James 4:7 (NRSV) Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
As we look to the long Holiday weekend, honoring the life and legacy of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we glean from his radical approach to Social Justice. We hope all will be inspired, shaped, and taught by his example of his nonviolent approach to civil resistance. He followed the model of civil resistance developed by M.K. Gandhi. He believed that by responding to injustice with civility and to violence with nonviolence, the resister was fulfilling “the Christian doctrine of love.”
Dr. King believed “We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself. We will try to persuade with our words, but if our words fail, we will try to persuade with our acts.”
This second Sunday in Epiphany; the theme of our Call is lifted up. As citizens of the world together we are strengthened to carry on the work of peace and justice together. Encouraged to be nonviolent in our activism, care, and service to our neighbors. Standing in solidarity against the insurrectionist domestic terrorists who violently rushed the US capitol on January 6 seeking to harm government officials, overthrow our government, and destroy Democracy.
No matter what our political differences are, the Christ child came to bring light and love to all of humanity. May we all follow the way of peace submitting ourselves to God. Resisting the devil, resist the evil lies and untruths he spreads, the seeds of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, elitism, white body superiority, nationalism, and marxism that the soil of division is not and will not be fertile.
In our calling gentle and merciful God:
“Keep us, we pray, in perfect peace.
Help us to walk together, pray together, sing together, and live together until that day when all God’s children
–Black, White, Indigenious, Brown, and other–
Will rejoice in one common band of humanity in the reign of our Lord and of our God, we pray.
Amen.” (MLK)
Babette Chatman
University Pastor