A DAY OF SOUL SEARCHING Rev. Gregory Flint Ephesians 4: 14 – 15, 25 – 32 January 16, 2011 (Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend)

Tomorrow in virtually every city and town across this land, the words of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech will be read. The iconic words delivered at the Lincoln Memorial in August, 1963, are really a sermon – aren’t they?

And what line from Pastor Martin’s sermon do you most clearly remember? For me it is: “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons and daughters of former slaves, and sons and daughters of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of our common humanity.”

But tomorrow those words will be read on a day when our national grief remains fresh and hard over a massacre in Tucson, Arizona. And Dr. King’s vision of beloved community will seem far from reality midst the finger pointing about who and what is responsible for this horrendous act of terror or revenge or twisted attention getting.

So tomorrow we will remain not only deeply saddened but deeply divided as a nation, though the County Sheriff in Tucson has called for a national “soul searching.” And I think he’s right. And tomorrow would be a most appropriate day to look into the mirrors of our lives, and of our collective life as civic communities, as political parties, as churches, as a nation.

Yes, the shooter was a deeply disturbed young man and what went on in his head may never be known for sure. Like all things human there is no simple explanation. But we do know the cultural context in which he acted.

We do know that violence is endemic in this culture. Movies, TV, and video games have all become so much more violent. Think about the promos you’ve seen for the new television season. The bar has again been raised in terms of violence and gore. And America remains by far more homicidal than any other developed democracy. Our murder rate is up to eight times higher than Europe’s.

In so many ways, this culture depicts violence as the answer. And the young shooter in Arizona had to be affected by that cultural context. How could he not be?

And then as the President talked about at the Tucson Memorial Service, there is the current political context and climate that has become more vitriolic and hate-based. Ironically, the night before she was shot, congresswoman Giffords talked to a colleague about just that – the political rhetoric that has become so poisonous and personal.

Oh, an historian might argue that these things go in cycles – that there have been other periods characterized by lack of civility, hate mongering, and shootings of public leaders. In our history four Presidents have been assassinated and four others narrowly escaped.

And I don’t doubt that there are historical cycles. And the pendulum may well swing back in the direction of civil decency and concern for the common good.

But in the meantime there is this narcissistic ethos of “looking out for number one” and of disregarding, of demeaning, if not demonizing anyone who differs from one’s own perception of the truth. In the meantime, anything goes in the name of free speech. In the meantime, sound bites, bumper stickers, identity politics, angry blogs, rage radio, and shouting each other down has replaced civil political discourse about immigration, tax policy, healthcare, public service, ethnic heritage, unions, schools, families, religion, the world, the future of this planet.

Oh, I am grateful to be alive at this moment in history. I don’t think it is the worst of times by any means. Just think about the progress we have made with civil rights since Dr. King preached that great sermon at the Lincoln Memorial. But I also think that County Sheriff in Tucson is right – we need to do some deep soul searching as a people. And tomorrow would be a good day because that’s what Dr. King did – brought about a transformative national soul searching about racism in this land.

But Dr. King was clear all along that desegregation and civil rights were only means to the real end, the real prize, the final goal, the only thing that ultimately matters - reconciliation. By which he meant the creation of a beloved community, where people live as sisters and brothers who love one another in ways that reflect God’s radical love for God’s one human family.

“I still believe,” Dr. King wrote, “that love is the most durable power in the world. Love is at the center of this universe, for God is love. God bends the moral arc of the world with love. So when we love we participate in the being of God.”

How different those words are from what we’re accustomed to hearing in our public discourse.

In 1956 when the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of Montgomery Alabama buses was unconstitutional, there was a mass gathering in Montgomery to celebrate and exult in the victory of the Montgomery bus boycott. But Dr. King told the throng that instead of gloating, it was time to reach out in love to the white community. “We must stand now with outstretched arms of reconciliation,” he said. Because the legal victory was not the real goal. Love is, he said: the creation of a beloved community in which no one is an outsider and enemies are welcomed as companions. For this is the essence of faith, Pastor Martin said.

But what might such a love look like in these times? The President and others have talked about starting with a new covenant and commitment about how we will use words in civil discourse. That’s something Dr. King understood well: the power of words; that it is not true that “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.”

Words can hurt. Words can divide, alienate, inflame, demean, create hatred, feed fear. Words can do violence. And in our public talk, we have become so careless in our use of words – haven’t we?

So tomorrow it would be well to remember that Dr. King took great care to make sure his Christ-centered ethos of nonviolence extended to his choice of words. Read his writings, listen to his speeches. His words confront wrong and injustice. His words describe deeply held convictions. His words are courageous, honest, and sometimes hard to hear. But the words are never violent.

Dr. King put his life on the line for what he believed. Yet, he never used words to attack, impugn, demean. He never engaged in a war of words. He talked his walk of faith.

If we are to have a collective change of consciousness in this land; if we are to replace an ethos of selfishness with a new national ethic of compassion; if we are to reweave the social fabric with threads of caring, mutual respect, commitment to the common good…it will start with being mindful of the words we use in expressing our convictions and disagreements.

I mean, it’s easy to point a finger at the poisonous rhetoric of a talk radio host or blogger. But what about our own tongues? When talking about political issues, who of us here has not used words in a divisive, demeaning, closed-fisted way?

Dr. King quoted often those words of our Ephesian text, about “speaking the truth in love”: “Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but speak only what is useful for building up, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.”

Can we commit to that for ourselves - that our civic talk, our political discourse, our agreeing and disagreeing; that our words will “give grace”?

That doesn’t mean “clamming-up,” or being timid about voicing what you believe, or dancing around disagreements, or understating differences. But convictions can be voiced in non-violent ways. People can disagree about big issues in ways that don’t impugn, or attack, or question another’s faith.

That’s not only critical for a democracy; it’s also a religious calling.

After his house was bombed, Dr. King spoke about this calling and modeled words that “give grace.” He wrote: “We do not accept the evil deed, but we must not lessen our capacity for love. For in this world torn apart in so many ways, love is not an option but an imperative. We must learn to live together as brothers and sisters, or we will perish as fools. We must and can create the beloved community intended by God from the beginning.”

So, will the Tucson shootings bring about a national soul searching? Or will the blaming continue and make even more toxic the political environment?

Will the national sadness cause people to think about how we treat and talk to each other? Or will the culture war of words continue?

Your guess is as good as mine.

But we can here pledge to each other and to God – can’t we? That our words will give grace in this house, as well as in our civic discourse outside of this place.

“Speak the truth in love,” the text says.

I think those are words worth taping to our refrigerator doors tomorrow….