Imagine

January 1995

I originally proposed a sermon on the theme “ How Would Our World Be Different, If Dr. King Had Lived?”  I wanted to try my hand at counterfactual history, also known as alternate or “what if” history.

I did a little research and thought about a design.  However, I was overwhelmed by a retrospective sadness for the course of America since 1968, seen through a lens of possibility—how Dr. King’s moral arc would have affected our national moral arc.

You surely know, I’m referencing Dr. King’s quotation “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.”  Perhaps you know that President Obama has a rug in the oval office with those words woven around the edge. You probably don’t know that Dr. King borrowed that now famous phrase from Unitarian minister Theodore Parker who said in 1853, “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe. The arc is a long one. My eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by experience of sight. I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.”

As I reflected on what might have been, I realized how monumental Martin Luther King Jr. had already become as he entered his full maturity at age 39.  He’d inspired and contributed to the organization of the greatest political/cultural event of the 20th century: an astonishingly successful expansion of  civil rights largely won by the moral effort of the people oppressed by 400 hundred years of entrenched racism.  Dr. King had begun to campaign for economic justice (The Poor Peoples’ March and his reason for being in Memphis, a sanitation workers strike); and he had begun to oppose the Vietnam War.  He was dramatically transforming the notion of Love from neutered Christian sentiment to transformative action—the swift sword of Mrs. Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” but without violence and blood.

He threatened a smug, self-serving economic and political establishment that, in his absence over the last four decades, has grown into a Plutocracy that has cynically abused national interest (of, by, and for the people—another Theodore Parker phrase) for selfish gain.

In my imagination, I injected Dr. King into the events of tumbling decades: the 70s, 80, 90s, the 2000s.  I was literally overwhelmed at the imagined gravitas of his presence, the difference he would have made.  His baseline, the transformative power of Love, would have at the very least been a constant goad, a reminder always to keep in mind the notion of a moral arc bending ever closer to Justice not for some but for all.  He would have pushed American Christianity away from Evangelicalism’s selfish prosperity theology, toward a generous social justice ethic of view true to Jesus’s own revolutionary ministry.

Seventeen years ago, I had the occasion to visit the Lorraine Motel where Dr. King was shot.  Memphis was literally closed because of an ice storm that had passed through the area night before.  The motel was worn and tired, much like the decaying  industrial/transportation district surrounding it.  A single wreath on a balcony marked the 2nd floor where Dr. King was shot.  It was a bright, sunny mid-winter, Sunday afternoon. The sensations of the day mingling with my active imagination,--standing on holy ground,--made it one of the more memorable and poignant experiences of my life. 

I imagined the report of a rifle, the slumping body, the ooze of blood, but I knew couldn’t fully comprehended the full import of the tragic event.  Such a realization still exceeds my ability to order and hold it, relative to the course of events of the last 43 years.

Our world would have been a better place—a much better place—had Dr. King survived to walk with us at age 83.

I grieve for what might have been but never was.

Jesus's Portrait

I've been to quite a few wedding receptions.  I could compile a nonfiction book on the people I've met and the stories I've been told around and across banquet tables.

Occasionally, I feel trapped by the conversation, especially if the subject is about religion or politics, and I disagree with something said.  I don't want to be contentious at such a celebratory event.

At a reception recently, the conversation turned to the book, #1 NY Times besteller, Heaven Is Real.  You probably know about it:  A four old boy, his father a Wesleyan minister in Nebraska, nearly dies from a burst appendix. Over subsequent weeks and months, the little boy reveals aspects of a brief but detailed visit to heaven, including an encounter with Jesus, wearing a crown, purple sash, and white robes.

The parents present the young boy with portrait after portrait of Jesus.  None resemble the Jesus he met until he's presented with a painting by another child prodigy, Akiane Kramarik of Mt. Morris, Illinois, who paints largely from her imagination.  For believers, including the boy's parents, this conjunction of child prodigies has  special authority.

I've posted a photo of the charming prodigy and her Jesus-portrait.  What strikes me about  the painting is the styled hair of Jesus.  It reminds me of what's called a tell in poker--a gesture that gives away the player's hand.  This hairstyle screams of the early years of the twenty-first century when she painted it.  (I'm reminded of movie epics that can be dated by the hairstyles, no matter how period-authentic the costumes are.)

The book Heaven Is Real appears to be full of its own sort of theological tell, doctrine that is concordant with unique Weslyean doctrine.

Some years ago, anthropoligsts devised an image of what Jesus might really have looked like, given his time, social status, and genetic background.  It caused a bit of a stir.  I always thought that this face would have fit nicely into a Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western  (music of course by Ennio Morricone.)

Such renditions beg the questions of cultural-centrism,  of idolatry, and even of the notion of cult--religion looking to one figure in particular.

Regarding the historical Jesus, I lean to the outlook of the relatively recent Jesus Seminar, particularly John Dominic Crossan.  Jesus was a social radical who doesn't resemble the popular portrait that most folks carry in their imagination.

Whenever I get distressed about such things, I turn to Theodore Parker's "Transient and Permanent in Christianity (1841)," and find my distress much relieved.