“The Beloved Community”

Second Sunday after the Epiphany -- January 20, 2002

Lectionary Scripture: Psalm 40:1-11, John 1:29-37

 

I came to know about Martin Luther King as a teenager growing up in Sri Lanka. Someone gave me Coretta Scott King's book, "My Life with Martin Luther King," written shortly after his death in 1968, which I read voraciously and repeatedly. Even growing up half a world away, that prophetic life had a powerful impact on me. In the first sermon I ever preached at the age of 18, on Baptist Youth Sunday, Martin Luther King was the subject of my main illustration.

At the beginning of this year, we reflected on covenant renewal and last Sunday, we asked if we are ready for revolution. We came to understand, I hope, that God delivers us, like how God brought out the slaves of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, not for delivery itself, but that we might get engaged in God’s revolution. This is the mission God gave the Israelites to begin with and they botched it up. The prophets talk about the ones who are faithful to God’s revolution as the “faithful remnent.” It is as if this remnent keeps getting smaller and smaller until it converges into one man – Jesus of Nazareth. And from then on God’s intention seems to be that it diverges and becomes larger and larger with the New Israel, the new kingdom of priests, the new revolutionaries – the church.

So, what is this revolutionary vision, and where do we as individuals and as a church fit into it in 2002? Hopefully today, we can begin to get a glimpse. When God communicated with the prophets, it was not through words most of the time, it was through, dreams, visions, images and pictures. This is why the prophetic books are so full of images. From Amos: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream" or from Isaiah: "The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid... they shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea," or from the book of Revelation: "I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more.... he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more for the first things have passed away." Having grasped that image then they reduced it words, sermons and oracles, in order to communicate that to people.

Martin Luther King stood in this same tradition when he preached his unforgettable “I have a Dream” sermon. His dream that one day, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood, that one day, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers, that one day his children will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character, was really about creating a new kind of community. The Beloved Community he called it. That dream may not have been as utopean as the wolf shall live with the lamb, but back in 1963, it may have seemed as unrealistic. But there was real difference. He was willing to work for it, organize for it, with his powerful sermons persuade people to it and ultimately die for it. But he was very clear about this vision. All this work, he said, of nonviolent resistance, the marches, demonstrations, confrontations with police, time spent in jail, the boycotts and civil disobedience was for one purpose -- and that was for establishing of the “Beloved Community.”

I don’t know if I will ever be able to describe in words how incredibly close I feel with this man and his vision. Perhaps it was because I read Mrs. King’s book in my teenage years, just as my theological thinking was in its early formation. Perhaps it is that Martin and I have walked in the same Indian villages that Mahatma Gandhi walked in and talked with and been influenced the same leaders of the Gandhian movement. Perhaps I identified with him as a Baptist brother, and discovered how he and I both stand solidly in the prophetic Baptist tradition and in the tradition of Isaiah and John, the Baptizer and our Lord Jesus Christ.

            Last Sunday, we talked about Jesus’ baptism and about how Isaiah’s servant songs would have become an important part of Jesus’ self identity. We talked about how the servant was a powerful symbol of liberation for an exiled people, about how the servant would take upon himself their suffering. One day, shortly after he was baptized, Jesus was walking by, and John pointed him out to his disciples. “Look” he said, “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” When he says that John is picking up from the fourth servant song in Isaiah 53. John is saying that this is the servant who will willingly give himself up as a sacrificial lamb for the sake of God’s reign in the world. Much later, another John, the one who wrote the book of Revelation saw in his vision that when all the nations would gather at the end of time, it will be at the throne of God, and who would be upon it – the lamb that was slain. It was about this that Paul quoted to the Philippians in an ancient hymn of the church, “But he did not count the equality with God a thing to be grasped, but humbled himself, to death, even the death on a cross, therefore God highly exalted him, and gave him the name above every name.”

Martin King stood in the same tradition of Isaiah, John and Jesus. He knew that the Beloved Community would not come about if people were to live by  the values of the world -- that it could come about only with the values of God’s kingdom that the Lamb of God lived by. A summary of those values, you can find in the sermon on the mount – turn the other cheek, walk a second mile, love your enemies and so on. Values that the world finds useless and impractical.

            Once listening to a lecture on the life and work of Mahatma Gandhi, King became so enthuisiastic about this man that he went out and bought a half a dozen books and studied him. About Gandhi, King wrote: “Gandhi was probably the first person in history to lift the love ethic of Jesus above mere interaction between individuals to a powerful and effective social force on a large scale. Love for Gandhi was potent instrument for social and collective transformation.”

            In his Stride Towards Freedom  he wrote the following: “I became deeply fascinated by his campaigns of nonviolent resistance. I was particularly moved by the Salt March to the sea and his numerous fasts. The whole concept of “Satyagraha” (Satya is truth and agraha is force: satyagraha is truth-force or love force) was profoundly significant to me. As I delved deeper into the philosophy of Gandhi my skepticism concerning the power of love gradually diminished, and I came to see for the first time its potency in the area of social reform. Prior to reading Gandhi, I had about concluded that the ethics of Jesus were only effective in individual relationships. The “turn the other cheek” philosophy and the “love your enemies” philosophy were only valid, I felt, when individuals were in conflict with other individuals; when racial groups and nations were in conflict a more realistic approach seemed necessary. But after reading Gandhi, I saw how utterly mistaken I was.”

            People who would follow such a love ethic, he called to his “Beloved Community.” For him, this was not a lofty utopian ideal but a realistic and achievable goal that could be attained by a critical mass of people committed to, organized and trained in the philosophy and methods of nonviolence. It was a global vision, in which all people can share in the wealth of the earth. In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood. In the Beloved Community, international disputes will be resolved by peaceful means of conflict-resolution and reconciliation, instead of military power. Love and trust will triumph over fear and hatred. Peace with justice will prevail over war and military conflict.

            Let me add another quote here that is particularly important for us to here at a time like this when we are going “rah, rah” over military might. This is from his testimony, in Stride Towards Freedom. “Nonviolent resistance is not a method for cowards. If one uses this method because he is afraid or merely because he lacks the instruments of violence, he is not truly nonviolent. This is why Gandhi often said that if cowardice is the only alternative to violence, it is better to fight. He made this statement conscious of the fact that there is always another alternative: no individual or group need submit to any wrong, nor need they use violence to right the wrong; there is the way of nonviolent resistance. This is ultimately the way of the strong man. The phrase “passive resistance” often gives the false impression that this is a sort of “do-nothing method” in which the resister quietly and passively accepts evil. Nothing is further from the truth. For while the nonviolent resister is passive in the sense that he is not physically aggressive towards his opponent, his mind and emotions are always active, constantly seeking to persuade his opponent that he is wrong. The method is passive physically, but strongly active spiritually. It is not  passive nonresistance to evil. It is active nonviolent resistance to evil.”

             In a 1957 sermon, Birth of A New Nation, he articulated this vision more forcefully. “The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community. The aftermath of nonviolence is redemption. The aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation. The aftermath of violence is emptiness and bitterness.”

One expression of agape love in Dr. King’s Beloved Community is justice, not for any one oppressed group, but for all people. He often said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” He felt that justice could not be parceled out to individuals or groups, but was the birthright of every human being. "I have fought too long and hard against segregated public accommodations to end up segregating my moral concerns,” he said. “Justice is indivisible."

             God did some tremendous miracles of liberation through Gandhi and King. The independence of India from colonial Britain's exploitation was no less a miracle than the freeing of the slaves from Egypt. Interestingly, Gandhi interpreted freedom for India as also freedom for Britain. He understood that in situations of oppression in any form, both the oppressed and the oppressor are dehumanized. And in the event of liberation, both are freed. King knew this as well. He said in his "I have a Dream" speech: "..... many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And we have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone." In his book "Hope and suffering" Archbishop Desmond Tutu voiced this same sentiment in a letter to President Botha. Isn't it ironic that it is the representative of the oppressed that sees this problem and voices this concern for the oppressor? Oppressors are oblivious to this issue because to them there is an "appearence" of freedom. They think they are free, because they have the material things they need and have the options to get whatever they want. The principle that each person's freedom is inextricably linked with the freedom of another means, in other words, that as long as there is one person in bondage, we are all in bondage, as long as one person is dehumanized, to that extent we are all dehumanized.

            How is this Beloved Community going to come about? Speaking to that huge gathering who had come to Washington D.C. in August 1963, from across the country, Dr. King, said this. "I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive." That's a very tough thing to say to a people who were being oppressed on all sides. But if any one knew the truth of that statement, and if any one participated in the truth of that statement, King did. So did Gandhi.Unearned suffering is redemptive – where did that idea come from? After John had baptized Jesus, he saw Jesus walk by and commented to his disciples, “Look the Lamb of God.” The lamb was the symbol for one who was sacrificed for the sin of others. The ultimate symbol of unearned suffering.

Several years ago at a Truth and Reconciliation hearing in South Africa a frail black woman rose slowly to her feet. She was 70-something, the years deeply etched on her face. Facing her from across the room were several white security police officers. One, a Mr. van der Broek, had just been found guilty of murdering the woman's son and her husband. The man had come to the woman's home a number of years earlier. He had taken her son, shot him at pointblank range, and then burned his body while he and some other officers reveled in the act. Several years later, van der Broek had returned to take away her husband as well. For two years, she could learn nothing of what happened to him. Then, van der Broek came back for the woman herself. She was led to a place beside a river. There, she saw her husband bound and beaten, lying on a pile of wood. The last words she heard from his lips as the officers poured gasoline over his body and set him aflame were, "Father, forgive them." But South Africa changed. And justice caught up with Mr. van der Broek. He had been found guilty, and it was time to determine his sentence. And as the woman stood, the presiding official of the court asked, "So, what do you want? How should justice be done to this man who has so brutally destroyed your family?"  "I want three things,” the woman replied. “I want first to be taken to the place where my husband's body was burned so that I can gather up the dust and give his remains a decent burial." She paused, then continued. "My husband and son were my only family. I want, secondly, therefore, for Mr. van der Broek to become my son. I would like for him to come twice a month to the ghetto and spend a day with me so that I can pour out on him whatever love I still have remaining within me." "And, finally," she says, "I want a third thing. I would like Mr. Van der Broek to know that I offer him my forgiveness because Jesus Christ died to forgive. This was also the wish of my husband. And so, I would kindly ask someone to come to my side and lead me across the courtroom so that I can take Mr. van der Broek in my arms, embrace him and let him know that he is truly forgiven." As the court assistants led the elderly woman across the courtroom, Mr. van der Broek, overwhelmed by what he heard, fainted. Then quietly, from those in the courtroom, friends, family, and neighbors all victims of similar oppression and injustice began to sing "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found. Twas blind, but now I see.

I hope you don’t think that I am lifting up before you, impossible ideal. Martin was taken away from us before it was his time – but his nonviolent grass-roots movement, based on Jesus’ ethic of loving your enemy, transformed this country and the world. Gandhi with his nonviolent resistance, also based on Jesus’ love ethic, brought the mighty British empire to its knees. This is not empty rhetoric. It was only because Jesus understood himself to be the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world and he emptied himself and became obedient unto death, that today around the world, people like us are gathered at the table of the Lord.

So like, Martin King and other prophets before him, I too have a dream: That there will come a day, when all across the world wherever people gather at the Lord’s table, will have an experience of conversion – to live their lives by the values of God’s reign, to be motivated by love, to be strengthened by sacrificial giving, to be organized into a Beloved Community powerfully engaged in God’s mission of transforming the world.