"Pursue peace with everyone, and holiness — without it no one will see the Lord." + Hebrews 12:14
Here are recent highlights:
When we handed these books out to our congregation, this is part of the note we included inside each one:
This might seem at first
to be a peculiar Advent devotional.
But saints often are peculiar people
who stand out in a particular time and place.
In fact, the times when saints shine
the most are times of darkness.
They give glimpses of Jesus’ Light,
which darkness cannot overcome.
Advent begins in the dark.
And we, as part of Jesus’ Church,
are called to live as Advent people
who anticipate Jesus’ coming
into our darkness today to overcome it.
Ultimately, our hope rests in the God of Advent
who drew near to us in Jesus’ first coming
and will come again
to take away the darkness forever
and be our eternal Light. That hope is what saints have embodied
as our sisters and brothers across time,
ethnicities, Christian traditions,
nationalities, and more.
As we step into this next year,
our prayer is that we will shine
all the more with the holy light
of Christ in us and through us.
And we pray that we
“being rooted and firmly established in love,
may be able to comprehend with all the saints
what is the length and width,
height and depth of God’s love.”
After all, “the Father has enabled us
to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light.
He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and
transferred us into the Kingdom
of the Son He loves.”
This post features an excerpt from Our Church Speaks so that you might also walk some of this journey with us with reflection, prayer, and anticipation for how the Light of the world might shine in your life during this season.
Martin Luther King in Our Church Speaks
Martin Luther King Renewer of Holy Imagination
The heart of the twentieth-century Civil Rights Movement was the faith and prophetic voice of the African American church, and Baptist pastor Martin Luther King Jr. became emblematic of his Christian movement. He was born in Atlanta, Georgia, the son of the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church. Witnessing his father's stand against discrimination, King was inspired to his own calling. Through his teen years and as a college student, King became skeptical about the faith of his upbringing. Many of his writings as a young adult express this skepticism. But while in college, King found a spiritual and intellectual mentor in the pacifist civil rights activist and Baptist pastor Benjamin Mays. Mays helped direct King toward legitimacy of Jesus' Church, the Church's teachings, and its power in answering modern societal questions.
King would go on to serve as a pastor in Montgomery, Alabama, and eventually as copastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. He rose to national prominence in 1955, after Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man. This prompted King and other Christian leaders to help organize a boycott of the bus lines. As the civil rights era unfolded in the 1950s and 1960s, King became one of his generation's most eloquent leaders. He was frequently jailed, he was stabbed nearly to death, his home was bombed, and he was subjected to government surveillance and character assassination attempts. On April 4, 1968, he was shot and killed on the balcony of his Memphis hotel room.
During his short life, King was inspired by the words and actions of Jesus, to call the oppressed to remain steadfast in nonviolent resistance, to refuse hatred of one's enemies, and to promote love of neighbor. He urged his society to bring about the works of justice and mercy necessary to affirm the equal dignity and value of every human being.
"By opening our lives to God in Christ, we become new creatures," said King. "This experience, which Jesus spoke of as the new birth, is essential if we are to be transformed noncomformists. ... Only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strength to fight vigorously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit."
Scripture
"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." + Romans 12:2
Meditation: The Moral Imagination
I have written elsewhere, "From the imagination springs desires; from desires flow actions, which over time wear grooves into habits; from habits develop beliefs that justify; and from beliefs come doctrine. Therefore, if you wish to destroy a faith, strike first not a doctrine; rather, starve the imagination, and doctrine will eventually wither away on its own. Conversely, if you wish to ignite faith, do not begin by teaching doctrine didactically; rather, begin by firing up the imagination."
King was a teacher, but his legacy is not his teaching. King was an activist, but his legacy is not primarily his activism. King was a pastor, but his legacy is not his pastoring. What is the legacy of King? For what is he most remembered? These words: "I have a dream ... " Why? They are words that speak directly of and to the imagination.
We homo sapiens live out of our imaginations. What we imagine to be good, beautiful, true and desirable is what orients us.
We are creatures who require a vision of the good life if we are to get out of bed and go to work.
The Lord knows this, which is why poetry, song, and apocalypse.
What's more, this is why the Word made flesh in Jesus is essential to our transformation. Only when the vision for the good and beautiful life is embodied do our imaginations wake up and pay attention.
For this reason, the apostle Paul writes in Romans 12:2, "Be transformed by the renewal of your mind." This is not primarily a command to be changed through learning new information, but rather a call for renewal of imagination.
On Monday evening, January 30, 1956, King received word (in the middle of a church service) that his home had been bombed with his wife, Coretta, and his daughter Yolanda inside. He rushed home and found that, though the front of the house had caved in from the explosion his wife and daughter were unharmed, though terribly shaken and frightened. Outside, a large, angry crowd had formed and threatened retaliation for this attack on their beloved pastor and leader. King stepped out onto the ruins of his front porch, raised his hands, and with a calm but firm voice said, "Everything is all right. Don't get panicky. Don't do anything panicky. Don't get your weapons. If you have weapons, take them home. He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword. Remember that is what Jesus said. We are not advocating violence. We want to love our enemies. I want you to love our enemies. Be good to them. This is what we must live by. We must meet hate with love."
What was happening in that moment? Pastoral care? Yes. Peacemaking? Yes. But more than these, it was a moment of moral imagination. If one had the eyes to see and the ears to hear, it was a transformation moment, a renewal of the mind moment.
What dream are you dreaming? Do you have a vision for a good and beautiful life? If so, where did it come from? What images, words, and visions shape your own imagination?
Do you dream the dreams of Jesus? Or are you still trying to get Jesus on board with your dreams?
Prayer
O God, who created all peoples in Your image and raised up Your servant Martin Luther King Jr., as a voice of reconciliation: we thank You for the diversity of races and cultures in this world. Show us Your presence in those who differ from us, and enrich our lives with their fellowship, until our knowledge of Your love is made perfect in our love for all Your children, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
pgs. 67-69
Bonus Quote
We will match your capacity
to inflict suffering
by our capacity
to endure suffering.
We will meet your physical force
with soul force.
And do to us what you will,
and we will still love you. ...
And so throw us in jail,
and as difficult as that is,
we will still love you.
Bomb our homes and
threaten our children
and as difficult as it is,
we will still love you.
Send your hooded perpetrators and
violence into our communities
at the midnight hours and
drag us out on some wayside road and
beat us and leave us half-dead and
we will still love you.
Be assured that
we will wear you down
by our capacity to suffer.
+ MLK
Bonus 10 Commandments of Christian Nonviolent Movement
1. MEDITATE daily on the teachings and life of Jesus.
2. REMEMBER always that the nonviolent movement seeks justice and reconciliation — not victory.
3. WALK and TALK in the manner of love, for God is love.
4. PRAY daily to be used by God in order that all humanity might be free.
5. SACRIFICE personal wishes in order that all humanity might be free.
6. OBSERVE with both friend and foe the ordinary rules of courtesy.
7. SEEK to perform regular service for others and for the world.
8. REFRAIN from the violence of fist, tongue, or heart.
9. STRIVE to be in good spiritual and bodily health.
10. FOLLOW the directions of the movement and of the servant leader on a demonstration.
I hereby pledge myself — my person and my body — to the nonviolent movement. Therefore I will keep the (above) ten commandments.
MLK, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and civil rights participants and volunteers were all required to sign a Commitment Card featuring these Christian principles in order to take the civil rights struggle and the nonviolent message throughout the South together.
The Celebrity & The Saint
The celebrity demands, "Look at me!" The saint whispers, "Look at God."
The celebrity says, "Try to be like me, but you'll never be like me." The saint says, "Why would anyone want to be like me? Who has God made you?"
The celebrity is ever ascending, climbing the tower of Babel to the double-platinum throne. The saint is ever descending, saying, "Please have my seat, I insist."
The celebrity offers you everything you want but can never have. The saint offers you the thing you fear but will redeem your soul.
The celebrity is a Ferrari screaming down the highway with music blaring. The saint is the freshwater creek beside the highway that almost nobody ever notices and is nearly impossible to hear over the roar of traffic. Yet the water murmurs as it wanders over stones and around oak roots. It is not silent.
+ Ben Lansing & D.J. Marotta,
Our Church Speaks
Additional Advent Resources:
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Many blessings of peace and presence,
Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan
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