Prophets are much easier to take at a comfortable distance.
This year, Martin Luther King Day falls on January 17. This Federal Holiday marks MLK Jr.'s birthday (which is actually January 15), but it also marks a fact in the collective consciousness of those living in the United States: that we are honoring a man who was killed while advocating tirelessly for the equality of the African-American race in this country.
But there's more than that. This happened in 1968, not even 43 years ago, and the holiday itself has only been around since 1983 (when then-President Reagan signed it into law). The events of MLK's life are *recent history*, which means the brutality of racism is *recent history*, which means we still live with the remnants of it, whether we think about it very often or not.
MLK believed that he, like Gandhi, was preaching the message of Christ when he demanded that his followers show non-violent resistance to injustice. Gandhi, however, is easier for most of us to take. He was in India, and he was protesting British rule. Most Americans are by definition pretty comfortable with protesting British rule, and at any rate, Gandhi wasn't pointing his long, bony finger and smiling benevolently at any of us.
MLK was looking directly at us... and if he was a prophet, his message lives beyond his life on this earth.
This Sunday (10am at
Jammin' Java) we'll explore what MLK does and doesn't mean to those of us who are involved in the life of Common Table. This Sunday isn't necessarily about guilt, or an extended discussion of white privilege or an opportunity for us to have a good old-fashioned fight about whether slave reparations are justifiable. It's simply an opportunity to acknowledge that the story of racism is in our collective American history, and in this sense it is part of our story... even if we don't see how it's part of our lives at all.
- Amy Moffitt
