Christ in Disguise

I don't remember that horrible day when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed in Memphis fifty years ago; I was only two years old when it happened. My father was 27, having graduated from seminary a year before to become the pastor of a small community church in Quincy, Massachusetts in the shadow of next-door Boston. King was murdered just three days before Palm Sunday. As other preachers no doubt did, my father sensed a contemporary version of Holy Week unfolding before him on the evening news. In his Palm Sunday sermon, my dad said this:  

"Palm Sunday is a tragic symbol of Jesus' brand of messiahship and our response to it. If there's anything that Palm Sunday points to, it is how fickle and insincere we really are. And to some extent it's a lack of understanding, too, I suppose. We don't understand what sort of messiah Jesus is, or if we do understand then we don't want him. Like the crowd at the Jerusalem gate, for a while Jesus appears to be fulfilling our fondest dreams. We want a warm, comfortable home, a good family to be proud of, a secure job, a friendly little church where we're all alike. Here comes a king who will secure it for us! 'Hosanna!'

'The king is coming! The king is coming!' Yes, the king is coming, but not as earthly kings with pomp and circumstance and every detail attended to. This king comes as the Christ, the suffering servant, riding on a borrowed donkey with a shabby crowd to greet him. The kingship of Christ is not seen in terms of a crown and a throne but rather in terms of a basin and towel as he washes his disciples' dirty feet. The kingdom of Christ is not seen in terms of a royal procession with him at the head but rather in terms of his teaching, 'whosoever would be first among you must be your servant.' 

Can't we see that he is riding a donkey? Can't we see that there is no splendor surrounding him at all? No, we can't see. Like the Jerusalem crowd we are blinded by our wishful thinking that finally a king has come to restore our Israel. It's only Palm Sunday now; we are cheering. Give Jesus the King just a week to force our hand, to make us demonstrate in a bloody way how we really feel about his brand of kingship, about his way to redemption.

You know, there is another very ironic sort of 'Palm Sunday happening' going on today and these last few days which clearly and cruelly points out what we've been saying here. Today we are shouting the praises of another king - The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.  We are piously yielding up our hosannas to this man who we say has been the champion of his people. Civil rights leaders, politicians, religious leaders, newsmen, even George Wallace -- are deploring the tragedy of his death and offering eulogies to this great man. In the mass of news that has been released so far, I have yet to hear a single negative comment about this great apostle of non-violence. We're all shouting 'Hosanna to King!'

But where were our hosannas while he was actually doing the non-violence, when he needed our support? Where were the politicians, the religious leaders, the newsmen and the George Wallaces when King was showing this nation that servant-hood meant leading a bus boycott or defending the cause of garbage men in Memphis? Where was this adoring crowd when King was saying that the way of the cross this summer would be a massive demonstration by the poor in Washington, D.C.? No. There were no hosannas then. There were only countless statements by public officials and editorials denouncing this self-styled messiah as un-American and un-Christian. All too frequently we heard someone yelling that terrible anathema, 'Communist!', and sounding curiously akin to another shout heard 2,000 years ago: 'Crucify him!' Yesterday, it was 'Crucify him!' Today he is dead, and it is 'Hosanna!'

The sequence of our emotions is reversed from that first 'Palm Sunday happening' to this one, but the dynamic is still the same. It is our sentimental cheering when the challenge of the Gospel is distant and our utter repulsion when the challenge of the Gospel is aimed point blank at our hearts. The happening has occurred. And similar happenings will, over and over again, whenever Christ in person, or Christ in the disguise of his many suffering servants, enters and challenges our way of living.

May God give us the grace to do more than shout 'Hosanna!' and waive a palm. May God give us the grace to be counted with Christ at his trial and death."

From: "The Happening"

Preached Palm Sunday, April 7, 1968

at Adams Shore Community Church 

Scripture: Luke 19:29-40  

Bill on Martin: A Call to Action

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.

Dad began to speak: “You saw it as I did on television. You saw 150,000 Negroes marching beside the casket of their patron saint, who had been murdered by a white man. But somehow it didn't seem like a funeral at all. Oh, some were crying, but most of them were singing: ‘We shall overcome, we shall overcome. We shall overcome some day. Deep in my heart, I do believe that we shall overcome some day.’ They surely couldn't be serious about the meaning of that song. How could they be optimistic about their deplorable situation? Truly their cause was in its darkest hour. Small strides have been made, yes. Some schools have token integration; Negroes now may ride in the front of the buses in Atlanta; there are many civil rights laws on the books. But many Negroes are in no better position economically and socially now than they were 20 years ago before this all began.

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

From Independence To Interdependence

I hope you are enjoying this 4th of July holiday weekend. I had a great time at a backyard barbecue hosted by some of our new neighbors, and I'm looking forward to Newtown's fireworks tomorrow evening.

Independence Day was my dad's birthday. He would have been 72 this year. Amazingly, his brother, my Uncle Bob, was born on Flag Day. Now that's a patriotic family.

I dug through the barrel today to see if Dad ever preached about Independence Day. He did ... in 1976 during a service at Grace United Methodist Church  celebrating our nation's bicentennial. He talked about his admiration for our founders because they saw "the need to rise up and face the demands of the hour, the need to sacrifice oneself for an idea whose time has come." As Dad put it, "our forefathers felt impelled by Divine Providence to see to it that an idea whose time had come in America -- independence -- was made a reality on these shores. And for this they risked their lives, and many died. They realized, as the line of the old hymn puts it, that 'new occasions teach new duties.'" My father believed that "the supreme value for these great leaders of the past" was to "secure full life for persons" ("life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," as Jefferson put it), and, in 1776, independence "was the means to a full life for persons."

So, two hundred years later, in 1976, what new idea did my dad believe to be necessary to secure a full life for persons living in a new time? "If the cry of 1776 was for independence, the cry of 1976 must be for interdependence." With words that have only grown more appropriate now in 2014, Dad described why interdependence was an idea whose time had come in 1976: 

"Times are different.  We can no longer just stay at our own level in splendid isolation from the other people on the earth. Rising [nations], dwindling resources, the availability of transportation and communication, technology, nuclear weapons -- all of these things make us realize how closely intertwined our lives are today. The material standard of living I adopt affects someone living in India. Race relations in Rhodesia affect me in Millersville. This is truly a 'global village' we're living in today. We can no longer be concerned about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness just for ourselves alone. Given the 'global village,' if everyone doesn't have life, liberty, and the opportunity for happiness, no one has it. That's how closely our lives mesh today."  

Dad called on American Christians to be "wise and alert." Echoing John Wesley's famous declaration that "the world is my parish," Dad urged his parishioners to "become citizens of the world. ... Our witness is to counter prejudice, to advocate the simple life, to show absolute respect for every person, to help others face this new day of interdependence." As Dad saw it, "[t]he day has come to declare -- and more than declare -- to live our interdependence."

I thank God for our independence, and I pray that I will be more mindful now of our interdependence.  Happy 4th of July, everyone!

From "A Declaration of Interdependence"

July, 1976 - Grace UMC, Millersville, PA

Postscript: A few days after writing this post, I came across a copy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. In it, Dr. King made this observation about our interdependence: "I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."