplish in our community. There is an amazing loving spirit in this church. This is love in action. This is how we contribute to bending the moral arc of the universe toward justice. This is the way that we teach our children about the beloved community and keep the vision alive for the future. May it be so and blessed be.

9 9 Works Cited Baldwin, Lewis V. The Voice of Conscience: The Church in the Mind of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Oxford University Press, Buehrens, John A., and Church, F. Forrester. A Chosen Faith: An Introduction to Unitarian Universalism. Boston: Beacon Press, Buehrens, John A., and Rebecca Ann Parker. A House for Hope: The Promise of Progressive Religion for the Twenty-First Century. Boston, Mass: Beacon Press, Burrow, Rufus. God and Human Dignity: The Personalism, Theology, and Ethics of Martin Luther King, Jr. Annotated Edition. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, Commission on Institutional Change Report: Study on Spring 2017 Southern Regional Lead Hiring Process. (April 9, 2018), Erskine, Noel L. King among the Theologians. Pilgrim Press, Herstein, Gary L The Roycean Roots of the Beloved Community. The Pluralist. 4, no. 2: Interdependence: Renewing Congregational Polity, A Report by the Commission on Appraisal, Unitarian Universalist Association, June King, Martin Luther, Jr. Strength to Love. Harper & Row, King, Martin Luther, Jr. A Testament of Hope: the Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. Edited by James M. Washington. Harper & Row, c King, Martin Luther, Jr. Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? Beacon Press, Morrison-Reed, Mark. Black Pioneers in a White Denomination. Boston: Skinner House Books, Rasor, Paul, Reclaiming Our Prophetic Voice, in Soul Work: Anti-Racist Theologies in Dialogue, Marjorie Bowens- Wheatley and Nancy Palmer Jones eds. Boston:Skinner House Books, 2002.