On
April 14, 1968, my father stepped into the pulpit at Adams Shore Community
Church in Quincy, Massachusetts – near Boston – to deliver his very first Easter
sermon after being ordained. As the young pastor scanned the white faces in the
pews before him, I imagine there was some anxiousness in the congregation, maybe even apprehension, about what he might say. Some may have thought, “This is Easter
– a time to celebrate Christ’s victory over sin and death. It’s no time to bring up divisive issues like race.” But others may have been lost in a fog of despair that
morning. Just ten days before, Martin Luther King, Jr. had been gunned down – and
with him their hopes for non-violent change in a nation torn by racial
injustice and strife.
The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. |
And today, the hour is even darker because one of their leaders was struck down by the vicious racism that he tried to combat. When others were forsaking non-violence and turning to black power and its own kind of racism, saying that non-violence had been tried and had failed, this one man stuck with it. He preached love and black and white living together in peace and mutual respect, when all others had despaired of it ever coming to pass. And now, this voice is snuffed out. It is a dark hour for his cause; it is a dark hour for his black people, it is a dark hour for our nation.
So
how is it that his followers are singing beside his casket? They are so few in
comparison to the untold numbers who hate. They are so few, and the whites and
blacks who oppose them are so many. They sing, 'We shall overcome.' They sing
it like they believe it. They have no grounds for this hope. The evil they are
fighting is too great. They are too few. Their leader is gone. They are cockeyed optimists. Their optimism
is absurd.
Almost
two thousand years ago, there was another small
group who, under their leader, had brought at least a dim light to the horizon,
but now he was dead, and surely now, even that dim light had every reason to go
out. There were other leaders – self-styled zealots and messiahs who sprang up
almost every day – telling the people that the only way to freedom was through
armed revolt. Their answer was to rise up and throw out the blood-sucking
Romans and restore the kingdom of Israel. Only Jesus had advocated another way –
a way of non-violence, peace, love, service. He preached love and brotherhood
and peaceful community when all others had despaired of it ever coming to pass.
And now this voice was snuffed out. It was a dark hour for his cause; it seemed
a dark hour for our world.
But
he did have these few followers – sometimes weak, sometimes vacillating, but
basically faithful and committed. They were so few that no one could reasonably
expect them to change the world; yet they continued to gather together in upper
rooms and on street corners, praying, preaching, singing, witnessing. They were
acting as if they actually expected to change the world. They were cockeyed
optimists.
What
is the basis for this we-shall-overcome attitude of both groups? The basis of their hope is the
right reason for our being here this morning, my friends. We should be here to
whoop it up, to celebrate the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ is alive! The
basis for their cockeyed optimism is that they serve an all-powerful, living
God. The resurrection proves something. It proves that the most gigantic, hideous,
evil crime man can perpetrate – the cruel torture and murder of the Son of God
himself – cannot avail against the power of the living God. In the end, after
evil and death has swung its last punch, God still stands there untouched. Both
of these groups know by virtue of the resurrection that, even when the odds are
so great against them, good is stronger than evil, love is stronger than hate,
and they are on the side of good and love.
But
now, my friends, a final warning – lest we mistakenly conclude that the Easter
message is that God is in charge, so we can sit back and let him clean up the
mess. There is reason to expect a happy ending. There is reason to believe in a
nation where blacks and whites live together in happiness at every conceivable
level. There is reason to see ahead a world community of peace. But the reason
is only there if we let the resurrected Christ be alive in the way that he
chooses to live … in us!
I
truly believe that the living spirit of Christ incarnates himself in flesh –
yours and mine – and works to change the world through us. This is how the
resurrected Lord works. You prove the resurrection is true when you yield to
the living spirit of Christ and allow him to use your body, your mind, your
soul, your whole person to fight the battle against evil that is so real to us
today. We prove Christ is alive by letting him live in us.
Since
God has chosen us as his means of living and working in the world, it behooves
us to get on the stick and become the transforming resurrection community we
have so long failed to be. This means ACTION, not sitting on your hands
bewailing the terrible state we are in, or even preaching pious words, but
allowing the living Lord to empower us to actually tackle our predicament
head-on, with the sure knowledge that with Christ in us we will win. Now I say
this in all candor, and I’m sure you would too, given recent events: Either we
become the resurrection community in action or the world blows up in our faces.”
From: "Easter's Cockeyed Optimism"
Scripture: Isaiah 25:1, 7-9; Mark 16:1-7; Acts 13:26-33
Preached on April 14, 1968 at Adams Shore Community Church
Wow. This is powerful
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