The Path of Non-Violence
Church, I have a problem. Once again, I have far too much to say, and just not quite enough time to say it. It is a saying often misattributed to Mark Twain, “If I had more time I would have written a shorter letter.” Well, church, If I had more time, I would have written a shorter sermon.
The path of Non-violence is a well-worn subject in this pulpit, and I do not hope to add to the legacy of the man we honor today by repeating what need not be explained. We are here, grateful, and hopeful, already engaged in the work of loving, and already engaged in the building of Beloved Community.
“The Beloved Community” is described by the King Center as a term that was first coined in the early days of the 20th Century by the philosopher-theologian Josiah Royce, who founded the Fellowship of Reconciliation. However, it was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., also a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, who popularized the term and invested it with a deeper meaning which has captured the imagination of people of goodwill all over the world.
As early as 1956, Dr. King spoke of The Beloved Community as the end goal of nonviolent boycotts. As he said in a speech at a victory rally following the announcement of a favorable U.S. Supreme Court Decision desegregating the seats on Montgomery’s busses, “The end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the Beloved Community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opponents into friends. It is this type of understanding goodwill that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age. It is this love which will bring about miracles in the hearts of men.”
I had the distinguished pleasure of visiting the King Center for the first time last year in 2023. I visited Atlanta for the Finding Our Way Home conference, the gathering of Unitarian Universalist ministers of color. I took public transportation from the hotel to the King Center, which was only about 15 minutes away. I had breakfast at the hotel. I spoke with distinguished colleagues about erudite and lofty matters. We lost track of time and missed the group going to the King Center. We got separated. I ended up making my solemn pilgrimage to the King Center alone.
On public transportation, through Atlanta, I noticed a great deal of poverty. People sleeping on sidewalks, and in tents. Some people stood around, while others passed cigarettes and coffee cups between each other. Bodies of men and women lay against walls and on sidewalks, motionless.
It felt Ironic to be gathered in Atlanta to celebrate the work and understand the meaning and life of Dr. King around so much evidence that his work was not completed in his lifetime, or since. We do not yet live as he hoped we eventually would. Poverty is a plague. Few can endure it for long. Either the disease is cured, or it is fatal.
Poverty is not the absence of wealth. It is not the lack of riches. It is not even the lack of stability that affluence and comfort provide. No, poverty is an intricate network of systems that withhold or remove resources from communities, most easily performed through forced migration and forced relocation. Poverty is a today problem, and it has been a today problem since long before the time of Jesus.
Dr. King’s Beloved Community rests in justice, not for any one oppressed group, but for all people. As Dr. King often said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” He felt that justice could not be parceled out to individuals or groups, but was the birthright of every human being in the Beloved Community. I have fought too long hard against segregated public accommodations to end up segregating my moral concerns,” he said. “Justice is indivisible.”
War is everywhere, and it would be a waste of time, and a waste of energy to tell you all about the evils of war. And anyway, we do not have time to waste on war or the ones who condone it or perpetuate it. I don't have time here to talk about or explain why violence is bad and wrong, why collective civic non-violent action struggles to capture the imagination like war.
Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people.
Nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding.
Nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice, not people.
Nonviolence holds that suffering can educate and transform.
Nonviolence chooses love instead of hate.
Nonviolence believes that the universe is on the side of justice.
I want to share a brief story as an example. I was on 6th Avenue. I'm off in Greenwich Village because it's where my children go to school, and I have gotten to know some of the folks along this avenue in the morning, of all socioeconomic levels. It is hard. My nervous system does not want to trust poor men, especially those who gather in groups. I would be lying to you if I told you all human beings were safe. And yet I want to share with you a moment of holy transcendence and connected reality with you.
I had just dropped off the children at school, I was walking quickly with my long brown coat, and I was talking on the phone, as I often am. A man Stood in my way And asked me if I had any money to give him. In truth, all I had were my children's have eaten bagels in my bag, and no cash. Cash. I shook my head at him and I said good luck. He took my refusal as proud. As I passed, I felt him place his hand on my shoulder. He hesitated for a moment and shoved me forward. I felt the pressure of his body and heard the stumble in his steps. Still holding my phone. I turned with my shoulder and faced him. I looked him square in the eye, and we looked at each other.
I felt fear, that he was willing to try to hurt me, but through the stumble of his footsteps, I knew he felt weak. Turning and looking at him. He saw that I was larger than he, and he felt My size when he shoved me. But when I turned to him, I walked closer and I held up a fist, not with malice or threat, but sideways, and slowly, rising from below with no speed or intention. I lifted it as I slowly and carefully approached him and I stopped outside his comfort zone. His gaze softened. He raised his fist to me.
There is a great deal bell hooks writes to help me offer context for this moment of shared love and humanity, but I want to begin with her analysis that violence is not an inherently male characteristic. Now I know what you may be thinking. I look around the world and I recognize that even if violence is not an inherently male characteristic, it is very much a gendered in our world. Male violence has a different characteristic, a different impact on human society, and a different role in our neurological and embodied fear of men.
But the softening of maleness is a practice. And we get it so wrong to expect men to soften for us first before we make space for it. Principles of non-violence are not spirituality 101. This is the next level. This is how we become not simply practitioners of the religion, but teachers, guides, and elders. It is not enough simply to possess a belief or a stance. We must also cultivate the resilience that allows us to do the work of non-violence.
I have been invited to connect folks to resources and communities around the city, and I'll admit I've had limited success. We are disorganized, I am disorganized, and the city in my opinion has never been this disorganized or felt this disorganized. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Unfortunately, this doesn’t absolve us of our responsibilities. This is the task that we have signed ourselves up for. Whether we are up to the task or not, we have decided to put love at the center of what we do here at this church. What that means, what that looks like, is the beloved community. Last year, I already shared descriptions of my beloved community with you all, and my understanding of what it looks like to put love at the center of everything.
It looks like a relationship. In relationships are hard, especially if you have deeply entrenched and embodied experiences and expectations of conflict. That comes with the terrain of the patriarchy. Dr. King reminds us that the three evils non-violence seeks to eradicate are poverty, racism, and militarism. Patriarchy cannot be left off this list. Because with it comes the aspects of our sociopolitical reality upon which our racism is built.
It would not be fair of me to leave you there.
What does a beloved community look like?
In a 1957 speech, Birth of A New Nation, Dr. King said, “The aftermath of nonviolence is the creation of the beloved community. The aftermath of nonviolence is redemption. The aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation. The aftermath of violence is emptiness and bitterness.” A year later, in his first book Stride Toward Freedom, Dr. King reiterated the importance of nonviolence in attaining The Beloved Community. In other words, our ultimate goal is integration, which is genuine inter-group and inter-personal living. Only through nonviolence can this goal be attained, for the aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation and the creation of the Beloved Community.
The way of non-violence is what we talk about when we say we are putting love at the center of everything. The way of non-violence is what we're talking about when we speak of beloved community and the work of caregiving. The way of non-violence is what we talk about when we discuss the meaning of pastoral care and how we provide it for each other.
Here at the community church, we are not beginners. The many years of ministry and activism on our team proclaim our mission through action. Any time spent in the life and work of John Haynes Holmes quickly finds erudite and comprehensive work on the nature of non-violent action, the necessity of demilitarization and disarmament, and the urgent claim to peace in the lives of all human beings. This pulpit is not new to the idea that war is bad. So we can't stop there.
The core value of the quest for Dr. King’s Beloved Community was agape love. Dr. King distinguished between three kinds of love: eros, “a sort of aesthetic or romantic love”; philia, “affection between friends” and agape, which he described as “understanding, redeeming goodwill for all,” an “overflowing love which is purely spontaneous, unmotivated, groundless and creative”…” the love of God operating in the human heart.” He said that “Agape does not begin by discriminating between worthy and unworthy people…It begins by loving others for their sakes” and “makes no distinction between a friend and enemy; it is directed toward both…Agape is love seeking to preserve and create community.”
The task for us, church, is not simply to describe the world as it was, but to build the world to come. We are building a church here. And the foundation is love. Amen.
