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Rev. Chris Jimmerson
January 19, 2025
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. famously laid out a dream of justice and Beloved Community. January 20 will be both MLK Day and inauguration day. We’ll examine how we might develop the spiritual resilience to keep the dream alive through a time when it seems so threatened.
Chalice Lighting
This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon systems of oppression until they are no more. This is the warmth that we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.
Call to Worship
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.
– Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Affirming Our Mission
Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.
Reading
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE
by Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.And I say to you, I have also decided to stick with love, for I know that love is ultimately the only answer to humankind’s problems. And I’m going to talk about it everywhere I go. I know it isn’t popular to talk about in some circles today and I’m not talking about emotional bosh when I talk about love.
I’m talking about a strong demanding love for I’ve seen too much hate and I say to myself that hate is too great a burden to bear. I have decided to love. If you are seeking the highest good, I think you can find it through love.
And the beautiful thing is that we aren’t moving wrong when we do it. Because John was right. God is love. He who hates does not know God, but he who loves has the key that unlocks the door to the meaning of ultimate reality.
Sermon
NOTE: This is an edited ai generated transcript.
Please forgive any omissions or errors.
(Opening film-clip of 1963 MLK’s March on Washington)
That was footage from the 1963 march on Washington. The marchers were singing a spiritual which has become iconic. “We shall overcome,” sung throughout the world for years since by human rights movements of many kinds. The march culminated with Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s now also more than iconic speech. “I have a dream,” he called it, a speech. I have to tell you that if I ever give a sermon that magnificent, I think I’ll just retire while ahead right then.
Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Day. It is Also the inauguration to a second term of office for a man and an ideology so hostile to and threatening toward Dr. King’s dream of beloved community, that it has many of us holding our heads like this for fear that the dissonance will otherwise cause them to explode. Go ahead, try it. I find it helps.
I know a lot of you are afraid because you’ve told me that. I am too. Afraid for our democracy and whether it will withstand the coming assault. Afraid for the people we love who are being targeted by the onslaught. Some of us are afraid because we’re among those who have already been singled out for the assault. We don’t know what will happen starting tomorrow. We do know that the incoming president, his supporters, and proposed administration are promising what they themselves call a shock and awe campaign. A campaign designed to keep us frightened and feeling powerless.
So today I want to talk a bit about how we might soothe our fears, Claim our power, and resist even turn the assault against the very ideology of separation, division, and scapegoating from which it springs. And that power, our power, is contained in the very words that Dr. King himself spoke,
“Unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality, a strong, demanding love, the key that unlocks the door to the meaning of ultimate reality.”
As Unitarian Universalists, we have recently centered our faith in that strong demanding love, perhaps starting to catch up with Dr. King after all these years.
Ten years ago, in 2015, I stood in this pulpit on the Sunday before Martin Luther King Day and told the story of how in March 1965, over 500 Unitarian Universalists lay people and 250 of our ministers responded to a call from Dr. King nationally for people of faith to join him in a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
The call was in response to what is now sometimes called “Bloody Sunday,” when law enforcement in Selma had brutally attacked peaceful protesters with billy clubs and tear gas. I want to share with you a couple of those Unitarian Universalist folks’ stories today because it’s been long enough that many of you may not have heard them and because I believe that they can inform us of the challenges or about the challenges we face ahead of us.
Reverend Dr. James Reeb was among the first of our ministers to arrive in Selma. His first evening there, Reeb and two other white Unitarian Universalist ministers dined at an African-American restaurant called Walker’s Cafe because they had been told they wouldn’t be safe at a whites-only restaurant.
But as they left Walker’s Cafe, they were attacked by a group of four or five white locals, at least one of whom was carrying a large club of some kind. He struck James Reeb on the head with it, knocking him to the ground. They beat and kicked the other two ministers to the ground also. Soon afterward, James Reeb fell into an unconscious state from which he never awoke. Two days later, Marie Reeb, his wife, made the painful and difficult decision to turn off the artificial support that was the only thing that was keeping his body alive.
Reeb became a national martyr. He was even paid homage to by then president Lyndon B. Johnson and his murder galvanized white Americans, and particularly Unitarian Universalists, to join the effort in Selma even more.
One such Unitarian Universalists who joined the effort and who also did not come back from Selma alive was Viola Luizzo, but she wasn’t lionied in the way that James Reeve was. For many years, her story was rarely, if ever, told because (A) she was a woman. And (B) she was a woman and not a minister. At a time, not a minister because (A) she was a woman. Viola Luizzo was a member of First Unitarian Universalist Church of Detroit and worked for the NAACP. She was married, had five children. She answered the call to Selma by getting in her car and driving there despite the objections of her family.
She helped out by giving marchers a ride back to Selma from Montgomery after the march. On one of her return trips, a car full of KKK men pulled up beside her and fired shots directly at her, hitting her twice in the head, killing her instantly. Her car careened into a ditch and came to a stop when it struck a fence. After her death, one of her sons described his father’s dark hair turning gray overnight. Her family endured crosses being burnt in their front yard. Her children were beat up at school. They were told their mother deserved what she got because as a white woman, she had no business being there in the first place.
I tell you these stories because I believe that like Viola Luizzo and James Reeb were in their time, we are being called to live our faith even if the cost may be high. And if they could show up despite the environment and risk of their times, despite paying the ultimate price for it, we can answer that call in our times.
We are being called by a divine, strong and demanding river of love that moves us to offer shelter, support, and safe haven to those most targeted by the coming assault against human rights and dignity. Called to speak love and justice to a state government that threatens to defile the very concept of beloved community. Called by a strong demanding river of divine love to resist, revolt against and ultimately repel the ideology of hate and division that has captured our federal government. Called back to love and justice over and over again until the end. We shall indeed overcome.
Back in 2015, I joined some Unitarian Universalists and other folks from across the country in Selma for the 50th anniversary commemoration of those events back in 1965. At one point while we were there, they gathered us in a large fellowship hall and we sang, “We shall overcome” together. And there was so much love and hope and solidarity generated through singing that together that I don’t think a single one of us left that fellowship hall afterwards with eyes that were dry.
Now there are several different stories of the origins of that song, but ultimately they all conclude with what a gift the African-American community has given the world through it. Or better yet, perhaps alone. Alone with a promissory note that we will join in solidarity to overcome racism and bigotry wherever we find it.
Let us remember that when we sing it together today, later in our service. And speaking of together, we can in the days to come, further develop and talk about the specifics of our social justice efforts as we face this daunting challenge. For now though, before we can answer that call from love in the public square, we are going to need one another right here in the days to come.
We will need to build the beloved community within these church walls more than ever before so that we can then bring even more of it into our world, join in solidarity with others and follow the lead of those most affected by that ideology of division so counter to Dr. King’s dream of beloved community and that means being careful that we don’t turn our fears and anxieties toward one another. Through unnecessary fighting or unkind words and deeds It means loving each other through this. Being even more attentive to offering words and acts of caring, kindness, and support to one another.
Please include your church staff and ministers in all of the above.
And it means getting more creative than ever about finding new ways to offer love, support, and a shelter of as much safety as possible for beloveds who are being targeted.
My beautiful people, do not despair, I love you. We will get through this together, and with the many others with whom we’ll join in solidarity to answer that call from such a strong and demanding love. When we think back to all that has changed since Viola Luizzo and James Reeve answered that call and met their fate all those years ago, we must know that the arc of the universe we are trying to bend toward justice has never really been a smooth and perfect arc. At Yes, it is a jagged and only slowly climbing line, and we dream. We dream of drawing the arc that goes through the center of it. My beloveds, We can keep that dream alive. Hold on to it. Hold on to it together in the ways of love tomorrow and in the days to follow.
I will be with you answering that call from a strong demanding love that Dr. King said is God. I want to close by offering you some of Dr. King’s word about that dream of his all those years ago spoken by Dr. King himself. A bit of it is laced with the male-centeredness of his time, so let us remember the arc we are upon has that jagged trajectory. I offer his voice with his text overlaid so that you can both hear and see their great beauty at the same time. I offer his dreams and his words as the last word today.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today, my friend, So, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.
It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.
I have a dream that one day on the Red Hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day, even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama with its vicious racist, With its governor, having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification. One day, right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope.
Extinguishing the Chalice
We extinguish this flame, but not the light of truth, the warmth of community, or the fire of commitment. These we hold in our hearts until we are together again.
Benediction
– Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Power without love is reckless and abusive. And love without power is sentimental and anemic, power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.
May the congregations say amen and blessed be.
Go in peace.
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