ADr King's Unfinished Agenda"

 

A Sermon by the Rev. Dr. Bruce Clear

Sunday, January 15, 2006

All Souls Unitarian Church

Indianapolis, Indiana

 

 

Human beings, as a species, are very slow learners. 

Some dogs can be trained to treat others with respect.  Parrots can talk, and if they are taught the correct vocabulary, they can talk politely and considerately.  Even elephants can learn not to step on mice or monkeys if they get in the way. 

But human beings, as a species, are very slow learners.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his life and ministry, tried to teach a great deal.  He taught us that hatred only leads to more hatred, and in the end, everyone loses.  He taught us that love is far more powerful than hate.  He taught us that this nation cannot cele­brate freedom unless it offers freedom for all.  He taught us to be vigilant in our pursuit of justice, for justice must be won and protected – it is not granted without effort.  He taught us to value people for their inherent worth, and not on the basis of their genetic code.  He taught us that non-violent resistance to evil is in the long run a more effective tool than vio­lent response.  Violence, he tried to tell us, always leads to more violence. 

But you see, we human beings, as a species, are very slow learners. 

In the thirty-seven years since King was assassinated, there have been significant, though only partial, improvements in these areas.  The laws have been changed to virtually eradicate statu­tory racism, but the culture has a long way to go to catch up with the laws.  The media have become, as they say, "sensitized" to racism, and gener­ally avoid overt racist stereotypes and references, and often display model racial harmony.  Before the civil rights movement, racial stereotypes were so ingrained that the average American didn’t even know what a racist stereotype was, and fewer people cared.  And yet racist prejudices continue today to be passed from parent to child, and many people become complacent with assurance that if our TV news anchors include a Black man and an Asian woman, we must have achieved racial justice. 

Yet, the distance between income of black fami­lies and white families continues to broaden.  There has been little or no progress in the integration of neighborhoods, issues of racial justice have been put on the back burner for most people in our gov­ernment, political candidates win elec­tions by appealing to the racial fears and animosities of the voters, and civil rights legis­lation now seems at the bottom of the nation’s agenda. 

Human beings, as a species, are very slow learners. 

Dr. King was a champion of non-violence.  When other out­raged voices called for armed revolution, King stuck to princi­ples, arguing that more justice could be won through love and peaceful resis­tance to evil than through violent reaction to evil.  "We must not become like those who oppose us," he would say.  If we reject their violence, we cannot be violent.  If we reject their hate, we cannot become hateful. 

But human beings, as a species, are very slow learners.

History, I hope, will note the pitiful irony, that on January 15, 2005, the 76th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, who was our generation's prophet of peace, the world seemingly still looks to war as the first, rather than the last, response to perceived threat. 

Slow learners, indeed. 

 

Dr. King had a deep confidence in the potential for progress of the human species, and it seems that the greatest challenge for our generation is to un­derstand whether King's confidence is warrant­ed.  Is his confidence in human progress warranted?  Our recent history seems to mock that confidence. 

            The spectacle of lobbyists buying political influence has made a mockery of our so-called system of democracy.  The mix of money and politics is making a sham of our claim to be a model of democratic justice for the entire world.  We preach democracy and freedom abroad, but at home we seem increasingly to practice oligarchy – government controlled by the privileged class of wealthy influence buyers.  It is increasingly obvious that the world stands unimpressed by our hypocrisy.  The sense of urgent compassion in our nation that once gave rise to the Peace Corps or the civil rights movement seems now to be replaced by an urgent need to buy politicians and power.  The passion for justice is becoming replaced by the passion for greed. 

            In the race for power, influence, and greed, the social infrastructure of our nation has been ignored.  Schools, health care, social security, poverty, and especially the federal deficit have all been set aside for the next generation to deal with. 

            Is Dr. King’s confidence in human progress warranted?  It makes one wonder. 

 

At the time of King's death, there was, indeed, a growing national consen­sus that issues of racial justice were of primary importance.  Since then, concern for race relations and racial harmony has slipped down to an almost forgotten agenda in our government. 

Few political candidates find much political currency these days in appeal­ing to the electorate's conscience and sense of justice.  Far better to play on our fears of racial conflict, they find.  A country that was once proud of taking in the “tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free” appears inclined toward an isolationism that fears immigrants and foreign minorities on our streets. 

            Racial stereotypes are back, even if they are more subtle these days.  Take the so-called drug war, for example.  It is directed pri­marily at racial minorities, yet 80% of the cocaine consumed in this country is used by middle and upper class white people.  Why is it that in those TV shows that dramatize police cracking down on drugs it shows them cracking the heads of Black people far more often than the heads of white people who are running the opera­tion, or, in 80% of the cases, using the drugs? 

It almost seems as if, when the bullet fell Martin Luther King in 1968, the country became anesthetized to is­sues of race relations, and tabled the issue of racial justice; maybe the next generations can deal with it.  You know, like they'll have to fix the deficit. 

Is Dr. King's confidence in human progress warranted?  It makes one won­der.          

What has been paramount in all our minds this year, the issue of war and peace, was a deep concern to Martin Luther King, as we all know.  King was a vocal critic of the Vietnam disaster, and spoke of it as a natural extension of a violent society expressing itself violently in foreign policy. 

Did we learn from that experience?  One can only wonder.  But here we are again, as before, with predictions of Armageddon if we don’t “stay the course,” and commitment to war as the only possible solution.  Vio­lence again seems to be our nation's "quick fix" solution.  We are a nation of fast food, fast reme­dies, and we keep hoping but without success, fast wars. 

Is Dr. King's confidence in human progress warranted?  It makes one won­der.          

What I do know is this:  Human beings, as a species, are very slow learners. 

 

I am here this morning to say that I believe King's confi­dence is not mis­placed.  Sure, we are slow learners, but I think we have learned, and we are improving, bit by bit, and not the least because we had someone like King to teach us. 

            Comparing the world Dr. King face with today’s world reveals that there is a rising learning curve, however gradual.  The laws of oppression have changed, even if society lags behind.  During the days of Martin Luther King, those who advocated for civil rights, for voting rights or equal housing, for example, were believed by many to be subversive trouble-makers, even communists.  Today, society at least nominally affirms equal rights as a worthy goal, and that goal is not controversial. 

There is a national consensus now that, on issues of race, Martin Luther King was right.  But King was more than just right.  He has become a symbol of what this country is supposed to be about, and a symbol of the gap that exists between our ideals and real­ity, a symbol of the deep commitment we must make to closing that gap, if we are to be true to, as King said, our nation­al creed that we are all created equal.  Almost all Americans now at least acknowledge the rightness of closing that gap between the ideal and the reality of justice. 

We may be slow learners, but I believe we can, and are, learning. 

 

King's influence had a spiral ef­fect that has not yet finished spinning.  His passion for justice has been extended far beyond even his own vision.

It was King who could point clearly to the obvious gap between the ideal and the real when came to our nation's prom­ise of justice for black Americans.  A few years later, taking his vision as inspiration, many women began to identify the gap between the ideal and the real when it came to our nation's promise of justice for women.  Other inconsistencies in our nation's promise of equal justice could then come into view.  The way we treated other minorities – Asians, Hispanics, Native Americans, and more recently Middle Eastern Americans.  Or for that matter, it is only recently that society has shown concern for the rights of the disabled and the elderly.  The landmark debate in our city council this year over anti-discrimination concerning sexual orientation would not have taken place without the vision of justice articulated by Dr. King. 

Justice spirals out.  When it starts spinning, its revolu­tions only get wider and wider.  It was Dr. King who started the spiral of justice in the 20th century, and it continues to broaden in the 21st. 

 

Dr. King showed us a dream, but beyond the dream he showed us the resolve to struggle for it.  That dream is secure in our nation's vision.  The problem is, it seems to me, that while the dream is largely a national vision, we have failed to make it a personal one. 

Too often, we restrict our image of his message to its political and social implications.  A much harder task, and that which remains the heart of the unfinished agenda of the movement, is its personal moral dimension.  We have adopted so much of the dream as our national myth, but the harder step of incorporating the vision into our own lives remains the unmet challenge.

The progress we have made as a nation is remarkable.  The painful truth is that it is not enough.  Unless and until the dream becomes a personal moral vision, unless and until the dream is lived not just in the laws but in our lives, the task inspired by the courage of Dr. King=s vision will remain unfinished. 

The principles of Dr. King=s dream are universal principals which deal with respect for the inherent worth and dignity of every person.  It seems to me that our country is, at this moment, stuck by keeping these principles at the universal level and not adopting them as personal principles.  But when it comes to principles, there is really no moral difference between the personal and the universal.  To explain that statement let me dip a moment into the field of moral philosophy. 

            Some ethicists tell us that all morality is grounded in one simple rule.  That simple rule is called the “universalization principle.”  According to this principle, we can judge the rightness of our own behavior by universalizing that behavior:  it is right for us to do if we believe it right for everyone else to do.  Put differently, if we act one way, we are saying that everyone else would be right by acting that way.  Examples of this principle are easy to come by. 

If you exceed the speed limit, you are making the ethical statement that approves everyone exceeding the speed limit.  If you pick a flower from a public park, you are saying it is O.K. for everyone to pick flowers from public parks.  If you litter, you are giving ethical approval of littering for everyone. 

That is how universalization works; it is a simple but effective rule.  It applies very broadly:  from cheating on your income tax to cheating on your spouse, from robbing a bank to deceiving your boss.  Whenever we do this behavior, we are giving moral approval for everyone else to do it. 

            This has been the central argument over the question of torture of prisoners.  If we approve of torturing prisoners, we are by our actions condoning torture as permissible behavior, and making acceptable the torture of our own soldiers when they are captured.  It’s the simple universalization principle. 

The universalization principle is itself universal.  It is found in all religions, understood in all cultures, and is the very foundation of all ethics.  And it is the most practical tool for deciding right from wrong.  You may also recognize it from its more popular name, which in our Western Christian tradition is called AThe Golden Rule.@ 

Dr. King=s message was nothing more than applying the ethical principle of universalization to our national life.  He demanded that, in his words, we begin to live up to the meaning of our national creed:  that all people are created equal.  If it is wrong for the government to discriminate against you, it is wrong for the government to discriminate against anyone.  If it is wrong for you to be treated as a second class citizen, it is wrong for anyone to be treated that way.  If it is wrong to offer you an inferior education, or make you sit in the back of the bus, or prevent you from voting, then it is wrong to have laws that allow this for anyone else. 

In this sense, Dr. King=s message was a simple one, as simple as right and wrong.  But never in our history has such a simple and self-evidently true message received such strong and even violent resistance.  Dr. King was physically beaten, verbally abused, frequently arrested and jailed, spied upon by government agencies, publicly rebuked from the halls of Congress, from the offices of the F.B.I., and from thousands of church pulpits across the land. 

Why was he hated so much?  My best guess at an answer to that question is that King revealed to us as a nation our own moral failings.  When he held up the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence as a standard for how we should act as a nation, it was as if he were holding up a mirror, and we did not like what we saw in that mirror. 

Those who were so malicious and brutal against Dr. King, I suspect, were reacting that way because deep down, they knew he was right.  Most human beings have that basic ethical instinct – we call it conscience – and those ethics are built on that universalization principle. 

It is a natural human instinct, I suppose.  When we discover ourselves to be in the wrong, we sometimes get our backs up, and it is often at those times that we get angriest about those who have shown us that we are wrong. 

It was, indeed, a very painful process, but ultimately this country has made a statement through its laws and policies that it disapproves of discrimination and bigotry.  I am not about to say the legal struggle is over, but I do expect we are on the irreversible path toward legal protection of equal rights. 

The surprise we now discover is that there are deeper problems to face.  Restructuring national policy is only part of the struggle.  The personal moral commitment to accepting everyone is the other part, and we are finding it is far more difficult to do. 

The universalization principle connects the universal with the personal.  The way I behave defines how I think everyone should behave.  Over the last fifty years our country has struggled toward a general consensus about the universal.  Our consensus has been that we want a country with equal rights and opportunities, that does not discriminate or oppress, and where the laws protect these values. 

The shock has been to discover that this is the easy part.  In the connection between the universal and the personal, it is the personal that is far harder to achieve. 

There is no moral difference between the personal and the universal.  No matter how much progress we make as a society and a nation toward the goal of justice and equal rights, unless we take that universal vision and make it personal, unless we examine our individual and personal lives and values, and discover how these principles reflect our own ethics, and unless and until the universal values we affirm become the principles we live, Dr. King=s agenda will remain unfinished. 

 

            But we know it can be done.  The largest impediment to achieving that unfinished agenda is a widespread cynicism that it cannot be done.  But cynicism about human nature has a tattered legacy.  The cynics once said that slavery was so imbedded in human nature that it couldn’t be destroyed.  The cynics were wrong.  The cynics told us generations ago that monarchy was the only way humans were capable of governing themselves.  The cynics were wrong.  Today the cynics tell us that racism is so innate to human nature that we can never destroy it.  I say they are wrong. 

            It won’t be easy, but we are set on the road that, however many generations it may take, is inevitable.  Dr. King addressed a wide variety of issues in his life, and there is much in his agenda that needs to be completed in our generation.  Racial injustice, economic injustice, poverty, hate, war, and violence all loom large on the list of King's unfinished agenda. 

And yet today it strikes me that for our time and for our people one issue on his agenda is more important than any other.  That issue is to over­come the cynicism which cripples us from believing in the reality of justice and the reality of peace.  This confidence in the human ability to establish a just society is the most valuable gift King left, and it is threatened today as never before. 

It is not starry-eyed idealism, for we have, as a species, over time, learned to establish a more just soci­ety.  At the top of King's unfinished agenda is a recommitment to confidence that we, as a species, can learn to overcome. 

As King said upon accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964,

 

AI accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an auda­cious faith in the future of humanity.  I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of our present nature makes us morally incapable of reaching the "ough­tness" that forever confronts us. 

AI refuse to accept the idea that human beings are mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life which surrounds us.  I refuse to accept the view that we are so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and justice can never become a reality...

AI have the audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.  I believe that what self-centered people have torn down, other-centered people can build up....

AI still believe that we shall over­come.@