Reflection for Jan. 20, 2025

It’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. A day dedicated to the memory of a man who fought injustice and strove for civil rights for people who had been oppressed for far too long. He believed in the beloved community based on reconciliation, non-violence, unity, and more. He was imperfect, because he was human. But the vision he had was aspirational and inspirational. It’s why we remember him today, even as we also should also remember that it wasn’t so long ago that so many opposed what he stood for when it comes to civil rights, war, and economic injustice. Many people like to use quotes attributed to the man, while ignoring what he was attempting to accomplish. That shouldn’t be a surprise though, many people do the same thing with Jesus.

It’s Inauguration Day. A day dedicated to inaugurating a new administration into power through promised words and pomp and circumstance. The man taking the oath of office is also imperfect. There are many who believe him to be inspirational and attach themselves to the vision he has laid out for the nation. In some respects he is continuing a path that this nation has been on for a long time – tapping into national myths of the frontier, the Lost Cause, and the myth of the founding. These are myths that we collectively tell ourselves about the country to sooth the painful reality of the past so we don’t have to deal with it.

It’s a day of service. It’s a day of both sorrow for some and joy for others. It is a day irony. A day of contrast.

MLK, Jr. reminded us that justice is a long, long struggle. I was told by a trusted person that we should not be surprised by injustice and cruelty. We also shouldn’t believe that we are exempt from them either. They have been the norm of most of human history. When we seek justice, we are pushing back on those norms. Trying to re-direct the nation and humanity. Attempting to offer an alternative path forward – one that is rarely, if ever, even tried. And when it is tried, we don’t stick with it when we are slightly inconvenienced.

There’s much to reflect on this day. For politics, for society, for relationships, for so much. I’m going to close with a reflection on the church on this day.

I believe that the institutional church is going to experience a time it hasn’t experienced before- a combination of outside forces imposing on it, and inside forces also trying to impose on it. Both of these are living in fantasy worlds.  Faith makes us see reality for what it is, name it, and proclaim there is a better way.

For the church, this is a time to see what it is made of. How will it handle those outside forces demanding that it adopt this or that to prop up empire. It’s failed at this for 1700 or so years so far, but somehow survived. More often than not, it blessed the violence and cruelty of the state, nation, empire and its ways. Thankfully, there are exceptions – saints (unofficial and official) who said “no” to governing authorities who insisted on dystopian futures. These saints lived and proclaimed the kingdom of God.

And when it comes to the inside forces attempting to impose its own fantasy, how will the church respond? The church is at a low point in terms of being seen as authoritative. And for good reason – the church did itself no favors in covering for abusers. Why would people trust it? Creating a fantasy world inside the church is just another form of abuse – spiritual abuse. It would be saying yes to Satan’s offer in the wilderness. How will we respond to those inside the church who demand that the church adopt its fantasies?

MLK, Jr. can be a guide for us in this. He envisioned a beloved community that didn’t act like the empire and said no to the inside church that turned its head from reality so it could continue to live in a fantasy world. MLK, Jr.’s legacy is really a No and Yes. It is no to the ways of empire – violence and cruelty. It is no to those in the church that value their own comfort over the care of the beloved community. And it is a yes to Jesus and the kingdom of God, which moves us in the direction of Shalom, wholeness, completeness. It is yes to love of neighbor. It is yes to right relationships. It is yes to dedicating one’s life to a vision where all can thrive.