Epiphany 2C - Isaiah 62:1-5, Psalm 36:5-10, 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, John 2:1-11
This is more than a sermon start. It is most of a full sermon preached a few years ago. The accounts in it are where my heart and mind always go when the story of the Wedding at Cana coincides with MLK Day observances. Shorter posts will be back next week.
In this Sunday’s gospel, Jesus’ mother has called on him and he pushes back. “My hour has not yet come,” he says. Don’t call on me, I’m not ready.
In December 1955, Martin Luther King had arrived in Montgomery, Alabama 15 months earlier. He was the new pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. He had been awarded his doctorate from Boston University six months ago. He was 26 years old. He was new to parenthood: his first child had been born just in November. A few months earlier, some had asked him to be president of the local NAACP. He said, “no.” He was not ready. There was too much on his plate and too much he did not know.
In that same month, December 1955, another member of the Montgomery NAACP left work at the end of the day and got on a bus to go home. There was only one seat left in the black section and she took it. As other black riders got on, they stood in the back, even though there were empty seats in the white section. The bus made more stops. The white section filled up. Eventually a white person got on for whom there was no seat in the white section. The bus driver turned around and told Mrs. Parks and the three people in her row to give him their seats. The other three did: Mrs. Parks did not. She stayed put.
That left three empty seats: one next to her and two on the other side of the aisle. But the white passenger did not sit down because the custom of segregation was that whites and blacks would not even sit in the same row. Mrs. Parks stayed put next to three empty seats.
Mrs. Parks talked about what was going through her mind as she sat there. She said that she had not planned to stay put on this day even though the local NAACP had been looking for a test case for some time. She had thought about staying put, in theory, but she did not want to be the test case herself. It wasn’t that she was tired. She didn’t feel especially tired in that moment. But she had been thinking about a talk she had heard four days earlier in church — a talk about Emmett Till. Was that why? Maybe. Maybe not. For some reason, on this particular afternoon, she simply knew that staying put was the right thing to do.
The police came, arrested her and took her to the station. Word got around. Someone came to the station with a white lawyer to bail her out. Word got to Mr. E.D. Nixon — a senior leader in the black community. He started making phone calls. He called Rev. Ralph Abernathy, and told him that he believed Mrs. Park’s case was a perfect test case. He asked if Rev. Abernathy would support a bus boycott. Clergy support would be critical for the success of a boycott. Abernathy said he would support it and suggested that the local clergy meet together in Dr. King’s church: Dexter Avenue Baptist.
Mr. Nixon called Dr. King. Would he support a bus boycott? King said he would think about it. He was not sure he was ready. He was in a new town, in a new church, they had a new baby. He was only 26 years old. They could use his church for meetings, and he would attend, he said, but he had a lot on his plate and he was not sure that he was ready for anything more.
It was Friday. The black ministers formed a group to promote the boycott. They worked with members of the NAACP to advertise a one-day boycott for Monday, and it happened. People stayed off of the busses.
A night-time rally meeting was scheduled for Monday night, because there was a will to continue the boycott. In the afternoon, the organization organizing the boycott met again. It still had no leader. The ministers turned to Dr. King again. Would he lead it? King still wasn’t sure, but this time he said “yes.” They told him he would have to speak that night. People were already gathering at the church. Thousands would be there that night. King went home to prepare. He had about an hour.
He later spoke about that moment, and he said that what he felt was fear: Overwhelming fear that he was not ready and that he would not be adequate. But he went ahead and he spoke that night, and many nights afterwards.
The possibility of a boycott became a reality that lasted 382 days. When it ended the federal courts had ordered buses to be desegregated. King had become a national figure, having led a movement which practiced nonviolent civil disobedience and which educated and started to change America.
It started with people who did not feel ready: a 42 year old woman sitting on a bus, a 26 year old man who was afraid he would not be adequate to the task. A world in pain and a world in need called on them, and they responded.
Last week we talked about “peak experiences” and how glorious life and the world can look to us in those moments: all is right, all is bright and lovely. This week, we hear the world calling to us – not from its glory or potential – but out of its pain and need. In spiritual terms, we can call that the experience of “hearing a call” — having a “vocation.”
Having a vocation is not about a particular job. It is not about being a clergy person. It is about being open, listening to the world and our feelings, letting what we hear resonate in our hearts. We may hear that call as passengers on a segregated bus, or as teachers in a classroom of kids who need to learn, or as researchers in a world that needs better science, as artists in a world that needs beauty, or as citizens in a democracy that other nations in the world watch.
However. Wherever. Whenever the world calls on us, we cannot possibly feel ready or prepared. The needs of the world are huge, and we could not bear to hear this call if we had not first had the consolation of a “peak experience.” But we have.
We don’t need to know exactly what to do or how to fix things, or how it will all work out in the end. We only need to be open to listening, to hearing, and then be willing to respond.
Like Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and Jesus. They heard themselves called, and they responded. They said “yes.” And the power and resources they found in themselves, and one another, and in the One we call God, went far beyond anything they could have asked or imagined.
Thank you for the very important message,
Such a helpful read. Thank you!