The familiar story of the calling of Samuel in today’s first reading
seems timely for the moment in which we find ourselves. If ever we
needed to be attuned to the voice of God, and to what God is calling us,
it’s now. If ever we needed to say, “Speak, Lord, your servant is
listening,” it’s now.
On this weekend when we honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I
thought we would do well to listen to some words of his — first spoken
in a sermon in the National Cathedral in 1968, but as timely now as
then.
All too many people find themselves living amid a great
period of social change, and yet they fail to develop the new attitudes,
the new mental responses, that the new situation demands. They end up
sleeping through a revolution.
Firstly, there can be no gainsaying that a great revolution is
taking place in the world today. Whenever anything new comes into
history it brings with it new challenges and new opportunities. No
individual can live alone, no nation can live alone, and anyone who
feels that he can live alone is sleeping through a revolution.
Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of
this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment
to make of it a brotherhood. But somehow, and in some way, we have got
to do this. We must all learn to live together as sisters and brothers
or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the
single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of
mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For
some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what
you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am
what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the
way it is structured.
Secondly, we are challenged to eradicate the last vestiges of
racial injustice from our nation. It is an unhappy truth that racism is
a way of life for the vast majority of white Americans, spoken and
unspoken, acknowledged and denied, subtle and sometimes not so
subtle—the disease of racism permeates and poisons a whole body politic.
And I can see nothing more urgent than for America to work passionately
and unrelentingly—to get rid of the disease of racism.
Something positive must be done. Everyone must share in the guilt
as individuals and as institutions. The government must certainly share
the guilt; individuals must share the guilt; even the church must share
the guilt.
And now if we are to [act] we must honestly admit certain things
and get rid of certain myths that have constantly been disseminated all
over our nation.
One is the myth of time. It is the notion that only time can
solve our problems. There is an answer to that myth. It is that time is
neutral. And it may well be that we will have to repent in this
generation. Not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions
of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the
good people who sit around and say, "Wait on time."
Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in
on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts
and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be
co-workers with God. And without this hard work, time itself becomes an
ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation. So we must help time
and realize that the time is always ripe to do right.
We are asking America to be true to the huge promissory note that
it signed years ago. We are engaging in nonviolent action, to call
attention to the gulf between promise and fulfillment; to make the
invisible visible.
One day we will have to stand before the God of history and we
will talk in terms of things we’ve done. Yes, we will be able to say we
built gargantuan bridges to span the seas, we built gigantic buildings
to kiss the skies. We brought into being many things with our scientific
and technological power. It seems that I can hear the God of history
saying, "That was not enough! For I was hungry and you fed me not; I was
naked, and you clothed me not…”
On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient?
And then expedience comes along and asks the question, is it politic?
Vanity asks the question, is it popular? Conscience asks the question,
is it right?
There comes a time when we must take the position that is neither
safe nor politic nor popular, but we must do it because conscience tells
us it is right.
Let me close by saying that we have difficult days ahead in the
struggle for justice and peace, but I will not yield to a politic of
despair. I’m going to maintain hope. However dark it is, however deep
the angry feelings are, I can still sing "We Shall Overcome." We shall
overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends
toward justice. We shall overcome because "No lie can live forever."
With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of
despair the stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform
the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of
brotherhood.
And that day the morning stars will sing together and the
children of God will shout for joy.”
My friends, we are the children of God, and if we do our work –
together – we will indeed have cause to shout for joy!
Father Michael G. Ryan
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