Monday 30 March 2009

We continue this week with King on "Our God is Able" in "The Strength to Love."

In our own nation another unjust and evil system, known as segregation, for nearly on hundred years inflicted the Negro with a sense of inferiority, deprived him of his personhood, and denied him his birthright of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Segregation has been the Negroes burden and America's shame. But as on the world scale, so in our nation, the wind of change began to blow. One event has followed another to bring a gradual end to the system of segregation. Today we know with certainty that segregation is dead. The only question remains how costly will be the funeral.

I cannot read this without pausing to consider the present situation in our country - no worldwide - in regard to the rights of GLBT people. We have let a tradition of convenience and fear and ignorance allow us to keep in place systems that keep folks living as though they are not worth as much as others. In fact, we seem too comfortable living with the notion that GLBT people can be disrespected, cast out of our fellowships, and denied the rights that are to be held up for all. There is, as William Sloan Coffin once wrote and spoke on a number of occasions, one last acceptable prejudice...and it is even backed up by the people who are to be the image of God's dynamic love - the church. As I write this, I'm trying to remember if I ever encountered the kind of racist that were standing in direct opposition to the segregation - so direct that they would become violent. I know a number of people who have been so bigoted against blacks that what I heard come out of their mouths and what they threatened to do is sobering, frightful, and disgusting. But today, I hear bright people content to live within a world that cast GLBT people out of the communion of saints or accept them under a veil of conditions that really means they are not accepted for who they are. I remember dealing with a couple who said they "didn't mind" having gays and lesbians in the church, but they didn't want them to be in relationship and have the church support those relationships. They could not listen to the call to responsible relations or the way we would value all relationships that demonstrate the love and justice and hopefulness of the Reign of God. The only thing they could envision was sexual activity that was not their manner of expressing intimacy. The wall went up, the bias of ignorance stayed in place, and some well-educated and critical-thinking people let the vision of God's Reign fall short in favor of tradition and "what we know and think is right."

Connection: Do we ever move beyond segregation? Or are we always ready to push someone out in order to keep our lives just as we would want them?

Reigning God, take us up into your domain of shalom and the creative power of your rule that inspires justice and the healing of the community of your people. We are not able to go this way alone - we need your life-giving and life-renewing presence. Amen.