A Beginning, Not An End....

Now this is not the end.  It is not even the beginning of the end.

But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

- Winston Churchill



Yesterday I was blessed to hear a strong sermon by the Rev. Canon Gregory Jacobs in the context of my church's Black History Month celebration.  Canon Jacobs claimed as his theme "Celebrating the Spirit of Jubilee," based on Leviticus 25, and then proceeded to examine the developments in American social-racial history in the past 150 years through this prism.  Along the way, he deftly weaved in perspectives on Jesus Christ's commitment to social justice in His time, the unfinished business left to us as beneficiaries of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Dream and lessons learned from the scriptural story of Elisha's succession of Elijah.  When he finished, I felt illumined, elevated and inspired ... and fully aware of what had just happened: in our generally progressive and social liberal church, our comfort zone had been breached, a challenge had been issued and a bit of real world had made it into our typically composed meditation on the spiritual.  And it was great....

 

It was great that we had been called out, had our (too) comfortable hour of institutional religion disturbed and been forced to deal with some of the less pleasant realities outside of sanctuary while still within it.  It was great that in a context of a sermon about how a Jubilee was still possible - and necessary - for us we were acquainted with the realities of the Great Migration and the New Jim Crow, the rollback of voting rights hard won a half-century ago and the disenfranchisement and demonization of "the least, the last and the lost" among us.  It was great that what happens "out there" during the other 167 hours of our week was pointedly and poignantly related to what happens "in here" during our weekly worship in church.

 

I particularly enjoyed that Rev. Jacobs related the years 1865, 1915 and 1965 to 2015, noting the end of the Civil War in the first, the beginnings of the Great Migration in the second, the passage of the Voting Rights Act in the third and the challenges of continuing racism in the last.  While many in our country - and, likely, a few in our very own congregation - believe that racism has (largely if not totally) been conquered because we have a (half-)Black president, the Canon challenged us to acknowledge its continuing, insidious presence in our lives.  As he noted that Blacks and whites generally have significantly different views on its current vitality, I couldn't help but think that this was likely true with the members of our parish, too.  And therein lies the opportunity....

 

It also occurred to me that many of the significant developments in our social-racial history that are celebrated today are thought of as victories - and thus, in effect, endings (because the issue has been resolved) - when in fact they were actually the beginnings of new phases in the battles that engendered them (which often were longer lasting and more challenging than what had preceded them).

 

For example, in American history, what were the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution?  Are we cognizant that the Revolution went on for more than a dozen years after the former was issued and for months after the latter was adopted?  The Declaration was not the end, but, in effect, the codification of the beginning of the War and the Constitution was the confirmation of the beginning of its end.

 

Or, do we really appreciate and acknowledge that the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Lincoln in 1863 was a great moral victory but the reality is that the Civil War went on for more than two years until it came true?  Do we realize that it was the not the end for slavery in our country but an important harbinger of the beginning of the end for the Confederacy and the 'evil institution'?  Do we acknowledge that hundreds of thousands more had to die before it became more than soaring words on paper?

 

Similarly, with respect to the history of race and social relations in the past century, the famous U.S. Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954 was not actually the end of "separate but equal" in our society.  In fact, it took more than a decade for the recalcitrant South to begin to implement it in any meaningful way.  So much for "all deliberate speed."  (For example, about a decade thereafter, fewer than 1% of African-American children in the South went to school in integrated settings and absolutely none did in three former states of the Confederacy.)  [Yes, you read that right.  If you find it hard to believe, check out Prof. Michelle Alexander's profound and incredible The New Jim Crow and be stunned by this and so many other mystifying and troubling realities of our modern history/society.]

 

So, too, with the signature legislation of the Civil Rights Movement, the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts: they also were met with plodding embrace. 

 

Fast forwarding a half-century to our own day and time, what about the full social, legal and religious acceptance of members of the LGBT community?  In the last three weeks, when the US Supreme Court in effect affirmed a federal District Court ruling outlawing discrimination in the granting of marriage licenses, the Chief Justice of Alabama's Supreme Court urged local judges to ignore it.  Was it just me, or did anyone else flash back involuntarily to more than a half-century ago to southern legislators' assertions of interposition and nullification to try to avoid following the law of the land established by the major civil rights rulings?  Plus ca change, indeed....

 

There is no question that whatever the Supreme Court actually rules when it addresses the issue of marriage equality directly later this year, it's clear that this edict (if in favor thereof) and the state laws and court rulings that have already sanctioned it will continue to be subject to grudging acceptance and implementation.  In other words, the passage of these statutes and the affirming legal victories that follow (and result from) them will not be the end of this fight - victory achieved and change fully and finally accomplished - but the beginnings of the next phase in our journey: to move beyond the willful - and often religiously-based and -sanctioned - disregard and disdain of many to proactive and full acceptance of (the humanity and human-civil rights of) our LGBT brothers and sisters.

 

In sum, all of our great societal victories are not ends but beginnings, and it behooves us to acknowledge and embrace this, both so that we don't repeat the heinous mistakes of our collective past and so that we live ever more fully and lovingly in the future.  When we appreciate that these victories are but way stations - joyful, hard-earned and deserved ones, to be sure - on the path to our continued evolution toward the Beloved Community that Rev. King envisioned with and for us almost a half-century ago: an America - and a world - in which we celebrate each others' humanity because we realize and honor the God in each of us.  When we recognize and celebrate that we are Children of God first and American/German/Japanese/Palestinian/Episcopalian/Baptist/Unitarian/Baha'i/Muslim/heterosexuals/homosexuals/transgendered/insert-your-favorite-label-here/etc. second, we'll be able to embrace the opportunity to live fully, freely and peacefully under God and be all that we are created to be while embracing and supporting others fully as they do, too.

 

Until that time, may we be committed to beginnings more than ends - to doing the work of love, acceptance and celebration that comes with each step forward - and thus hopeful that we will celebrate ever more of them in our time and forever more....

 

"The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves...."

-Thomas Merton