King

I found myself reluctant and ultimately unwilling to mark the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's murder this past week, aside from time spent in private thought. I felt ashamed of this after the fact. As a liberal Christian, King is 1B to Jesus' 1A. I've grown wary, though, after a number of King events I have attended over the years turned into crass platforms for public officials (mostly Democratic and most of whom bear little resemblance to King in either moral vision or credibility) to invoke King's name and legacy for their own parochial agendas.

This anniversary did not feel like a cause for celebration; it felt more like a cause for renewed grief. Bernice King referenced the most plain and grievous impact of this (and any) murder: a wife lost her husband and four children lost a father. I do wonder whether King's public stature and the very public wrangling of his "legacy" (both publicly and privately) made healing grief near impossible. Then, as I read about the riots that followed the assassination--an event that "pulled the lid off" of the rage swirling around systemic injustices in schools, the justice system, and the economy--I perceive echoes of an enduring cultural trauma. King's organizing work to get our nation to take the eradication of poverty seriously was unfinished. It was also deeply unpopular... and remains so, despite my friend Liz's efforts to renew the Poor People's Campaign. I believe that the rage that was awakened in the riots is never far that away. The same underlying injustices remain, stirred by the abandonment and disenfranchisement of poor communities by the wealthy. There were and are two Americas: rich and poor. This was something to which I dedicated a huge portion of my time in my 20s before I entered the parish. Now, as a pastor in a suburban neighborhood, all of that feels long ago and far away. This distance feels like an indictment of churches' apathy about or impotence toward systemic poverty.

I found myself this week also needing to acknowledge that I'm less attracted to King than I once was. It's not that I harbor any disrespect for him--he was extraordinary. But King, the further he recedes into history, becomes less and less intelligible to our culture. He no longer a person; he is a symbol. In white liberal hands, King is deified, frozen in time, a perfect Christian. Because he is dead, he is unable to interrupt our hagiographies.

I would think more clergy would follow King's path, but few I know do. Why not? It's there for us. Pastor. Community organizer. Movement participant. Moral visionary. Flawed disciple. Learning as you go along. Pushed and pulled by social forces and pressures beyond your control. In the fray. Exhausted. Disliked by people who should like you, reviled by the people whose power you threaten.

Why do so few of us clergy choose this path? It is something about the churches that employ us or the seminaries that train us? Why is there so little focused public engagement among Christian clergy, and less among Christian churches? If you are clergy, or if you wonder why your clergy aren't more like King, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts.

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On a personal note, it's the week after Easter, which means people in my line of work get a free pass. Easter Monday is a day for pastors to get rest and get tee times (Monday also happened to be my 43rd birthday this year, so I enjoyed 9 holes with my son, and donuts... and beer and barbecue).

Holy Week--and the weeks leading up to it--are, on the whole, more difficult than other times of year. The number of worship services to plan and lead is the most obvious and taxing aspect. Some pastors preach 4 unique sermons from Palm Sunday through Easter, including Maundy Thursday and Good Friday (though at NDPC, we've created liturgy for Holy Week that doesn't depend on preaching... I only preached Easter). Above all, the intense pressure I feel is the pressure to "get it right." You don't want to screw up Easter. For my faith, it really does all hinge on the improbability of the events of Easter. And yes, it's all been said before by preachers far more capable than I, but that's never made my Easter preparations any easier.

In the end, I was deeply grateful for Holy Week and Easter at NDPC, as I most always am. I didn't screw up Easter. In spite of my anxiety about needing to make the resurrection happen, Christ rose.