A Glimpse of Heaven (Revelation 7:9-10)

Sunday, April 28, 2013

A version of this sermon was originally preached at HillSong on April 28, 2013 under the title “God in New Faces.”

            It was my third year, time for my classmates and I to think about life after seminary.  We were training to be pastors, chaplains, missionaries.  Where would we end up?

            I was sheltered, a suburban kid who grew up watching MTV and going to hang out at the Mall. For me, a night on the town meant driving to the Roanoke Civic Center to see professional wrestling.  Ric Flair was in his heyday.  In seminary, as I read the Bible, God shredded my sheltered, play-it-safe life. 

I knew God wanted me to preach and a lead church.  But what kind of church (beyond just whatever church would hire someone really young with limited experience) would call me?  Pastors find their calling in different ways.  For me, it was a direct, uncomfortable encounter with scripture.  The words of Revelation 7:9 burrowed into me.

“There was a great multitude that no one could count from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.  They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” 

Every tribe and people and language; it was fall 1995.  Almost everyone I knew was just like me - white, American, middle class, suburban.  That was my entire world. 

Imprisoned for his faith in Jesus, John was carried to Heaven in a vision.  There he saw people from every language, tribe, and nation, all together, praising Jesus.  I only knew one small subset of one tribe speaking one language in one nation.  My knowledge of the people of God was pathetically small.  That meant my knowledge of God was woefully impoverished.  How could I be a pastor and lead a church, knowing so little?  How could I even follow Jesus?

I had to serve a church where there were more than just white people.  I needed diversity.  God led me to Greenbrier Baptist in Arlington, Virginia.  There’s not a more diverse community anywhere than what you’ll find in Arlington.

I had been at that church about 1 month, when the Promise Keepers rally came to the national mall.  The ministry attracted 100’s of thousands of men to our nation’s capital for worship.  Our church took a couple of refugees from Sudan.  They had been persecuted and forced to flee their country because they were Christians.  Like me, they had only been in DC about a month. Here they were, free to worship God with thousands of others.  We also had about 10 guys from the Spanish congregation at Greenbrier.  Two Africans, ten Hispanics and two whites guys – my Dad and me.   

Over and over, for 9 years pastoring in Arlington, I had experiences like that.  I met God in the faces of white American, black Americans, Asian Americans, and Hispanic Americans.  I met God in Gypsies, Romany people.  I met God in a community of Sudanese refugees, and the young Ethiopian woman who attended our church.  I met God in the Pakistani man who gave me a copy of the Qur’an.   Each new encounter was like seeing another side of God’s indescribable beauty.  I realized I personally would never enjoy God in this way if I had met God in just one culture.  I needed that diversity of people to expand my appreciation of who God is. 

All those experiences came after I sat in my seminary classroom a few minutes before class and happened to read Revelation 7:9.   Every tribe and people and language.  The arc of my life changed by the reading the Bible that day and then reacting to what I read.  I have gotten many things wrong over my life and career in ministry.  I have made my share of mistakes.  But one thing I did right was listen to God that day as I read Revelation 7 and waited for class to start.  God told me to seek out people from tribes different than my own.  I am so thankful I did that.

Seeing more of God is one of two primary reasons I press for the church to be racially and ethnically diverse.  Most churches are mono-culture.  Many of these mono-culture churches are great churches.  But I believe God is calling our church to be so diverse that no single culture is the dominant one.  God is calling us to be a church that embodies the vision cast in Revelation 7.  We want people to meet God in God’s fullness here, among us.  That can only happen if we are fully committed to diversity.

We have to celebrate numerous cultures.  We have traditionally been a church of white people.  I say that without any criticism.  It’s not a negative thing.  It just is.  However, going forward, to see God, know God, and celebrate God, we have to understand the way Chinese culture works and Mexican culture, and the numerous expressions of African American culture; we have to allow these various cultural expressions of faith sometimes be the ones guiding how we come together.  If you find us worshiping God or fellowshipping in a way that feels strange to you, step into it.  Embrace it.  What feels odd to you might feel comfortable to your black sister in Christ or your Mexican brother in Christ. 

Understand that Mexican, Chinese, black, and other people of color have adjusted their expectations to white cultural practices for a long time.  For us to be a truly diverse community, we white people have to be just as willing to give up our expectations sometimes.  It can’t be everyone is welcome to come do things the way we white Christians have always done them.  It has to be we all come together in humility, friendship, love, and faith in Jesus.  We all get our turn planning and leading.  This might be applied in the style of music or preaching, the kinds of food at our meals, or the pace of our social gathering.  Each culture present gets an equal voice in how we do ministry and how we live together as a family of God.  We become something new, something different from any earthly entity. 

Seeing more of God is one reason for making diversity a priority in the church.  The church’s witness is a second reason we promote diversity so that we are all empowered participants in church life.  When we talk about our witness, we literally mean what we have seen and experienced.  We have seen that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.  We have experienced salvation, rescue from sin and death.  Because of Jesus, we are not alienated from God by our sins, but rather, with our sins washed away, we are adopted as sons and daughters of God.  As Psalm 34:8 says, we have tasted and seen that the Lord is good.

Our testimony is the word we speak based on what we have witnessed.  We testify that the world is fallen, dying in sin.  Racism and institutions perpetuating a white, male hierarchy are societal manifestations of sin.  Sin brings death and eternal alienation from God. Our church testifies to the specific ways the Gospel offers an alternative to the dark-realities of sin where we live. 

When we talk about diversity and racial unity, we’re speaking out of our God-inspired Gospel witness.  We should not seek diversity for diversity’s sake.  Plenty of secular organizations do that. We seek diversity because the Kingdom of heaven, as seen in Revelation 7:9; is the most diverse place in the universe. We want people to find rescue from sin and to get a glimpse of the goodness of Heaven. As Revelation shows, diversity is one indicator of heaven’s goodness.

What we offer is a radical alternative to the violence and hatred produced by prejudice and racism.  Recall the events in Charlottesville two years ago.  Neo-Nazis paraded around protesting the removal of a statue of Civil War general Robert E. Lee.  Counter protestors confronted the New-Nazis.  The result was the death of a young woman.

Recall the incidents right here in our own town.  In protests around the University of North Carolina’s removal the Civil War statue “Silent Sam,” there have been minor acts of violence though nothing as dramatic as in Charlottesville.  In both places, whether the violence was a car ramming a crowd, or a fist in the face, one fact cannot be avoided.  In the American Civil War, the slaves were black and plantation owners were white.  Many black people still feel they have to carry the shame of that heritage and it hurts to hear white people today defend it.  We can’t escape the racial nature of this conflict which so often turns violent.

The last examples are Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas.  In Texas, the killer, an American terrorist, targets Hispanics, ranting about an invasion.  That includes our brothers and sisters in Christ who are Mexican.  That includes people whose families go back several generations living in America.  They are targeted because they aren’t white enough to be true Americans in the mind of this evil killer. 

Charlottesville, El Paso, Texas, the killing of members of a black church in a prayer meeting in Charleston, South Carolina several years ago – these a few of the way too many examples of brokenness in our land.  In every case, the sin is based in racism, fear, and hatred.  To respond to such evil, the church has to offer good news about racial diversity based in welcome, hope, and love.

Our testimony as followers of Jesus has to be based on what we’ve witnessed.  There is something better – a kingdom in which people from every nation, tribe, and language are joined together in love for each other and desire to praise Jesus.  By developing a multiethnic church that’s more concerned about the eternal Kingdom of God than any earthly nation, we point to something better.  We create an environment in which we celebrate one another uniqueness and learn about the love of God in the ways we love one another.  We help others who visit our church see the way out of the brokenness around us and the way into the beloved Kingdom of God.  We say to the world, “this is what God’s kingdom is like.” 

We exist as a church to help people find their way to God – all people.  One of the many ways we do that is to intentionally celebrate our diversity and to work to make sure diversity is a core principle in our congregation.

Diversity helps us see more of God.  I believe God has given me this vision for a diverse church.  I pray you will embrace this vision too and we as a church will work to make our church a place where people come and get a glimpse of the Heavenly gathering of God’s family. 

AMEN

After Charlottesville: Monday Work

My brother is a pastor of a church in Charlottesville.  My best friend from seminary is a pastor of another church in Charlottesville, VA.  I texted them both this morning to make sure they’re OK after the white supremacy fiasco in their town yesterday.  I didn’t want to call because it was Sunday morning and they are pastors getting ready to lead the church in worship.  So I texted. Both texted to assure me they are fine.

I am a pastor too, but on Sabbatical.  In fact this morning, our family did not even attend church, but instead spent time at Smith Mountain Lake with my aunt and uncle.  However, sabbatical or not, I feel the need to share some of my thoughts in the aftermath of the nefarious, evil “Unite-the-Right” rally in Charlottesville. 

I approach this as a pastor, but more importantly as a follower of Jesus, a 1^st century Palestinian Jew, and the incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity.  I follow and worship Jesus, the Savior of the world and Lord of all.  I pray that my comments are inspired by Him.

Two quotes come to mind.  The first is from a fiery African American female preacher, Traci Blackmon.  I heard her last year in Atlanta, GA, and she blew my socks off.  Her sermon at the convening of the New Baptist Covenant last September helped me understand the importance of #blacklivesmatter.  Her sermon woke me up and fired me up to work for a better America, one in which all people are given equal rights and equal opportunities. 

Rev. Blackmon was in Charlottesville yesterday, up close to the tear gas, violence, and chaos.  A frequent Facebook commenter, she wrote, “I SURE DO PRAY THAT THE SERMON YOU WROTE EARLIER THIS WEEK IS NOT THE SERMON YOU ARE PREACHING TOMORROW” (https://www.facebook.com/traci.blackmon).

Her words are characteristic of her confrontational approach.  And, she wrote this fresh off her own up close and personal harrowing experience in Charlottesville.  Her words make sense to me.  As it is, I wasn’t preaching today.  But if I was, I hope I would not, in a gut reaction, scrap the sermon I had written earlier and start over.  I’ve done that very thing before.  I have scrapped sermons om Saturday nights, and started over.  I have scrapped sermons with just an hour to go before the start of worship.  But it is not always the right move. 

Contrasted with Rev. Blackmon are the words of African American author Deidra Riggs.  She writes,

Hey, white evangelical friends. Don't go to church today to hold your preacher's feet to the fire. Either they'll say it or they won't. Go to church to be lit on fire by the Holy Spirit. Don't lose your focus. There is work to do on Monday.

Besides, even if they say it, it won't be the way you want them to say it. This is not about them. It's about you. What are YOU going to say? What are YOU going to do? This is an all hands on deck moment and there are TONS of resources for you (https://www.facebook.com/deidra.riggs.3?hc_ref=ARSVkD-HQYK7zDF1g096ffTNB4cHpHu7G3Vf59BCtHY4HTmA2jk_uVqrtMBTnoyqaEg&fref=nf).

My favorite line from Mrs. Riggs’ quote is one that drives me now. “There’s work to do on Monday.”  That Monday Work is the work of combatting racism under the direction of the Holy Spirit.  Whether the pastor deals directly with what happened in Charlottesville or sticks with the sermon he or she originally planned is not the bigger point.  The bigger point is all churches, all followers of Jesus, are called to live out the values of the Kingdom of God and the greatest value is love. 

One of the cornerstones of my Sabbatical is the quest to discover how church – the local church – can embody the heavenly vision cast in Revelation 7:9-10.

⁹ After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes and held palm branches in their hands. ¹⁰ And they were shouting with a great roar,

“Salvation comes from our God who sits on the throne
            and from the Lamb!”

I believe the church is called to be a living witness to this Heavenly vision. The church in America is to testify to our country, divided as it is, that God’s vision and God’s future is a picture of people, resplendent in their cultural uniqueness joined together with other people, also with their uniqueness on display.  Note, when John looked into Heaven in Revelation 7, he could clearly see people from all cultures and all tribes all across the world.  Their distinctiveness stood out as much as their unity did.  And their unity was in Christ.

Where is that seen today?  I pray that Heavenly vision can be seen in the church.  Forming our churches as families and as communities is our work.  Our families and communities have to be so graciously welcoming and hospitable that all people – black, Asian, white, Hispanic, Arab, and Native American – can feel at home in the church. 

In other words, our Monday work is to tell a different story, the anti-story of Charlottesville and of hate groups like American Nazis and the KKK.  That story generates a lot of noise.  Our story, the story of people loving God and loving each other in Jesus’ name is a much better story.  CNN & Fox News are not going to tell our story.  We shouldn’t expect them to.  God has called the church to go into all the world and make disciples of Jesus.

Part of the work of doing this is to name evil – in this case the extreme evil of racism, the demonic force known as white supremacy.  Part of the work of giving witness to the Kingdom of God is renouncing evil and standing with those who have been victims.  It’s easy to look at the hooded, goose-stepping fools and say they’re evil.  It is much harder to name, define, and combat structural evils like the so-called “war on drugs,” the resulting mass-incarceration of brown and black peoples, and institutional racism that plagues our justice system.  Those evils are more far-reaching than the show that went on in UVA’s town yesterday.  We who follow Jesus have to name the deeper evils and stand up to them.

But even that is only part of the greater work, which is telling the story of Jesus and inviting the world around us to enter that story.  Evangelical pastors have no excuse for ignoring the evils of racism in our country.  We have to decry this evil.  Neither can we allow ourselves to get sucked in to causes to the point that those causes become our central, defining call.  Fighting white supremacy is a part of denouncing evil and denouncing evil is a part of our Monday Work – the work of telling the Good News of Jesus Christ. 

Our best strategy is to offer the world a competing narrative.  In our story, the oldest, truest story, the only forever story, God is love, loves all people, and all who come to him through Jesus are saved.  Blacks and whites can stand together as saved persons, brothers and sisters in the name of Christ. 

I know this isn’t much of a social commentary on the horrors of white nationalism, the impotence of the President’s statements, or the next steps to be taken by equality-minded groups like #blacklivesmatter.  I’m not social commentator.  I am a disciple of Jesus.  The best thing I can share is that Jesus’ heart is with those who have suffered from the evils of racism and Jesus is the savior for the poor and disadvantaged.  I hope my life and my church lives out that truth and draws people to Christ.  I hope this is my story the rest of my life.

Racial Justice: Coming Together

            A play date!  That’s what Deidra Riggs said fixed things.  She was talking about a when her husband Harry was 4 years old.  At a birthday party, he and another 4-year-old almost came to blows over a helium balloon.  His mother decided the way to solve this pre-k feud was to call the other boy’s mom and schedule a play date.  The boys became good friends and stayed that way for over 50 years.[i] 

            Oh that we could settle things with playdates. 

Oh that we could all see as 4-year-olds see. 

“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”  Jesus said that (Matthew 18:4). 

I know the issues that divide people are complicated.   As a white, educated, middle class, American male, I am acutely aware of particular divisions between people perpetrated by individuals like me.  White males of means displaced, killed, and emasculated the indigenous people in the Americas.  We (white males) enslaved Africans, hauled them to the Americas in the horrific middle passage, and then tried to strip their humanity in ‘the peculiar institution.’  We replaced slavery with Jim Crow, and Jim Crow with mass incarcerations.  We put American citizens of Japanese descent in internment camps.  And today millions of white Americans, blissfully ignorant of any of this history, profess their innocence and their disinterest. 

Understanding our own collective racism is too complicated.  We just want to be happy and go to Heaven when we die.  Dealing with the complexities of generational, systemic, institutional racism is too messy.  To get into discussions about privilege threatens us with guilt.  We came after slavery and Jim Crowe, we say.  Those things aren’t my fault.  We want to claim we are “colorblind” and then spend our energy and resources pursuing our own happiness. 

It’s not that simple.  But it is.  Riggs’ book is not about playdates.  But it is.  She knows how complicated and how simple human relationships are.  Her book is about loving God and loving neighbor and doing the work to overcome divisions that separate people. That I am reading her book as I enter a Sabbatical from pastoral ministry is providential.  Matthew 10:39 (‘those who lose their life for Jesus’ sake will find it) is the theme verse of my Sabbatical.  I am learning what it means for me as a disciple, as a dad, as a husband, and as a pastor to ‘die to self.’  Deidra Riggs’ book One is one of my primary non-Biblical texts.

My church has sent me away for four months of rest, renewal, and new focus.  One of the things driving me on this Sabbatical and, I believe, in the future of my ministry life is the call of God on the church to bring people together in Jesus’ name.  Uniting diverse people is a direct effect of the Gospel of the salvation we have in Jesus Christ. Look at Ephesians 2:11-21.  Look at Revelation 7:9-10.  Read the entire book of Acts.  Crossing cultural lines and breaking down racial barriers in order to unite divergent groups in Christ is rooted in the Gospel.  All who are a part of Christ hold in their hearts a deeps concern for crossing racial barriers for the sake of loving the neighbor and bringing people together in Jesus’ name.  Let me restate that for the sake of emphasis and clarity.  To love and follow Jesus is to actively oppose racism and to actively advocate for justice and the coming together of all people in Jesus’ name.  The Christian cannot be indifferent concerning racism and still be a Christian.

This, by the way, is a blanket condemnation of Christians who supported Jim Crowe and segregation (not to mention slavery).  There can be no lionizing of our predecessors in Christianity in America or anywhere else where our forbearers tolerated and even promoted the degradation of one racial group while simultaneously exalting another.  Such blatant racism is foreign to the Gospel and that was as clear in 1865 as it is today.[ii] 

Unity, equality, diversity – these words have a Gospel aroma when they are understood in light of the passages I mentioned above as well as John 17 and other New Testament passages.   The yearning for these things is a yearning for the Kingdom of God, where people of all shades and backgrounds joyously come together as one family in Christ.  I believe the church in North America is positioned to sound a clarion call for unity and togetherness.  I especially believe those with privilege (middle class educated whites) are called to sacrifice our own tastes and preferences and to willingly give up power so that minorities who have been held down by systemic racism can have a seat at the table of leadership.  The church is called to set the pace as this generation moves toward equality for all people.  If we, church leaders, can do this, we will help the church show the world the goodness of the Kingdom of God. And that’s our mission, to help people enter the kingdom of God as Jesus’ disciples.

With this sense of calling in mind, Riggs’ observation about how we (“we” humans) approach conversation and interaction is a guide for the Christ-follower.  First, she quotes U.S. ambassador Samantha Power who says, “Some people put themselves at stake when they get involved in a cause.”  My opposition to abortion is as much about my ability to defend pre-birth life as it is about the pre-birth life itself.  I find myself more concerned about how I advocate for the Ethiopian orphan than I am worried about any particular orphan.  No matter what the cause is, when I become strident (for or against it), I am more worried about my own image, which I happen to have attached to said cause.  Ambassador Power’s point is well made.  Whether or not I ever prevent an abortion or a child from starving, I want to make sure my identity and ego are preserved in how I represent myself.

Opposite this self-aggrandizing approach, Riggs makes this salient point.  “Our identity is not impacted by whether or not others agree with us, or even by what others think about us.  Instead, finding the right perspective on who we are is based on understanding whose we are.”[iii]  Hear this.  We are God’s possessions, God’s children, people made new in Christ.  He is master, we are disciples.  He is Lord, we are servants.  Advocating for the unborn and the orphan and the victim of racism and injustice – these are all stances we take and works in which we invest ourselves as a part of our discipleship. 

I don’t fight racism for the sake of fighting racism.  I fight it because that’s what a Christ follower does.  I fight it because in Ephesians 2, we read that Jesus has broken down the dividing wall.  This is true for any cause or in any decision or interaction.  I try to act and think and speak in ways that align me with Jesus.  When I do that, I find myself forcefully rejecting racism.  I find myself exhausted by the yearning for diversity, the longing to see the church today stand as a living embodiment of Revelation 7:9-10.

Riggs shows just how difficult this step into the work of reconciliation is.  She shares a litany of people represented by actions you may support or decry:

-      Women who have had abortions.

-      Men who dress in drag.

-      White people who shoot unarmed black men.

-      People who shoot up crowded movie theaters and elementary schools with automatic rifles.

-      Adulterers.

-      Cheaters.

-      Gay teens from Fundamentalist Christian families.

You may go through her list and wonder how she compiled it.  Maybe you sympathetically identify with some on her list and angrily despise others.  Maybe it is offensive that some on this list would be cited along with others.  I know Deidra Riggs could make a list 2 or 3 times longer than this as could you or I, with people much more divergent than those listed here.  There is but one thing that unites everyone on this list, and this is the author’s point. God loves everyone on this list.[iv] 

Christ followers have two assignments, straight from Jesus.  First, we are two love these people just as God does.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  It’s easier to draw a line in the sand and determine who’s on our side,[v] but God wants us to see it his way.  So, we have to die to our own sense of injustice, to our self-perceptions and self-righteousness.  We have to die to self and see as Jesus sees and love everyone as Jesus loves them; even those we would hate.  Second, we have to help people who don’t know Jesus come to know Him and become his followers. 

That second assignment comes later and in most cases what we actually do through words and actions is witness.  We testify to God’s goodness.  Whether or not people become Christians after hearing our testimony is between them and God.  But whether they ever do or not, our call is to love and to be God’s agents of reconciliation.

            “Reconciliation invites everyone to the table, the wraparound porch, the picnic on a summer afternoon.  All of us, even those we wouldn’t have necessarily chosen to invite.  And isn’t that the point?  We are not in charge of the guest list.  We are guests along with everyone else.”[vi]  Remember, it’s not about who we are, but about whose we are.  Meeting for coffee or talking over beers is the way adults have playdates. 

            I went to a playdate like this a month ago at a Durham (NC) mosque.  There were Jews there, Muslims of course, and Christians.  The food was delicious.  As a “faith leader,” I was, at the last minute, added to the program.  I knew that might happen and had a few remarks prepared.  But when my time to speak came, I shoved my notes in my pocket and ignored them. 

Instead, I began my speech by thanking our Muslim hosts for their generous hospitality.  Then, I repented of the ways Christians have demonized and “hated on” Muslims.  I didn’t affirm Islam.  I didn’t deny the evil done by extremists.  I just stood up, and with a voice that surprised me by its cracking said, “I am sorry.  On behalf of Christians who have been hateful, I am truly sorry.”  Why did I do that?  Because on a playdate, you have to say sorry if you hit your friend.  Also, I did it because when the Holy Spirit prompts us, we need to follow that lead.  

            I believe the Holy Spirit prompted me to go on Sabbatical and prompted my church to celebrate this decision.  I believe the Holy Spirit prompted me to study racial reconciliation as an act of discipleship and to read One as a part of my study.  I now proceed seeking to learn, to love my neighbor, and to follow the next prompting of the Spirit as it comes. 

---

[i] D. Riggs (2017), One: Unity in Divided World, Baker Books (Grand Rapids), p.24.

[ii] In this paragraph, I am not suggesting that specific individuals who claimed faith in Jesus but also supported racist systems and held racist thoughts in their own hearts are condemned to Hell.  Eternal destiny and eternal condition are God’s to determine and I make no effort to say who’s going where after death.  What I am saying is white people who grew up in the Jim Crowe south knew it was wrong at the time.  Failure to stand up to racism is a sin of omission.  To stand idly by and watch as black people are lynched and degraded is as bad as participating in the lynching and degradation.  

[iii] Riggs, p.26.

[iv] Riggs. p.33.

[v] Riggs, p.34.

[vi] Riggs, p.41.

When the Dream Comes True (Matt. 3:1-17)

Sunday, January 17, 2016

           Two sinners, flawed people who make mistakes and fall short of God’s glory. 

Two extraordinary men – there have never been any like these men and their contributions to humanity are greater than can be measured.

Great men?  Sinners fallen short of God?  These men are both.  Consider their lives, their words, and the profound importance of each as I hold each up alongside the other. 

            First, Martin Luther King Jr.   In 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, he said,

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

                       

“I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.”

            Has his dream been realized? 

            However accurate or inaccurate or partially accurate, the perception of many, maybe most black people is that they can’t get a fair shake in business, in education, in health care, in housing, and in numerous other ways in every day.  Statistics bear this out.  Black Americans are less likely to be admitted to the highest universities, less likely to be identified and put in academically gifted programs, and more likely to be suspended from school for offenses that if done by whites often go unpunished.  In nearly every formal institution in our country, blacks get less opportunity for advancement; and, they suffer more harshly and more frequently than whites who commit the same offenses and rules infractions.

            Has Dr. King’s dream been realized? 

            Many African Americans have achieved incredible success.  Condoleezza Rice is a brilliant academic, a political scientist, and former secretary of state.  Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of America’s leading astrophysicists.  Colin Powell is one the great generals in U.S. army’s history.  Ben Carson is a brain surgeon and a presidential candidate.  Clarence Thomas is a Supreme Court justice.  And of course our president, Barak Obama is an African American who has achieved the highest office in the land.  No matter what your personal opinion is of these named, they all merit respect.  This high level achievement and leadership among persons of color had not happened when Dr. King gave that speech.

            On a more personal level, in our day biracial families are accepted as the boundaries for what is considered normal expand.  I did not imagine when we adopted H__ and M__ that we would meet other families just like ours in preschool and then again in our neighborhood, but we have.  Chapel Hill is progressive town and there are places in North Carolina and in other parts of America that are less-welcoming of such diversity.  However, I think across America, there is now a social consensus that racism is evil.  Since Dr. King gave the “I have a Dream Speech” things have changed.

            They have not changed nearly quickly enough.  His poignant phrase “the tranquilizing drug of gradualism” needs to be taken to heart.  Right now, most of the perspectives I get from black people in my circles are different than the perspectives of white people in my circles.  I hate saying “black people think …” or “all white people …” do such and such.  I think the generalizing is unfair.  However, I do feel safe in saying that most black people expertience the world differently than most white people. 

            Dr. King’s context was America, embroiled in racial conflict.  The man I have thought about alongside Martin Luther King Jr. is John the Baptist whom we meet in Matthew’s Gospel.  John burst upon the scene calling the people of Judah to “Repent!  For the Kingdom of heaven has come near.”  He allowed no margin for the luxury of cooling off.  Repentance is a turning – to turn from looking and living in one direction to looking and living in an altogether different direction.  God is over here, but you are oriented over there. You have to radically turn your lives because the way you are currently headed is away from God. 

            Essentially, this was John’s message.  As America today needs to turn away from greed, materialism, racism, elitism, and xenophobia, John said the people in the first century needed to turn away from sin and turn to God. 

Otherwise, we will miss the presence of Jesus even though, he is here.  This season, epiphany, the time after Christmas – this is Jesus’ ‘coming out party.’  We won’t see it, not now, not if we aren’t watching.  To miss it is to live apart from God.  If we live apart from God now, we will be apart from him at the Judgment.  When Jesus returns in the Second Coming to call his own into the Kingdom, we will not be among those counted as his own.  We need to turn. 

We need to turn because currently our gaze is fixed by human wisdom in the direction of today’s definition of success.  Philosophies like individualism, naturalism, and patriotism do not appear inherently evil, but when one of these ways of thinking and seeing define our worldview instead of Jesus defining our worldview, it pull us away from the God who wants to saves us from self-destruction.

“Repent!”  Turn from where we are looking, from what we are thinking, from who we are admiring, from how we are living; turn from this to God. 

In the Gospels are stories of people who met Jesus in person and still could not turn to him because they could not turn away from the allure of wealth or the entrenched racism of their day.  In the New Testament world, the segregation was Jew-gentile.  Today it is white-black, or English speaking-non English speaking; or it is citizen-immigrant; or it is Christian-Muslim.  Whatever divides people by objectifying those not-like-me as “other” – whatever that division point is, it is evil and we must turn from it.  We must in humble confession turn to God.  John preached that.

            Dr. King claimed that God showed him a vision of life – the life to come if people could learn to live in peace and harmony and love for each other; people from all backgrounds.  He said,

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

           

            John also had a sense of what would it would be like when the words he preached became reality.  He said,

¹¹ “I baptize you with^[b] water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with^[c] the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹² His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

            So, two prophets; one condemned racial inequality, the other sin run rampant among the chosen people of God.  King’s denouncing of racism is a damning of sin – a specific arena of sin and for us in 2016, one that arena, racism, continues to trouble our communities because it exists and people of color continue to suffer injustices.  Likewise John the Baptist issued a call that we must heed; we must turn from the ways of the world to the ways of God as we know God in Jesus.

            These two prophets who preached with force and drama had vision.  They imagined the fulfillment of their dreams.  John the Baptist spoke and it was electric; he baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  He will gather the grain, and the chaff. The chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.  People from all walks of life abandoned the comforts of Jerusalem and flooded out to the wilderness to be baptized by him and hear him talk about the one who was to come. 

Who was this Savior John forecast?

What would life be like upon his arrival?  John offered the stark call – repent!  And, he offered the promise of baptism by spirit and fire.

Dr. King named the evil of racism and imagined a world without it. 

So what of it?  What do we make of the preaching and the vision of either man?  Were their dreams realized?  Today we have Travon Martin and Michael Brown and Tamir Rice.  Today secularism is on the rise; Christianity it so politicized, it is stripped of anything in it that resembles faith. 

John was anointed by God.  Dr. King awakened America to God’s compassion for the downcast and God’s hatred of racism and injustice.  Both spoke with power as they cast compelling visions.  So, what do we do with the world as it is?

Imagine John there in the Jordan.  Everyone is spellbound.  In those flowing waters, he appears to be the most powerful man in the world and all who come defer to his passion and his fiery teaching.  The royal official, the temple soldier, the priest, the Roman centurion; before John, they all shrink.  Submissively, they go to the waters.

Then, Jesus comes.  His eyes meet John’s.  John finds himself tongue-tied.  Matthew writes, “Jesus came … to be baptized by him [but] John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’”

He who had cast the pre-vision of the Kingdom fell to pieces when the Kingdom stood before him in the person of Jesus.  John would have stopped Jesus at the start of his ministry.  Why?  I believe seeing Jesus is so overwhelming, we forget everything.  At the same time, we see everything.

We inherit John’s call to repentance and the 1960’s iteration of it in Dr. King’s call to end segregation and build harmony and love across racial lines.  We repent and we work for equality recognizing that when one group of people is wounded by prejudice, we all are.

We anticipate the dreams of these prophets.  God gives glimpses and so we can say with John, Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit.  With MLK, we get glimpses of the Promised Land where black boys and girls and white children and Jewish and Syrian and Chinese and Mexican children all laugh and run and play together, without fear.  We can imagine it.  We spend our lives working for it, reaching for it.

Still we know that we won’t finally reach it until Jesus meets our gaze as he did John’s.  In that moment, face to face, completely exposed before him, completely vulnerable, we feel ourselves wrapped in his arms of love.  Then, we are finally home.

We know that day will come.  Until it does, we honor the prophets who have gone before us by working for love and brotherhood and sisterhood as we understand things in light of the way of Jesus.  We can’t fully say what it will be like when the dream comes true.  So, we imagine, we work for it, we pray for it, and with hopeful expectation and full readiness, we wait for it. 

AMEN