Beloved Community in a Multifaith World (CMEC), 11/20/17

The Beloved Community in a Multi-faith World

The Central Maryland Ecumenical Council

Monday, November 20, 2017

As we gather together today on the brink of another Thanksgiving holiday, there are indeed a number of things that we can be thankful for today.  The diversity God’s creation – and signs of God’s peace and unity is evident in this  room as we come together across our difference – religiously, racially, in terms of class and even (perhaps) in terms of our politics.  And yet, I believe we can all attest to the fact that we as a society in general, and as communities more particularly, continue to teeter on the brink of despair and that there are signs of apparent hopelessness around us. 

 In this coming year, we will share in the 89th anniversary of the birth of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  2018 will also be the year when we observe the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s assignation on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.

          With the state of our society today, we’re left to wonder what Dr. King might think and what he might have to say about where we find ourselves.  To address this matter, it is important to first remember that Dr. King’s singular vision for the church and society was for the realization of Beloved Community   So, Dr. King would first remind us that Beloved Community is rooted in the biblical notion of Agape (God’s unconditional love), and was to be ultimate goal for society. 

          King’s perspective on the Christian love-ethic provides critical insight into understanding his persistent search for the Beloved Community.   In King’s conception of Beloved Community, faith and action were interrelated.  Theology and ethics were inextricably connected.  Theology – what we believe and comprehend about God (how we talk about God), could not be separated from ethics – how we behave as the human family.  Our creed and our deed have to be in concert.  Our talk and our walk have to correspond.

           If Dr. King were here today, he might secondly remind us about the nature of humanity, and that we have all been created by the same God, and that God loves all of that which has been divinely created. Thus, there is a reminder of the inherent worth and what Kings referred to as the “somebodyness” of all of humanity. 

           And in light of our creation and our somebodyness, King might remind us thirdly that “all life is interrelated.”  One of his fundamental beliefs was in the kinship of all persons.  He believed all life is part of a single process; all living things are interrelated; and all persons are sisters and brothers.  All have a place in the Beloved Community.  Because all of us are interrelated, one cannot harm another without harming oneself.  King said:

To the degree that I harm my brother (or sister), no matter what he (or she) is doing to me, to that extent I am harming myself…  If you harm me, you harm yourself.  Love, agape, is the only cement that can hold this broken community together.  When I am commanded to love, I am commanded to restore community, to resist injustice, and to meet the needs of my brothers. (“Loving Your Enemies”)

And thus the reminder today as Dr. King would state that “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

And we will learn to either “live together as brothers (and sisters) or we will die together as fools”.

If Dr. King he were here with us today, he might fourthly remind us that ours is to be a constant striving for peace with justice.  He intimated that “true peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice”.  Thus, ours must continue to be a yearning for peace with justice.  We should seek peace and pursue it, and we must hear and heed the words of the prophet Micah as we do what is required of us, “to love kindness, do justice, and walk humbly with God”. (Micah 6:8)   And we must ultimately strive to realize the sentiments of yet another ancient prophet, Amos that “justice would roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.” (Amos 5:24)

            Dr. King might fifthly remind us that the work for righteousness and justice is not to be confined to any one group of people.  It is not merely the work of Blacks or Whites, Christians, Jews or Muslims, left or right, conservatives or liberals, or any other particular group - but the work for righteousness and justice belongs to each and every one of us. 

           The sentiments of Dr. King’s friend Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel resonate, “Morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings; indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, and in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible."  Archbishop Desmond Tutu stated that “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”  Similarly, German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer intimated that (for all of us), “not to speak is to speak is to speak and not to act is to act.” 

Sixth, Dr. King might remind us today that we are to never give up hoping.  For him, hope was to be viewed as “animated and undergirded by faith and love.”  In King’s mind, if you had hope, you had faith in something.  Thus, for him, hope shares the belief that “all reality hinges on moral foundations.”  It was, for King, the refusal to give up “despite overwhelming odds.”  For King, a part of his dream (that I believe still holds today) was that there would be hewn out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.”

In Theology of Hope Dr. Jürgen Moltmann shared that “Hope alone is to be called ‘realistic’, because it alone takes seriously the possibilities with which all reality is fraught.  It does not take things as they happen to stand or to lie, but as progressing, moving things with possibilities of change.  Only as long as the world and the people in it are in a fragmented and experimental state which is not yet resolved, is there any sense in earthly hopes.”  (Theology of Hope, 1993, 25) 

Seventh, Dr. King might share with us that the striving for Beloved Community must continue until it is realized.  He might remind us again that the dream that he shared with the world in 1963 is a dream that is still applicable for us today.

Another part of his dream was that his children would “not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”  Thus, we must never stop imagining and dreaming of the “future with hope” that is God’s will for the churches and society.

Indeed, King might tell us today that we must never stop dreaming, and that we should heed the sentiments of the great poet Langston Hughes to –

Hold fast to dreams,

For when dreams die,

Life is a broken winged bird

That cannot fly.

 

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

Finally, never forget to help somebody. 

If I can help somebody as I travel along,

If I can cheer somebody with a word or a song.

If I can help somebody as they’re living wrong,

Then my living will not be in vain…

(“If I Can Help Somebody”)