Holding onto Hope

(Exerpts from addresses given at First Baptist Church, Chillicothe, OH and Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Baltimore, MD, January 2011)

On the occasion of the 82nd anniversary of the birth of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the time of year when we celebrate the history of people of the African Diaspora in America, and two years after the historic inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States, we continue to experience unprecedented change and challenge across virtually every sector of our society. From the collapse of the economy that has in some way affected all of us – to the wars that are now being fought in at least two places in the Middle East – to the proliferation of violence that affects many of our communities - to the healthcare crisis that continues to result in over 40 million Americans living without adequate healthcare today, these are days of unprecedented change and challenge.

In 1903, W.E.B. DuBois declared in The Souls of Black Folk that the problem of the 20th century was the problem of the color-line. Today, several recent events serve to remind us that one of the critical problems of the 21st century in America remains the problem of the color-line. Among these are the 2009 Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Justice Sonia Sotomayor; the arrest of Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates at his home in Cambridge, MA; the emergence of the Tea Party and others across America who seem intent on “taking back the country”; ongoing discourse on issues related to immigration reform; and the ongoing debates surrounding President Obama’s efforts toward reforming our nation’s health care system.

For many people across the nation and world, Obama’s historic election as the first president of African descent renewed (or birthed) a sense of hope. His election seemed to point - for many - to glimmers of hope that our society had somehow arrived at our ideals of “E Pluribus Unum” (out of many one), and the creed shared in our nation’s Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all (persons) are created equal.”

Many also seemed to sense (and hope) that the election of Obama had ushered in an age of post-racialism and post-racism in America – and perhaps across the world. Two years later, we discover that we as a nation are continuing to come to grips with the racial and racist realities that continue to afflict us. During a recent visit to the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, AL, I and others who were a part of the visit were informed that there were over 800 hate related groups identified in 2008, and that this number is on the rise since Obama’s election as president.

It is clear today that race continues to matter in America, and that we are not yet at the place of being post-racial or post-racist. This is the matter that Michael Eric Dyson addresses in his book, "Can You Hear Me Now?" Dyson insists that the critical question that is before society today is not if we are yet a post-racial society and the question is not even if we should strive to become post-racial, but the question is how might we move closer to becoming a post-racist society?

Near the end of his life, Martin Luther King, Jr.published a book entitled, "Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?" In it, he reiterated a point he had made on several other occasions. He pointed out that we are faced with a choice in our life together, and that we will either learn to live together as brothers and sisters, or we will die together as fools.

A part of the moral prerogative of churches, civil rights organizations and all other institutions and persons concerned about the well-being of our world today remains that of speaking to the critical moral and social issues of the contemporary age. It is our task to help articulate a framework for engaging in critical and constructive advocacy for the disinherited among us – the poor, the violated, and the oppressed.

In light of this, where might hope reside among us as we look to the future? King framed his vision of hope within the context of Beloved Community. In one of his later sermons, "The Meaning of Hope," he defined hope as that quality which is "necessary for life."

King asserted that hope was to be viewed as "animated and undergirded by faith and love." In his mind, if you had hope, you had faith in something. For King, hope was the refusal to give up "despite overwhelming odds." In his famous “I Have a Dream” speech delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC on August 28, 1963, King shared that a part of his dream was that we would be able “to hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.”

In Jeremiah 29:11, the prophet offers a vision of hope for a people experiencing exile in a strange city. Here the Israelites were in Babylon – alienated from their land, alienated from their God, and alienated – many of them - from their loved ones. It is against this backdrop of nihilism that Jeremiah shares these words of hope:
“For surely, I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare (shalom, wholeness), and not for your harm, plans to give you a future with hope.”

Those were also the same times and conditions that would lead Jeremiah earlier to offer provocative questions to the same people –
“Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no healing there? Why then has the health of my people not been restored?” (Jer. 8:22)

In reflecting on the text from Jeremiah, Martin Luther King, Jr. pointed out that the evidence of faith and hope is found in the fact that persons were able to convert the question mark of the prophet Jeremiah’s lament, into an exclamation point as they affirmed their faith and hope in the living and life-giving God in a song:
There is a balm in Gilead,
To make the wounded whole
There is a balm in Gilead,
To heal the sin-sick soul
Sometimes I feel discouraged
And think my work’s in vain
And then the Holy Spirit
Revives my soul again!

Hope beckons us to love everybody – both our enemies and allies. Hope helps us to see that we can resist giving up on one another because our lives together are animated by the belief that God is present in each and every one of us.

Hope can be found in the possibilities that we will continue to discover ways to capitalize on those experiences and encounters that will lead to us being intentional and inclusive community. This is the hope that must be realized if we are to be the – the Beloved Community that Martin Luther King, Jr. imagined, and that God wills.

In the days ahead, may we continue to conjure the audacity to dream dreams and see visions, and may we have the temerity to hope against all that seems to rise against hope, and may we have the courage to hold onto hope.