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Dear Friends, The other night at Shiloh AME Zion Church I participated in the community-wide worship service honoring the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I was one of four speakers, sharing the time with a Rabbi, and Imam, and the pastor of Shiloh. The MLK Celebration Choir, under the direction of Freddie Morrison, was there, the church was full, and we all had a great, uplifting time. My charge, given by the person who invited me to speak, was to bring words of hope. But in so many ways hope seems to be in short supply. All our utility bills are way up. Food is up. Unemployment in Iredell County is over 12%, and many downtown establishments have had to close their doors. We’re sending more men and women off to a war in Afghanistan, and the global climate is suffering. And now, thousands (I’m hearing 200,000) are dead and millions are displaced in Haiti as the result of an earthquake. Hope is not always an easy thing to bring. But hope rises above the insurmountable claims of reality. Hope is stronger than our darkness, stronger than our fear. Of Abraham Paul wrote that “hoping against hope, he believed that he would become the father of many nations.” Zechariah commanded his fellow citizens to “return to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope.” Captives of hope though we may be, we are not passive. Hope energizes us for the struggle against the forces of darkness and for the struggle with and within ourselves. Paul said elsewhere that we hope for what we do not see, not for what we see. Not merely wishful thinking, hope is confidence in God’s future. Not in our own future, but God’s. We don’t know what the future holds, but we know who holds it. This hope in God’s future is the basis of all our activity now. With confidence in God’s future, how will we now act? There is no end to places to start. So many children need a good education, and we’ve made a start on that at East Elementary. So many folks need access to healthy food. Our local farmers need support in their struggle to survive. We can work for peace in our own homes and in the world. We can treat the planet better, beginning with our own yards and neighborhoods. Living in hope cost Martin Luther King and others their lives. It would be easy to say that their influence ended with their deaths, but that is not the case. Hope is stronger than death, stronger than anything we can ask for or imagine. We know where we are and who we are because we know where we’re going. Our destination orients us to our present reality and the task before us. We live now in hope, in the sure understanding that the God who created us and came among us will not abandon us as we move into the future into which God calls us. Peace, |
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