January 19, 2025 First Congregational Church UCC, Brimfield MA
Is 62:1-5; 1 Cor 12:1-11
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
There are moments, these days, when I feel lost between the choices of yes and no – where both options, or neither, appeals. And I’m not thinking particularly of what to have for lunch… that’s an easy, even pleasant, problem… shall I have this or that. I’m thinking more of the big challenges of life.
In 2026, we in Rhode Island will be electing a governor. Now, as it happens, I think my current governor’s best characteristics are that he’s tall and has curly hair…. And his worst characteristic is that he doesn’t seem to be concerned that the eastbound 195 bridge through Providence and East Providence, the gateway to Cape Cod, has been closed, re-routed, since December of 2023, and there’s no timetable for re-construction.
One of the probable candidates running against him is the former head of CVS… well, she sounds good, but CVS was heavily involved in the opioid epidemic, it’s a terrible place to work – or so I hear – the stores are really tatty, and of course, CVS receipts are famous for their length. But if CVS is in trouble, what does that say about her potential as governor? Choices, choices…
Now, Rhode Island’s a small state where every vote, at least statewide, can make a difference. It’s a place where I can feel as though I have some power. But that’s not always true, we’re in Massachusetts, and way too often, it can feel as though we have no power at all. We are in an in-between time, a liminal time, where, no matter where we are, we often feel powerless. Our world feels broken and we don’t think we can make a difference.
It’s a funny place to be on this weekend dedicated to the memory of a man who — starting from a position of absolute powerlessness – unable to vote, barred from public facilities like rest rooms or water fountains, required to use the back door if he was welcome to enter, at constant risk of public humiliation or physical attack, even death. If anyone were every powerless in the US it was a Black man in 1950, north or south. And yet, this man found the lever to change our world. He found the courage to wield the power of moral indignation.
Martin Luther King, Jr., was not a perfect person. He wasn’t even a perfect pastor. But perfection is not one of the requirements to make a difference. What he was, was a man who dared to exercise the moral power he had, the power of his faith, the power of the church, the power of being in the right.
Yes, Dr. King changed laws but in a deeper way, a more important way for lasting change, he made it impossible for white people to close their eyes to the realities of the world. Now, that kind of change doesn’t happen overnight. But it happens, slowly, substantially…. When I was a high school senior in a segregated school system, all my friends knew that segregation was wrong, stupid, immoral. But what we didn’t know was that it was possible to name it, to make the wrongness public – mostly, I think, what we knew for sure was that it would be dangerous to name our beliefs in public. Dr. King changed things. He ripped the curtain down, and yes, like the wizard behind the curtain in Oz, showing for all the world to see how desperately fake the whole structure of racism was.
What he showed us in the 1960s turned out to be only the upper layer of a deeply embedded sickness. It turns out that you can unsegregate a school without changing the basic mindset of the people in the system. Unsegregating – which we white people thought was the beginning of the end, turns out to only be the end of the beginning.
Now, these days, we are engaged in the work of digging deeper, of coming to understand the ways in which our unexamined assumptions contain thoughts and actions that are evil. They used to be jokes, but now they’re not funny any more.
That’s hard work, and there’s slow progress and it’s times like this weekend, where we have Dr. King before us, and unsettling times to come, when it’s helpful to look again at that foundation on which Dr. King stood. Because he built his way on the foundation of his faith in God and Jesus Christ. So will we, if we are to build in a way that brings folks closer to the moral values of our faith.
Dr. King quoted Unitarian pastor Theodore Parker when he said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” We are not yet where we are going, but we are definitely on the road.
What do our Scripture lessons for today offer us? Isaiah the prophet wrote in today’s lesson that God will not keep silent, will not rest until the vindication of Zion’s way shines out like the dawn. It reminds us that we have been at this for a long time. The path is challenging, sometimes we find ourselves doubling back, re-taking that same path again because we’ve gotten lost, or forgotten the way. But God is always there, offering us a way, giving us courage, showing us what is to come.
The lesson from First Corinthians is about not getting lost because we think we’re the only ones. Remember how I said that back in my high school years, we knew segregation was wrong? We thought we were alone; it wasn’t until we understood that we weren’t, thanks to the heroism of Dr. King and those who stood with him, that ordinary people were empowered to stand up too. We are each an important part of the whole, and the whole doesn’t work as well if we are not all on board.
And the gospel lesson, about turning water into wine, reminds us that sometimes we need to make big statements. Personally, I’m a big fan of small statements, holding doors open, treating everyone I meet with love and generosity, but just as Jesus announced his ministry at a big feast, sometimes there’s a need for that demonstration at the State House, or a march down Main Street. If we can’t stand up together in public, how will others know we are there?
It looks these days as though the road may be more difficult in the days to come. That was true in Isaiah’s time, just as it is now. We are able to stay the course because we are focused on that moral universe. And we are able to stay the course because we are in this together.
What ties us into union isn’t the uniformity of our political opinions, but rather the uniformity of our moral commitments. When we’re united in our commitment to kindness, generosity, welcome, mercy, justice, love — then we can work together on what is best for our church, community, our world.
It is love which is our power… love lived out every day of our lives, love that quietly keeps going, whether or not it looks like it’s making a difference.
Amen.
© 2025, Virginia H. Child
To Believe is to Care. . . To Care is to Do 