Sermon copyright (c) 2024 Dan Harper. As delivered to First Parish in Cohasset. As usual, the sermon as delivered contained substantial improvisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first reading was a poem by Clint Smith, \u201cFor Your First Birthday.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second reading was from the Hebrew Bible, the book of Amos, chapter 5, verses 21 through 24.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is a time for everyone in the United States to refer back to his writings and speeches and reinterpret them once again. We do this every year, and by this point in the history of the United States, it can seem like there\u2019s nothing left to say. Maybe we should just skip it this year. The thing is, preachers love to quote Dr. King, because he was such a good writer — such a good stylist — and there\u2019s something incredibly satisfying about saying aloud his words. Being a preacher myself, there\u2019s no way I\u2019m going to pass up this opportunity to read aloud something written by Dr. King. So, like it or not, you\u2019re going to get yet another sermon about Dr. King and his legacy — even if I have nothing original to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet people continue to find novel and interesting ways to interpret King\u2019s thinking. For example, King famously said that he wanted his children to live in a land where \u201cthey will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.\u201d Recently, this quote has been used by some conservative politicians and pundits to help bolster the claim that we should not teach critical race theory or the history of racism in our schools. This is certainly a creative use of King\u2019s words, but it\u2019s probably not what he intended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the other side of the political spectrum, liberal politicians take pleasure in invoking King\u2019s words, but they tend to do so selectively. For example, they pass lightly over King\u2019s pointed critique of capitalism, as when he said: \u201cWe have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that Capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifice. The fact is that capitalism was built on the exploitation and suffering of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor — both black and white, both here and abroad.\u201d [The Three Evils of Society, 1967] In today\u2019s society, it would be political suicide to criticize capitalism quite so openly. And so political liberals creatively interpret King by leaving out some important parts of his message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I think something we all tend to forget these days is that King was a progressive Christian minister. Today, Christianity\u2019s reputation has suffered as a result of the clergy abuse scandal, the hypocrisy of Christians who demonize LGBTQ people, the refusal of the largest Christian denominations to allow women clergy, and for many other reasons. We live in a time when progressive Christians feel the need to apologize for being Christian. As a result, I think many of us, including Unitarian Universalists, either try to apologize for King\u2019s progressive Christianity, or try to ignore King\u2019s supposedly outdated religious convictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a mistake to dismiss his religious convictions so readily. King was a serious intellectual, earning his doctorate degree from Boston University in systematic theology with a dissertation titled \u201cA Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman.\u201d (Weiman, by the way, was a very progressive Christian theologian who late in life joined a Unitarian church.) With his progressive Christianity in mind, let\u2019s look at one Bible passage that King repeatedly invoked. This was the passage we heard in the second reading today, from the Hebrew Bible, the book of Amos, chapter 5, verses 21 through 24.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The words we ehard are not the words of the human prophet. Amos was giving the actual words of his god, whom Amos knew as Yahweh. And Yahweh is not happy with humankind. God tells humankind that they have strayed from God\u2019s core ethical and moral teachings. In particular, God calls out the privileged people who rule over the country where Amos lived. God tells the privileged people that they \u201ctrample on the poor\u201d and \u201cafflict the righteous,\u201d that they take bribes and \u201cpush aside the needy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amos was probably a real person. At the time he lived, the historic land of Israel was split into two countries, the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. In those days, there was no distinction between politics and religion, for that distinction only dates back to the European Enlightenment. So the power of King Jeroboam II and the power of the official cult of Yahweh were the same thing. Thus, by repeating the words of his god, the prophet Amos was taking on the entire establishment. Amos\u2019s prophecy makes clear that the king\u2019s rule was against the will of God. The cultic leaders wrongly interpreted the will of God — so says Amos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This helps us understand why Amos reports God as saying, \u201cI hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.\u201d God is telling the humans in charge of the northern kingdom that they were doing things that were completely against the will of God; no amount of festivals or church services or solemn assemblies on the part of the humans could make God ignore what they were doing wrong. As to what they were doing wrong, the Biblical scholar Norman Gottwald sums it up like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amos was attacking \u201cthe patriotic and pious \u2026 reaction that had gained currency among the upper classes during the prosperous reign of Jeroboam II. The greedy upper classes, with governmental and judicial connivance, were systematically expropriating the land of commoners so that they could heap up wealth and display it gaudily in a lavish conspicuous consumption economy.\u201d [The Hebrew Bible: A Socio-Literary Introduction, Gottwald, 1985]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Knowing this, we can better understand how King might find the book of Amos attractive. From the perspective of Black Americans in the mid-twentieth century, the American establishment had kept Blacks in low-paying jobs that supported the increasingly comfortable lives of the elite, all of whom were then White. And just like the greedy upper classes used their religion to maintain their position during the reign of King Jeroboam II, the elite White rulers of mid-twentieth century America used their interpretation of the Christian religion to maintain the status quo that benefited them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you remember King\u2019s famous \u201cLetter from Birmingham Jail,\u201d he was responding to well-to-do ministers who were part of the White establishment of Birmingham, Alabama. These White ministers criticized the Civil Rights Movement in a public statement in which they called King and his allies \u201cextremists.\u201d King responded directly to this criticism by telling these Christian ministers: \u201cWas not Amos an extremist for justice: \u2018Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream.\u2019\u201d Later on in that same letter, King told these White ministers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo the question is not whether we will be extremists but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? Perhaps the south, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This helps us understand why King quoted Amos so often. No doubt in the days of King Jeroboam II, the greedy upper classes called the prophet Amos an extremist. In much the same way, King was called an extremist in his day. Both of them said things that were uncomfortable to hear. And that discomfort was intended to provoke people to take action. I would go so far as to say that if we don\u2019t feel uncomfortable when we hear King\u2019s words, we\u2019re not paying attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But sometimes King translated the passage from Amos differently than the version we so love to quote. The Hebrew word \u201cmishpat,\u201d usually translated as \u201cjustice,\u201d can also be translated as \u201cjudgement.\u201d So in his essay \u201cPaul\u2019s Letter to American Christians,\u201d King wrote: \u201cYes America, there is still the need for an Amos to cry out to the nation: \u2018Let judgement roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This translation, while equally valid, sounds more challenging. \u201cLet judgement roll down\u201d — in fact, this almost sounds threatening, and it may better translate the sense of the original. The prophet Amos was telling the people of his day that their God would judge their actions. Amos saw himself as spreading the words of Yahweh, and Yahweh was telling the people in power that they must stop supporting injustice. The purpose of the book of Amos is for the rich and powerful to realize that, despite the stories they liked to tell themselves, all was not well in their land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Martin Luther King spread a similar message to America in the 1950s and 1960s. While the American economy was booming in those years, Black Americans were mostly excluded from prosperity. In response, King preached the message that his God wanted all persons to be treated with love and dignity; and while King was most focused on how America treated Black Americans, his message included persons of all races who were treated unfairly. King preached the uncomfortable message that if some people were excluded from prosperity, then his God would let judgement roll down like waters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In our own time, Black Americans still face job discrimination, and people of all races face increasing economic inequality. This can seem overwhelming. Yes, we have made progress since King\u2019s day, but so much remains to be done before we have true equality in America. But I will leave you with the thought that King\u2019s message was ultimately a hopeful message. Speaking at the National Cathedral in March, 1968, King said, \u201cWe shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.\u201d When King said this, he was paraphrasing the great abolitionist and Unitarian minister, Theodore Parker. Back in 1853, Parker preached a sermon in Boston where he said: \u201cI do not pretend to understand the moral universe. The arc is a long one. My eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by experience of sight. I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No wonder Martin Luther King paraphrased this passage from Theodore Parker so frequently. I understand this as a message of hope. When Theodore Parker preached this sermon, slavery was the law of the land, and it seemed impossible that America would ever put an end to it. A century later, Martin Luther King paraphrased Parker\u2019s words, and Jim Crow was the law of the land, and it seemed impossible that America would ever put an end to it. Yet we did put an end to slavery, and we did put an end to Jim Crow, and we can and will put an end to the other injustices that still confront us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The arc of the moral universe may be long, and from where we stand today we do not see where it finally comes to rest. Yet we know deep within ourselves that we are moving towards justice — slowly, perhaps, but inexorably. We have not yet overcome injustice. But some day, sooner rather than later, we shall overcome injustice and build a land where we let justice roll down like waters, and peace like an everflowing stream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sermon copyright (c) 2024 Dan Harper. As delivered to First Parish in Cohasset. As usual, the sermon as delivered contained substantial improvisation. Readings The first reading was a poem by Clint Smith, \u201cFor Your First Birthday.\u201d The second reading was from the Hebrew Bible, the book of Amos, chapter 5, verses 21 through 24. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[140,59],"class_list":["post-1521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion-in-society","tag-economic-justice","tag-martin-luther-king"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1521"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1522,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1521\/revisions\/1522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}