April 4th, 2019 is the 51st anniversary of the martyrdom of Martin Luther King Jr. The Episcopal Church, my church, honors Dr. King as both a prophet and a martyr. He was a prophet because he spoke words of both condemnation and hope - condemnation for the systems and society that allow racism and oppression, hope for the possibility of a better world.
Very often, when people honor Dr. King, they go back to his “I Have A Dream” speech, which ends with a crescendo of hope. However, when I think about Dr. King, I think about his “Letter From A Birmingham Jail.”
This letter is a response to many white moderate faith leaders who took issue with the ways that Dr. King and his followers challenged the injustices of the day, injustices that is still with us. Two paragraphs have spoken to me for several years:
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
This distinction between various types of peace speaks to me. Too often we equate peace with”the absence of tension.” This type of peace is used to silence those seeking justice.
As a Christian, I find The Bible Project’s videos on peace and justice to be a great overview of the concepts. Peace and justice are very tightly connected. They share an idea of wholeness within complexity. When there is peace and justice, there is still suffering, trials, loss, change, and growth. Peace is not a static thing divorced from the realities of life. When there is peace and justice, the individual and communal responses to dealing with the problems of life maintain a complex, dynamic wholeness. A peace full of silent suffering is no peace at all.
One of my spiritual disciplines is to read regularly from “The Liturgy of the Hours”. Part of Evening Prayer is reciting the Magnificat (also called the Song of Mary), which is Mary’s prayer upon hearing that she would be the mother of the Christ. This is not a prayer that supports the idea of peace as the absence of conflict. It includes the lines:
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
Many of us strive for the static peace, the absence of any sort of tension or conflict. I think this is because we have conflated the ideas of comfort and safety. Safety is a perfectly good desire. Not many people enjoy being hurt, nor should folks have to expect to be hurt. Being uncomfortable is not the same as being hurt. Exercise, self-development, and emotional growth are not comfortable, yet they produce stronger and better people.
So on this anniversary of the martyrdom of Dr. King, I invite us all to reflect whether you are pursing a peace that is full of justice or a peace that is silences justice in the name of comfort.