January 16, 2005

Rev. Henry Ticknor
Unitarian Universalist Church of the Shenandoah Valley

Bending Toward Justice

The week just past was really good. It was great. In fact it was one of the best weeks I’ve had in the year-and-a-half that I’ve been your minister.

And what, pray tell, dear minister, made it so special? Did you have a theological revelation? No, not exactly. Did you turn someone’s life around and send them on the journey of recovery and reconciliation? No, it was nothing like that. Well, did you bring 50 new converts to our chosen faith? No, it wasn’t that either. Well, then, what was it?

OK, if you must know, I was asked to go to a meeting. In fact it was a meeting of ministers. A meeting, you ask. A meeting of ministers? What in the world could possibly be so great about attending yet another meeting—especially, another meeting of a group of ministers?

Well, thank you for asking. I think we have a few minutes here. On Thursday I went up Route 11 to the Mennonite Church for a gathering of Stephens City clergy. I was there; the ministers from the Lutheran church and the Methodist church were there. The minister from the Sherando Presbyterian Church was there and several other ministers who had various conflicts had responded that they would be interested in any future gatherings.

And what made this meeting so special?

It was a real pleasure to get to know my interfaith colleagues. For as many of us as there were at the meeting, I think none of us has been at his or her church for more than three years. The pastors of the Methodist church and the Lutheran church had both come from churches in Luray and the Presbyterian, who had grown up in Leesburg, had come back to Virginia by way of Georgia. We took time to introduce ourselves and to tell the stories of our respective journeys into ministry.

Sounds to me like just another meeting of touchy-feely, feel-good, save-the-world do- gooders to me. What happened?

Well, it was very interesting. In the course of our conversation I learned that I wasn’t the only liberal in the group, I learned that in the past, the Stephens City churches had cooperated to send homeless and transient folks up to the High Point Truck Stop with a voucher that would get them some gas and something to eat. I learned that the Stephens City police are willing to transport folks in need to the Salvation Army or Women’s Shelter. I learned that Trinity Lutheran Church has a ministry dedicated to serving transient and homeless folks to find the resources they require for everyday life.

During our time together, I learned that affordable housing is quickly becoming a major issue around Stephens City as new developments are going in behind the BB&T bank that the land where to trailer park is located out on Route 277, may also have been sold for development.

Interesting. Anything else? Well, what made this event so important for me, and to my ministry is the hope that now UUCSV will be able to join with our interfaith brothers and sisters in the area in addressing any number of social issues.

As I talked with my new colleagues I was also thinking about this morning’s service and what I would say on this day before the annual celebration of the Rev. Dr. King’s birthday. And that message is the importance of service—to causes great and small.

For America, and for the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., it is morally and strategically right now to focus on service, and to turn that service into the kind of force that Gandhi and King believed it could become.

In today's world, we can ask, "Why wait for the government to act in order to tutor and mentor millions of young people who seem to be heading for disaster in life?" The most urgent and persistent question for us now is not how to overturn evil laws but how to point kids in the right direction, how to build the community institutions needed to fulfill the American dream--Martin's dream. I believe that Martin Luther King would see this beginning of the 21st century not as a time to go to jail to protest evil laws, but as a time to build.

So Coretta Scott King is profoundly right when she says: "The greatest birthday gift my husband could receive is if people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds celebrated the holiday by performing individual acts of kindness through service to others."

In one of his sermons, Rev. King wrote:

It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality. Did you ever stop to think that you can't leave for your job in the morning without being dependent on most of the world? You get up in the morning and go to the bathroom and reach over for the sponge, and that's handed to you by a Pacific islander. You reach for a bar of soap, and that's given to you at the hands of a Frenchman. And then you go into the kitchen to drink your coffee for the morning, and that's poured into your cup by a South American. And maybe you want tea: that's poured into your cup by a Chinese. Or maybe you're desirous of having cocoa for breakfast, and that's poured into your cup by a West African. And then you reach over for your toast, and that's given to you at the hands of an English-speaking farmer, not to mention the baker. And before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you've depended on more than half of the world. This is the way our universe is structured, this is its interrelated quality. We aren't going to have peace on earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.”

Dr. King continues, “I've seen too much hate to want to hate, myself, and I've seen hate on the faces of too many sheriffs, too many white citizens' councilors, and too many Klansmen of the South to want to hate, myself; and every time I see it, I say to myself, hate is too great a burden to bear.

Somehow we must be able to stand up before our most bitter opponents and say: "We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will and we will still love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws and abide by the unjust system, because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good, and so throw us in jail and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and, as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hour and drag us out on some wayside road and leave us half-dead as you beat us, and we will still love you. Send your propaganda agents around the country, and make it appear that we are not fit, culturally and otherwise, for integration, and we'll still love you. But be assured that we'll wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves; we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory."

I think that last year I admitted that I was a latecomer to this whole world of social justice and social action.

I grew up in Englewood. New Jersey. Englewood was then and probably still is a affluent, bedroom community for folks who work in Manhattan—about thirty minutes away by bus and subway. In the 1950’s Englewood was a great place to grow up; or so it seemed. I could ride my bike wherever I wanted, including over the George Washington Bridge; there were places downtown for teens to hang out; there were places to go swimming in summer and skating in winter. But like so many towns and cities in the north, Englewood had a secret.

The secret was that in fact there were two Englewood’s. While life seemed fine for those of us who grew up on what was called the “East Hill”—need I say more? —the black population was segregated in one section of town. I was having lunch with some of our members last week, and it turns out that Bob Vakiener is also familiar with Englewood and we talked about this for a while and he said something that I had thought about in years. As we were talking about Englewood and its de facto segregation, he reminded me that at the time people covered up this policy of discrimination and segregation by saying of the African Americans, “But you know they like to live all together.” Somehow, back in the 1950’s this all seemed somehow, normal.

Today, there are those who hold this same sentiment toward the Latino communities in Winchester and Frederick County. Fortunately we have people in our community such as our own Katy Pitcock and Larry Yates who are doing their best to bring the issues of these new Americans to our attention so that we don’t relapse into the trap of creating invisible populations right here in our community. So that we don’t accept the status quo as being what’s normal.

In March, 1965, Dr. King spoke in Montgomery, Alabama. about his frustrations with the progress of the civil rights movement and his hopes for the future. In his remarks he said:

I know there is a cry today in Alabama, we see it in numerous editorials: "When will Martin Luther King, and all of these civil rights agitators and all of the white clergymen and labor leaders and students and others get out of our community and let Alabama return to normalcy.

I have a message that I would like to leave with Alabama this evening. That is exactly what we don’t want, and we will not allow it to happen, for we know that it was normalcy in Marion that led to the brutal murder of Jimmy Lee Jackson. It was normalcy in Birmingham that led to the murder on Sunday morning of four beautiful, unoffending, innocent girls. It was normalcy on Highway 80 that led state troopers to use tear gas and horses and billy clubs against unarmed human beings who were simply marching for justice. It was normalcy by a cafe in Selma, Alabama, that led to the brutal beating of Reverend James Reeb.

It is normalcy all over our country which leaves the Negro perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of vast ocean of material prosperity. It is normalcy all over that prevents the Negro from becoming a registered voter. No, we will not allow Alabama to return to normalcy.

The only normalcy that we will settle for is the normalcy that recognizes the dignity and worth of all of God’s children. The only normalcy that we will settle for is the normalcy that allows judgment to run down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. The only normalcy that we will settle for is the normalcy of brotherhood, the normalcy of true peace, the normalcy of justice.

And so as we go away this afternoon, let us go away more than ever before, committed to this struggle and committed to nonviolence. I must admit to you that there are still some difficult days ahead. We are still in for a season of suffering in many of the black belt counties of Alabama, many areas of Mississippi, many areas of Louisiana. I must admit to you that there are still jail cells waiting for us, and dark and difficult moments. But if we will go on with the faith that nonviolence and its power can transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows, we will be able to change all of these conditions.

And so I plead with you this afternoon as we go ahead: remain committed to nonviolence. Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding. We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. And that will be a day not of the white man, not of the black man. That will be the day of man as man.

I know you are asking today, "How long will it take?" Somebody’s asking, "How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne?" Somebody’s asking, "When will wounded justice, lying prostrate on the streets of Selma and Birmingham and communities all over the South, be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men?" Somebody’s asking, "When will the radiant star of hope be plunged against the nocturnal bosom of this lonely night, plucked from weary souls with chains of fear and the manacles of death? How long will justice be crucified, and truth bear it?"

I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because "truth crushed to earth will rise again."

How long? Not long, because "no lie can live forever."

How long? Not long, because "you shall reap what you sow."

How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

And this is what made this past week so wonderful for me. I came together with a group of caring, dedicated people who want nothing more than to see justice and compassion come together in love and charity for all. People who want to bring down the walls that separate us from our neighbors. People who want affordable housing, jobs that pay a fair wage, who want to fight discrimination in all its ugly forms, people who want to work for justice and who understand how hard the job is.

They are people, just like us, who see themselves as participants in the journey toward wholeness and reconciliation. People like you and me who understand the admonishment that we have a duty to clothe the naked and to feed the hungry. People like you and me who want peace in our time and to see the dream of Dr. King become the reality of the day. People who care. People who want to do their part. People who love their neighbors.

“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality,” wrote Dr. King, “ tied in a single garment of destiny. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

There are some things in our social system to which all of us ought to be maladjusted.

Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear, only love can do that.

We must evolve for all human conflict a method that rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. Before it is too late, we must narrow the gaping chasm between our proclamations of peace and our lowly deeds that precipitate and perpetuate war. One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek but a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. We shall hew out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.”

Yes, it was a very good week here in Stephens City; and the future looks better already. How long will it take to see the radiate star of hope? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

And so as we go away this afternoon, let us go away more than ever before, committed to do our part that we may realize the dream of a community with peace, liberty and justice for all.