When church is deeply dangerous

(Photo by John Morse, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=569761)

The 16^th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., was bustling the morning of Sept. 15, 1963, as the faith community prepared for its Sunday service.

They gathered even though Black churches across the South were firebombed and the homes of their leaders were set ablaze by white supremacists intent upon keeping Jim Crow the law of the land.

As the service was about to begin, dynamite exploded beneath the front steps. Four girls were killed. Many others were seriously hurt.

Why were Black churches so frequently targeted by those defending the status quo? That’s a relevant question for Black History Month.

Short answer: Black churches were accurately perceived as a threat to the status quo. Faith-filled people gathered each week in beloved community, shared the Good News, felt the Spirit, had hope renewed, prayed for justice, and left their sanctuaries to go work with God to change their world.

On earth, as in heaven.

They didn’t merely recite those words to the foundational prayer; they lived those transformative words despite the cost. They went out their front doors to elevate the poor, liberate the oppressed, challenge unjust systems, and love everyone equally as a child of God.

Are we doing the same today in faith communities? How can we do it more like them?

We focus on building beloved communities where people’s physical and spiritual needs are met, and rightfully so. But it’s easy to get so caught up in what’s happening within our walls that we forget our faith communities are meant to be launching points into our wider communities.

“a taillight rather than a headlight”

We’re called to leave the safety of our stained-glass space and do this work of challenging attitudes and systems that treat some as less than a beloved child of God.

And that’s when the work of faith becomes dangerous.

A transformative faith community is a threat to the status quo. It’s always been that way. Jesus’ message — the last are first, the poor are blessed, the rich are living woefully, everyone is your neighbor to be loved – was unpopular then and now.

We’re called to be light for the entire world and salt for the whole earth. Not only are we obligated to help the hurting and the needy, we also are obligated to challenge the injustices that leave so many people hurting and needy.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was saddened by how in this prophetic work, the church has often been “a taillight rather than a headlight … an echo rather than a voice.” He was disheartened by faith communities functioning as little more than social clubs, “more cautious than courageous” in areas where faith ought to lead us.

“an echo rather than a voice”

His Letter from Birmingham Jail was directed to white religious leaders who agreed with his principles but urged him to stop pushing for justice, which was placing them on dangerous ground within the white church circles that provided safe harbor for supremacists.

His response: “The judgement of God is upon the Church as never before.”

In religious circles today, there’s much discussion about where church is heading, what it will look like in years to come, how it’s changing, and what it should do to adapt to the times.

A starting point is to open wider to the love-bearing, reconciliation-seeking, justice-driven Spirit that refuses to be confined to sanctuary or pew.

To follow that Spirit as it leads us out of our safe spaces onto the holy ground around us where there’s much work to be done. To be light and salt where they’re not wanted or welcomed.

To be churches that are considered threatening because they brightly illuminate what many people would rather not see.

MLK and dry-as-dust religion

Martin Luther King, Jr., sought not only to change society, but to reform religion as well. From the start, he challenged people of faith to recognize the demands of their faith and live them courageously.

He challenges us today.

He reminds us that we can’t call ourselves people of faith if we lack interest in how people are being treated. We can’t be indifferent to the suffering of others and claim that we’re living by the admonition to love one another.

King understood that people of faith are not only obligated to transform their societies through the power of love, they’re in a unique position to do so.

As a young pastor in Montgomery — in the heart of Klan country — MLK noted that so many churches were talking about heaven but ignoring the injustices right outside their doors. He said any religion that’s not concerned with how God’s children are being treated is “a dry-as-dust religion.”

The Civil Rights Movement got its flashpoint when Sunday school teacher Rosa Parks decided faith impelled her to resist an unjust transportation system. Black church leaders used the moment to push for equality for all God’s children.

Many white churches resisted. Years later, when he was imprisoned for a march in Birmingham, MLK wrote his famous letter pushing back against white clergy urging him to be silent and go away.

King wrote in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” that any church which fails to bring God’s values to bear on conditions in our world “will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning” for contemporary times.

Irrelevant social clubs

King observes how young people in particular were drifting away, their disappointment turning into disgust for what was being passed off as church in so many instances.

He was prophetic.

A half-century later, millions have left churches that feel dry as dust, searching instead for authentic faith communities. They seek the places that are rooted in love and follow the historical summons to care for the needy, welcome the stranger, embrace the refugee, heal the sick, and challenge systems that harm God’s children.

They’ve given up on churches that are fixated on sex and indifferent to injustice. They want nothing to do with places that are invested in liturgy but lacking in love.

Breathe new life into dust

Love is the foundation of all living religion, and it isn’t a feeling or an ideal. It’s a commitment to treat others as ourselves and stand with those who are marginalized.

When we’re animated by such faith, we follow wherever it leads us, even when the path is unpopular, unsettling, uncharted and unsafe.

If our lives aren’t enlivened by such love, then they’re dry as dust. MLK reminds us that when we refuse to stand up for what is right, our lives have essentially ended. If our lives stand for nothing more than self-interest, it’s as though we’re not even here.

This summons to people of faith extends to us today.

Love — the real thing — can breathe new life into any life, society or religion that has become dry as dust. Love and love alone has the power to resurrect.

“With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.”
— from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech, Aug. 28, 1963

Serving without exception

Self-described Christians are refusing to serve gay couples. The president’s spokeswoman was denied service by a restaurant owner with deeply held beliefs.

Our society is fraying. The refuse-to-serve mentality is spreading, leading us to a dark place.

As Gandhi taught, an eye for an eye and soon the whole world is blind.

We don’t have to continue down this road blindly. We can light another way. But if we want to be that light, we can’t reject, shun or demean anyone.

Instead, We must love, serve and respect everyone. Each of us has many such opportunities each day.

Last weekend, my church participated in the local Pride Parade. As we waited for the march to begin, a man walked through the crowd carrying a sign that said, “Jesus Is Coming.” He told us we were horrific sinners doomed to burn in hell.

We had to decide how to respond. Do we ignore him? Argue with him? We chose to offer kindness. We smiled, said hello and offered him a bottle of water. He was free to turn it down, but he graciously accepted it.

We didn’t attack his views but respectfully explained ours – Jesus is already here, calling us to love everyone. We wished the man a blessed day as he went on his way.

Serving others doesn’t mean endorsing their beliefs; it’s recognizing and respecting them as a child of God. To refuse service is to deny the image of God within each of us.

There are many ways to advocate for our beliefs. Demeaning others is not one of them.

Faith is service

Many self-described Christians argue that living their values means shunning those who believe differently. It’s a dishonest claim. If love is your core value, then every act of kindness and service is an expression of faith, not a rejection of it.

Sacrificial service is the heart of God’s value system. It’s the only way out of our current darkness.

What’s happening today isn’t new. Sadly, it’s been the norm in our society. Over the centuries, many Christians have refused to love and serve black people and Native American people and many others – including other Christians — whom they deemed inferior.

In Jesus’ time and place, many religious people also shunned those who lived and believed differently, insisting that any interaction with them amounted to participating in their impurity and their sin.

Jesus took direct aim on that attitude.

He befriended the marginalized and the shunned, pushing back hard against the religious people who objected. He ate with those whom others labeled great sinners.

To Jesus, a lack of love was the only sin. He understood that simply telling someone to change means nothing; we must be a source of the unconditional love that makes change possible.

And when the religious leaders objected to all of this, he told them to worry more about the plank in their own eye — take a good look at yourself and drop that stone from your hand.

Lack of love is the only sin

Instead, be like the Samaritan in the parable, the shunned person who gets it right because he loves and serves. Don’t be like the religious people who walk past with their noses in the air.

Be a source of love.

As Martin Luther King, Jr. reminds us, hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that. That’s the rule we must apply.

We need to remember that shunning doesn’t help anyone grow or change. Only love can do that.

Refusing service doesn’t fulfill our faith. Only love can do that.

We can’t vanquish darkness by bringing more darkness into the world. Only love can do that.

That is the way, the truth and the light that can lead us to a better place.

Leaving a mark on the worn counter

The blue, tan and pink-trimmed booths hearken to the 1950s, when The Arcade Restaurant in downtown Memphis was renovated after a fire. It’s a cool place because of the history – a Greek immigrant opened the restaurant in 1919, and it’s undergone many renovations over the generations.

There’s a booth by the back door that Elvis favorited – he could slip in and out unobtrusively. A plaque marks the spot. There are black-and-white photos spanning generations.

What caught my eye were the marks on the serving counter.

In front of each stool was a rub mark along the edge of the counter. For generations, people have walked in off the street, sat on a stool, rested their forearms on the counter, and unknowingly rubbed off a little of its laminate.

Every person left a bit of their DNA behind and took a bit of the counter with them. Each one contributed to the mark.

In our society, we try to keep things nice-looking and new. When a counter gets a bit worn, we replace it. Not the counter at The Arcade, though.

It’s a reminder of how our lives intersect.

I looked at the worn spots and wondered: Who made these marks? Who sat here?

How many children sat on these stools with their parents and shared their first meal at a restaurant, a moment they’ll remember and retell for the rest of their lives?

Or maybe on that stool sat a black person who’d been turned away from lunch counters their entire life, now proudly ordering a cup of coffee that had the sweet taste of equality?

Perhaps the white person sitting next to that proud black person was unhappy over all of this and huffily moved to a different spot or different restaurant.

Maybe those marks in the counter were fashioned by someone on their way home from the hospital after receiving devasting news about a relative. Or maybe by a new parent still feeling that Adrenalin rush on their way home from visiting their son or daughter in the maternity ward.

Maybe all the above.

The marks were worn into the counter by someone who just got a job, and someone who just lost a job. Someone who recently got married, and someone who recently got divorced.

A newcomer to the city feeling homesick as they thought about a similar diner in their old neighborhood. A visitor like me taking it all in with fresh eyes.

So many lives intersected at those places on the counter top.

Rubbing off on each other

I was reminded of that when we paid our check and headed out the door. A few blocks to the west is the Mississippi River, a wide expanse that has deposited many visitors to the restaurant’s doorstep over the century.

Beal Street is only a few blocks away, a place where different musical styles intersected and overlapped and gave birth to many more. So is Sun Studio, where musical pioneers – including Elvis – cut their first record.

The Lorraine Motel is blocks away, too, the place where Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated 50 years ago on the balcony outside room 306. So is the church where he gave his final speech on the night before he death, speaking so powerfully about how we need to keep moving toward the promised land.

So much history, so many lives, all intersecting and rubbing against one another – and rubbing off on each other, too.

We tend to forget that last part, how we all influence and are influenced by so many others. How we’re never in our own space alone – we share the places of those who have come before us.

The reminder is right in front of us on the counter.

All the young prophets

Watching the huge crowds of people marching worldwide Saturday reminded me of the 1960s, when there were demonstrations for civil rights, women’s rights, an end to a war, the environment, and many other causes.

We’ve come a long way as a society. A lot of progress awaits. In every instance, change arrives in the same way.

It starts with courageous and prophetic people who insist that the status quo is no longer acceptable. We see it in the spirit-filled young people challenging our acceptance of the ongoing slaughter in our society.

Several lines in scripture remind us: “I send you prophets.” We hear that promise fulfilled in the thousands of young voices calling on us to repent of our failure and transform our society.

We’re also reminded that prophets gather a following, but they’re not popular with most people in their societies. They get treated badly by those determined to keep things just as they are.

And when the movement begins to gain traction and it appears that change is occurring – it’s going to be more than just a march or a speech – those invested in the status quo will fight back ruthlessly to protect their privilege and profits.

I send you prophets

But finally, things reach a tipping point. Significant change occurs, and then we stagnate. We find ourselves at a crossroad again. New prophets emerge to lead the next part of the movement.

That’s how the process works. We’ve seen it play out many times and in many ways during the last half-century alone. What’s required now is persistence and faithfulness.

The moral arc is long, but it keeps bending so long as we keep tugging.

We saw this when a young woman in Montgomery, Alabama decided she wasn’t moving to the back of the bus any more – enough was enough. Her courageous determination sparked the Civil Rights Movement, a long struggle that has made much progress but remains a work in progress. The Promised Land hasn’t yet been reached.

We’ve seen generations of courageous women say it’s long past time that they’re treated as equals in society – more than a servant or sex object. We’ve come a long way, with a long way yet to go. The #MeToo movement is just beginning to transform the world in ways no one thought possible even a few months ago.

In a comparatively short time, there’s been great progress in making sure gay people and transgender people are treated as equals.

Bending the arc

We’ve changed how we think about physically and mentally challenged people, finally recognizing them as fully and wonderfully human in every way.

People are working to help the needy, the immigrant, and the refugee receive the respect and the care they deserve as children of God, even as others argue they’re dangerous and lazy and should be ignored.

We’ve seen mothers who lost their children to drunk drivers change an entire culture’s outlook and save many lives despite great opposition from those who wanted things to remain the same.

Movements take time. They have an ebb and flow – two steps forward, one step back. People lose interest or get distracted. Others get tired of struggling. Some insist that a little progress is enough and the movement should stop.

There can be no stopping. When it feels like we’ve hit a wall, we need to remember it’s only temporary so long as we maintain our resolve to keep going.

There will be times when it feels like all the hard work and all the progress have been crushed and buried in a cold, dark tomb covered by a giant rock that no one can roll away.

Let this week remind us that those who are co-workers with God never get buried for long. Someone always rolls the rock away. Love always rises and re-emerges, as strong and as determined as ever.

Let us rise with it, too.

Keeping the faith

So now we know what we must do.

Sometimes it takes a stunning event to jolt us out of our complacency and realize that so many conflicting values are in play in our world, including our own backyard. And people can be easily swayed one way or another.

There are daily choices for each of us to make. Which will be our overriding values today? Power, or compassion? Hatred, or love? Greed, or gratitude? Selfishness, or service? Life, or fear?

We all vacillate between values. Our nation’s founders vacillated – they didn’t live up to their own beautiful words about how all people are created equal. They owned slaves and excluded women. Our nation has struggled to live up to those beautiful words since its founding, with spirit-filled people coming along in each age to challenge us to live them more deeply and inclusively.

A new day

It’s a never-ending process. And it’s never smooth or easy. Some values may carry the day, but that is only for one day. And now, that day is yesterday. Today is a new day, another chance to choose and champion those greater values.

We know what we must do.

We must be willing to put ourselves on the line and work with one another to make those greater values our greater good. We need to have courage and commitment and audacious hope.

We must be committed to making the world a place where everyone is seen and treated as an equally beloved child of God.

We need to be ready to bleed sacrificially to bring love and compassion and healing and peace to a world so wounded and fearful that it would build walls and let fear diminish us and divide us.

We know what we must do

We must stand against those who want our world to be a place where people are judged based upon the color of their skin or the lineage of their ancestry or the way that they love.

We must stand against those who see women as property or playthings that can be dominated and grabbed and violated.

We must stand against those who believe that religion is a tool of exclusion and condemnation.

We must stand against those who believe that bullying and violence are our only solutions.

We must stand against those who want fear of one another – instead of love for one another — to be our defining trait.

We know what we must do.

Give ourselves to the struggle

On the day before he was assassinated, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. told a gathering at a church in Memphis that “the world is all messed up, the nation is sick, trouble is in the land, confusion all around. … But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And I see God working …

“We’ve got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end. … Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge, to make American what it ought to be.”

We know what we must do.

Although wounded and disappointed, we must not give up. We must give ourselves sacrificially to the struggle.

We must awake each morning renewed, ready to put our hands back on the moral arc of the universe and tug on it so that it bends a little bit more toward justice. And we must remember to feel for that set of hands on top of ours, the hands of Someone who is pulling along with us always.

Fight the fight. Run the race. Keep the faith.

That’s what we must do.