Chaos or Community

MLK Ecumenical Service
January 19, 2025
Charity Missionary Baptist Church

Speaker The Reverend Dr Adam J Shoemaker

Good afternoon. One more big round of applause for the Dance Ministry. [applause] To the good people of Charity Missionary Baptist Church, ably pastored by the one and only Reverend Nelson B Rivers, III, to our able MC Reverend Reed, to Miss LaVonda Brown and the rest of the YWCA leadership, to my CAJM brother Judge Arthur McFarland, who was trying to turn me into a Roman Catholic just little bit earlier, and to everyone here under the sound of my voice: Let me begin by offering you greetings from the faithful folk of  St Stehen’s Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston—the congregation I am so fortunate to pastor—and indeed from the rest of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, and from our Bishop Ruth Woodliff-Stanley, who is in the house with us here today. [applause] It is good to be with you and a great privilege and opportunity to offer a word as we celebrate together the life and legacy of the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., at this very critical time, amid the contextual circumstances that we find ourselves in at this very hour.

You see, context is of utmost importance to us preachers. It’s always something that a good preacher has to pay attention to. Not just what text one is preaching on, not just who one is preaching to, but under what circumstances. So I must begin my remarks by acknowledging the fateful confluence of events that constitutes the backdrop for our time together today. For tomorrow, of course, is not just Martin Luther King Day in America but also, like it or not, Inauguration Day. Just the third time, as I understand it, that the King holiday has fallen on the same day as the Presidential Inauguration Day.

But I believe deeply that it must also be acknowledged at the outset that tomorrow’s inauguration is not just any inauguration. Yes, we’ve all seen this movie before. Yes, we all have a pretty good sense of what to expect in the months and years to come. But it’s the doubling down on that nightmare that is so hard for me to swallow. Some have tried to normalize it or even sanitize it. Some might even try to bless it. But I can’t do that. Not only as a pastor and as a parent but as a person who tries every day to get up and life a faithful life: I can’t do that. [applause]

For in the context of this service, I believe it must be acknowledged that the American electorate has chosen to usher a man back into power—a wealthy white man, mind you—who will be the first sitting president convicted of 34 felony counts, found guilty by a jury of his peers [applause], who will face no penalty for his crime. [applause] A man who (I’m from the New York City area), a man who once systematically refused to rent to black tenants in his private real estate business or who led the charge—LED THE CHARGE—against five young black and Latino men in the 1980s who were wrongly accused of assaulting a New York jogger in Central Park. Something those men spent years in prison for. This is a man who, more recently, has called violent insurrectionists “patriots” and Black Lives Matter activists “thugs”. A man who has a well-documented track record of following the laws and norms of our republic only when it seems to suit his purposes. We must speak plainly. This man could not be farther removed from Dr King’s strength of character [applause], open-heartedness, or the vision that he is remembered for and that hopefully we try to re-commit ourselves to today.

The confluence of these two events is almost too much to handle. It feels like a slap in the face. But, interestingly enough, Dr Bernice King, Martin Luther King’s youngest child and CEO of the King Center, said not long ago that, if this inauguration has to happen at all, then she is glad—let me say it again, she is glad—that it will happen on the day we have set aside to honor her father. Because of the way  in which this fateful juxtaposition presents us with a stark and unavoidable contrast that forces the country to really look at itself. And forces all of us to do some soul-searching about the work to come if we are to truly move closer to a world where justice just is.

Dr Bernice is glad that our country must be confronted by this fateful juxtaposition because she believes, as I do, as I’m sure we all do, that her father is still speaking to us. Dr King is still speaking to us, if we have ears to hear and eyes to see. And in that spirit, I would like to lift up today a book which he published in 1967, just a year before he was assassinated on a second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. This book, that would ultimately be his last, was aptly titled Where do we go from here: Chaos or Community. Where do we go from here: Chaos or Community. As the title of this book implies, an important premise of this final manuscript of Dr. King was at a time of crisis, a time of trial, presents a time of decision for all people of faith and good will, a proverbial fork-in-the-road that compels us to all take responsibility and choose for ourselves the path that we want to walk in, what we will say and do, what we will sacrifice given what is going on around us.

This brings me to the Bible readings that I selected for this service that we have heard read. Two very different readings—one from the Hebrew bible and one from the Christian scriptures. One from the book of the great Prophet Amos and the other from Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth. Now, on the face of it, these two readings could not be more different in tone and tenor. For, on the one hand, we have some characteristically fiery language from Amos, words of rebuke that conclude with a famous verse that was a touchstone of Dr King’s ministry. And on the other, we have a sweet, melodious, almost poetic description of love, a meditation on love that St Paul writes about, a passage I’m sure that many of us here have heard a time or two at weddings. So what might it mean to consider these two passages alongside one another, given where we find ourselves today? What might they have to teach us?

For me, the juxtaposition of these two biblical texts serves as a reminder that, if we want a world where justice just is, then sometimes (perhaps oftentimes) we’ve got to say “no” before we can say “yes”. [applause] WE’VE GOT TO SAY “NO: BEFORE WE CAN SAY “YES”. We’ve got to be clear-eyed and attentive to what is happening in our country and in our world. We’ve got to speak plainly and directly and forcefully as Dr King did in his time and as the Prophet Amos certainly did as well. And lest we think we have to be a VIP to “speak truth to power”, to enable our voice to have an impact and really make a difference, we should remember that Amos was a shepherd and a fig tree farmer when he felt called by God. One of the lowest rungs of society in his place and time. But Amos nevertheless forcefully speaks out and claps back against the injustices that he sees, rebuking the powerful people of his day, the governing class and the religious elite.

And what is it, that inspired by God, Amos finds so objectionable? Well, like so many Hebrew prophets, he zeroes in on the sin of idolatry, that behavior often exhibited by the powerful and the privileged in one way or another who put themselves in the place of God or make themselves the center of attention, proclaiming themselves the savior of the world’s problems. Amos speaks out against corruption, the corruption that he witnesses, the self-aggrandizement of the wealthy at the expense of the poorest of the poor, leaving too many in the land crushed by debt, debilitating chronic disease, or despair. And as we see in our passage today, Amos calls out religious hypocrisy. (Does that sound familiar?) He rebukes the publicly pious people who strut around the street like peacocks trying to highlight how supposedly religious they are [applause] without that religiosity translating into a more just and equitable world, without so many of their “thoughts and prayers” translating in the concrete change in the world. Amos rebukes this in the harshest of terms.

“I hate”, Amos cries out to us in our reading today, “I hate all your show and your pretense. And I take no delight in your solemn assembly. Take away from me the noise of your songs.  [applause] I will not listen to the melody of your harps but let justice roll down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”  A millennia later, Dr King writes of these words, “This might be the key passage of this entire biblical book for it reveals for us the deep ethical nature of God. A God who demands justice rather than sacrifice, righteousness rather than rituals. The most elaborate worship is but an insult to God when offered by those who have no mind to conform to God’s ethical demands.

The problem therefore is not “praise and worship”—I’m a pastor; I love praise and worship. The problem is “praise and worship” that does not lead people to live in right relationship with God and neighbor. [applause]  And especially our most vulnerable neighbors—showing compassion to the poor, the stranger, the immigrant, the outcast and the outsider. Amos forcefully says, “No.” “No” to these abuses. Before you can help turn God’s people to fully embrace justice and righteousness in such ample supply that it pours forth like an ever-flowing stream.

And I believe deeply, friends, I am convicted that we need in this moment, at this hour, to summon that same spirit, as we honor Dr King’s legacy. Not just today but in the days to come. By saying a clear, “No! No! No!” to a whole host of things, that might enable us to better say “Yes” to the ways of God. Let me count for you some of those ways.

We should say “No!” to cruelty and mean-spiritedness that disparages the human person, for those who do not love do not know God, for God is Love.

We should say “No!” to what Dr King once famously termed “the triple evils of racism, militarism, and poverty”, to work for the day when swords will be beat into plowshares, and spears into pruning hooks.

We should say “No!” to fearmongering and scapegoating those in vulnerable places—immigrants, the undocumented, and the LGBTQ community to name a few, for an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

We should say “No!” to workhouse raids and mass deportations, for we are to welcome the stranger as God has so graciously welcomed us. [applause]

We should say “No!” to the degradation of our nation’s public school system. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me.”

We should say “No!” to mass incarcerations because everybody is God’s somebody.

We should say “No!” to the demonization of DEI and Critical Race Theory and [applause] to refusal to teach our children the whole story of our nation’s history. Because, if we don’t know where we come from, we can’t know where we’re going.

We should say “No!” to the stripping away of so many civil rights.

“No!” to Christian nationalism, that perverts Christianity by seeking political domination instead of service to one’s neighbor.

We should stand up, my friends, and say “No!”. “No!” in every way we can imagine to all these things that diminish or tear away at the inherent worth and dignity of every child of God. We should let our “No!” be “No!” so that we can turn and more wholeheartedly say “yes”. “Yes” to the kind of beloved community that Dr King so often preached about and to a world where justice just is. We should let our “No!” be “No!” so that we can wholeheartedly say “yes” to Dr King’s dream, to Dr King’s vision that I would argue is animated, fueled, inspired by the fierce refining fire of God’s love for the whole world.

That, friends, leads me to that other scripture for today, that beautiful, so-called “hymn to love” authored by St Paul. It describes love as patient and kind and not envious or arrogant or boastful or rude, a love that ultimately has the power to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, and endure all things. This kind of love, Paul assures us, is one that never ends. But, as Dr King so often taught, it is so important for us to truly understand and appreciate the power and force of this kind of love, for it is not for the faint of heart.

We’re not talking, friends, about the love that’s expressed in Hallmark cards. It is not meek, mild, or a passive kind of love. For as Dr King once pointed out, in ancient Greece, the language of the Christian scriptures, there are different words used for love. There is eros, for instance, that speaks of romantic love. There is philia, where we get the word Philadelphia from, that speaks of a familial kind of love. Then there is agape, love, which is the word that St Paul uses in our lesson today. Agape love, for Dr King, is the highest form of love. For it is a compassionate, self-emptying, and self-sacrificial love. It is creative, and it is courageous. It’s a kind of love stirred up in us that refuses to be silenced when our neighbor is trampled upon. It’s the love expressed in the non-violent resistance that Dr King so often practiced as a Christian pastor and prophetic leader. He believed deeply has the capacity that nothing else does to ultimately redeem and transform the world from the nightmare it so often is into something closer to the dream God intended.

My friends, I believe it is this same kind of love that Dr King would call us to, in this moment, at this very hour, and in the time to come. To be willing, as he once put it, to be a radical for the sake of love and justice. To be proud to call ourselves “an extremist for love.” As Amos was and as Jesus himself was as well. Whatever our background is today, I believe we should all stand up and say, “Yes!” again and again and again for this kind of love. Even when the world and the powers that be give us every reason to doubt. We just stand up and say, “Yes!” to this kind of love in all that we say and do, in what we advocate for, and how we choose to vote, and how we relate to our neighbors and especially the most vulnerable amongst us.

For the sake of the common good, and for the sake of the world that God has made and loves, loves, loves so very much. This is the kind of love that I believe we are always called to say “yes” to. Trusting even in these difficult and dark times as that psalmist puts it, that while weeping may endure for a night, joy . . . Joy . . . JOY comes in the morning. [applause] And so, my friends, on tomorrow when our president-elect presumably places his hand on a bible [laughter] presumably to take the oath of office, I would invite each of us—I would challenge each of us—to take our own kind of oath, an oath to recommit ourselves to agape love, in the spirit of Dr King. The pledge to continue to stand up and be counted, to let our ”No!” be “no” to anything that diminishes, degrades, or threatens the human family that we may wholeheartedly and without reservation say with one voice, a collective ”Yes!” to a Charleston, a country, and a world where justice just is. Where justice might one day truly roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. [applause]

Because we are people of faith, we are called to be people of hope. So as I prepare to close today, I would like to offer you words of encouragement once uttered by Dr King himself. During his own time of great injustice and great peril, in a speech that he delivered in 1965 on the steps of the capital in Montgomery, Alabama, at the end of the long, arduous, and, yes, bloody Selma to Montgomery march. In this immortal speech, Dr King gazed out at the crowd of thousands and offered these words:

“The battle is in our hands and we can answer with creative nonviolence and the call to higher ground to which the new directions of our struggle summon us. The road ahead is not an altogether smooth one. There are no broad highways that lead us easily and inevitably to quick solutions. But we must . . . keep . . . going.”

We . . . must . . . keep . . . going.

“I know you’re asking today, ‘How long will it take?’ Somebody is asking today ‘How long will prejudice, blind divisions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright eyed wisdom from her sacred throne?’ Somebody’s asking today ‘How long ill justice be crucified and truth buried?’” 

Well 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 reap what you sow. How long? [applause] Not long—because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends. It bends toward justice. My brothers and sisters, may these words be more than words. May we continue to listen to and heed the great witness that Dr King has passed on to us and continue  by God’s grace to help to bend that arc towards justice. Today, tomorrow, and in all the days to come.

And may all God’s people say, AMEN.

© 2025 Adam J Shoemaker