Matthew 22:1-14
"Letter from the Birmingham Jail"
"Those
who see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood,
let alone believed, by the masses."
Plato
In other words, if one refuses to go along with the
crowd and the dominant culture, one is considered a "weirdo" and will
not be taken seriously. They are
"non-conformists". But as MLK
observed, "But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body [of Christ] through ... fear of being non-conformists."
One of the most significant works of Martin Luther
King was his "Letter from the
Birmingham Jail". The letter was written in response to concerns
publicly expressed by eight white Alabama religious leaders, Gentile and
Jewish, who had referred to the protests in Birmingham as "unwise and
untimely", concerned as they were for social stability.
They probably meant well in expressing a concern
that while Dr. King's efforts were well intended, it was perhaps not quite the
right time or the right method. At the
very least, the concern was that such a drastic change in local culture would
be better attended to gradually and through the legal system rather than
immediately and so radically by public protest.
Yet it was noted by Dr. King in this 1963 letter that the
"change" through the legal system had come in 1954 by the USSC in
Brown v Board of Education which outlawed segregation.
Dr. King began by writing, "I would like to answer your statement in what I hope will be
patient and reasonable terms ... since you have been influenced by the argument
of 'outsiders coming in'."
These "criticisms" seemed to center around
the fact that Dr. King was from Atlanta, so his coming to Birmingham to meddle
in local affairs was inappropriate because it was none of his business. In Dr. King's absence, they seemed to
believe, all would be well. The irony of
the complaint, however, was that even though these eight clergy seemed to
acknowledge a legitimate problem, they did not seem to appreciate that they
were being forced to see
things as they really were rather than as they perhaps wished they were.
It is like walking through the same door at the same
place time and again. At first something
out of place is noticed but eventually put out of mind through repetition and
lack of concern. Soon that which is out
of place (chipped and/or faded paint, carpet stains, rust, broken things, etc)
is hardly noticed. We get used to what
it is; we "conform" to the present reality.
"Status quo" does not mesh with the very
essence of life because life itself is not static. Life is dynamic and vibrant and should always
be thriving and progressing. But when we
begin to notice - or are forced to
acknowledge - that life is not so dynamic or vibrant for some, that something
is wrong, we are compelled by Christ Himself
to confront rather than conform to the ugly reality that while our own individual
lives may be perfectly fine, things are not so fine for others. It is easy to delegate individual
responsibility, but it is much harder to look at the world through the lenses
imposed on us by "outsiders" who force us to see things - and people
- in a whole different light. The Bible does precisely this.
Dr. King posed a question I find unsettling because
it speaks all too clearly to our current social climate: "Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to
save our nation and the world?"
"If today's church does
not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its
authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an
irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century."
Welcome to the 21st-century church and the reality of Dr. King's greatest
fear: the very Body of Christ being "dismissed [by the masses] as an
irrelevant social club with no meaning",
a body which has "lost its authenticity and has forfeited the loyalty of [quite
literally] millions". There is
harsh truth to all Dr. King wrote in this "Letter"; philosophical,
social, and biblical Truth that was summarily dismissed in his time as not only
having been written by a black man but by an "outside agitator".
I thought about this
"Letter" as I was reading the Exodus
account of the 'golden calf' which, more than anything, challenges us to come
closer to understanding how lost the
"millions" may be - not strictly because they made bad choices but because
the contemporary Church is lost itself. We have become comfortable with "fitting
in" to the popular culture rather than challenging it, quite likely
because we have allowed ourselves over time to be so oriented.
We like to believe we are
independent thinkers, free men and women who are masters of our own universe,
captains of our own charted courses, doing and believing because we think we have
drawn our own conclusions independent of "outside" influence. However, the text of the 'golden calf'
reveals much more than an impatient and faithless people so easily enticed by shiny
baubles. We get a glimpse into the
reality of the human psyche that is much more "conditioned" than it
is "informed".
By this I mean this was a people
who had endured 400 years of slavery.
They had been overpowered and tricked into slavery ("Let us deal shrewdly with
them", Exodus 1:10),
they were fed and cared for as slaves.
Soon they were treated as slaves until they began to breed as
slaves. The culture which had held them
captive for generations worshipped lifeless idols of all sorts, including cast
animal images; so for 400 years this was the life which had become normal to
them. It was what they knew even if they
did not participate. It was what they
had witnessed for so long that they could
not know anything else. They had been sufficiently
"conditioned" to the point that nothing less than a Divine Miracle and
an "outside agitator" would lead them to freedom.
For a time they were willing and
surely excited to follow Moses out of their familiarity, but any interruption
in the new routine would confuse them.
We must be mindful that in their 400 years of "social conditioning",
they had severely limited social capacity.
So when Moses disappeared for so long, the people reverted back to what
they had long been used to, the only "way" they really knew; and
Aaron had no problem with it because he had long been one of them. For all they knew, the "outside
agitator" was dead.
In their state of confusion and
anxiety they returned to the safety of familiarity, the misleading premise and
false promise of "the good ol' days".
What they could not know at the
time was that turning back (even metaphorically) was a return to "status
quo" and, ultimately, death. Their
former lives in Egypt held no promise but death. Yet they were afraid of "change"
and lacked the capacity to see
beyond "the shadow and lies of their
[known and familiar] culture". It was not that they did not want a new life; it was that they were unable to envision anything else.
When Jesus shares His "parable
of the wedding feast", we must realize we are the ones who are so enmeshed
in the culture we've become accustomed to, the Americanized way of life we are familiar
with, than even such a Divine Invitation that calls us OUT of that culture and
into something glorious may not be as welcome as it will be a serious
disruption and threat to the only life we really know.
As it is now, we can very
comfortably compartmentalize our "church" life apart from our
"real" life and find no difficulty in doing so because we can tune in
and tune out as the situation may warrant; our "real" life demands
our fullest attention because that's where the money is - the bills and
paychecks and pensions. And the "SELF" which has been called out by
Christ from the "bondage of myths
and half-truths" has been lost to the "unbiblical distinction between ... the secular and the
sacred" - as Dr. King had observed.
Some have suggested religion is
little more than a social "brain washing" designed to control the
masses. What we must see, however, is
that the TRUE SELF was created in the
Divine Image, distorted through
social and cultural conformity, and reoriented
to the TRUE SELF with the Advent of Messiah and the radical nature of the
Gospel. It is the INVITATION extended to
us when we are challenged to self and social evaluation - and - critical analysis
not to determine if we are "popular" with our neighbors but whether
we are faithful to our Redeemer.
We must not ignore the reality of
what Messiah is teaching: that "many are called, but few are
chosen" (Mt 22:14). This is
not a human abstract; it is the mind and foreknowledge of The Lord. It will be the "faithful" who are
"chosen", but the "popular" (the "many") will not
even recognize the Call.
We are not called to social
"conformity"; we are called to Divine Glory. It is long past time to awaken and answer that Call.
Amen.
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