Shall We Long Endure? #5 | “The Virtues and Vices of Moderates” | A Sermon

0:00 Today, on this President's Day weekend, we come to the conclusion of our winter sermon series, Shall We Long Endure? For five weeks, Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church has held a critical set of American documents in one hand and the testimony of our faith in the other. We've looked at the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights. We've considered the sacred promises that are enshrined in these texts. At every step on our journey, we've held up a moral yardstick and asked, how are we the people doing? Last week, Reverend Chris Palmer considered this weighty question through the lens of a famous speech.

0:58 He focused our attention on the Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln's brief but stirring eulogy for those who perished in one of the Civil War's most brutal battles. reminded us that Lincoln shaped his words as a challenge to the living. Standing on the edge of that battlefield our 16th president called this country's citizens to put their shoulder to the to the hard task of making freedom and equality real for all. This morning we conclude the series and today our attention turns to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s letter from the Birmingham City Jail. On April 12th of 1963 Reverend King was arrested in Birmingham, Alabama for his role in organizing and participating in a protest march.

2:09 Specifically, King was charged with violating a recently passed state injunction that banned marches and sit-ins protesting racial segregation. It was an injunction that that clearly trampled on people's constitutional right to peaceably assemble. At this tense moment eight white clergymen from Birmingham including Baptists, Episcopalians, Methodists, a Presbyterian and a Jewish rabbi, eight clergy who were concerned that violence could break out around these protests, published an open letter to King. They urged their colleague in ministry to be patient in striving for civil rights. They suggested that King obey the misguided prohibition against protests until the injunction could be overturned by higher courts.

3:15 These eight clergy were known moderates and they'd published an open letter before. Four months earlier, in January of 1963, Alabama's notorious segregationist governor, George Wallace, made an infamous pronouncement during his inaugural address at the Alabama State House. Wallace promised to strengthen policies of racial separation in his state, declaring segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. The same group of clergy who cautioned King first condemned Wallace for what they deemed his inflammatory and rebellious statements. And down through the years, the children of these eight clergy have defended their dads, describing the men as pro-integration, peace-loving moderates who were trying to keep Alabama from erupting into violence.

4:32 This history is critical backstory to today's topic. And it's also a reminder that one of the most significant documents in American history is a letter written by a pastor, a letter addressed to other ministers that focuses on the nature of justice and what it means to hold this country accountable, both to its highest ideals and its foundational laws. In many ways, it's remarkable that King was able to write his letter at all. Stuck in a small prison cell with other men and without a smartphone and access to Google, King drafted his erudite response on scraps of newspaper, writing in the margins, on dinner napkins, and even toilet paper.

5:33 Visitors smuggled these snippets of text out of the jail and then the good Reverend's assistant, Willie Pearl Mackey, typed them up piecing the letter together like like a jigsaw puzzle. Ms. Mackey sent the reassembled letter to the New York Times. Sadly the newspaper declined to print it. Instead it was the New York Post that first published excerpts from King's letter. Soon thereafter the Christian Century and the Atlantic Monthly printed King's text and then it went viral, 1963 viral. King's pastoral letter would eventually appear in over 350 newspapers across this country. This letter, penned in a jail cell, served to define, galvanize, and advance the struggle for civil rights in this country.

6:38 And it didn't stop there. Over the last 60 years, King's letter has again and again been studied by people all over the world as a moral argument for non-violent civil disobedience in the face of injustice.

6:59 Central to King's letter from Birmingham is his charge that the actions or collective inaction of white moderates, especially white moderate clergy, serve to advance the cause of white supremacists and segregationists. King put his criticism like this. I must confess that over the past few years, I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I've almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the white citizen's counselor or the Ku Klux Klan-er, but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice.

7:58 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.

8:19 Today, we're going to wrestle with King's pointed criticism. Specifically, we're going to consider what the good book and our faith has to say about moderates and moderation. Are Christians for or against moderation? And what does that mean for this fraught moment in American history? To start on an answer, let's turn our attention to two passages from the Good Book. Each espouses a somewhat different take on moderation. Let's begin by listening for God's word as it echoes to us from the book of Revelation, chapter 3, beginning with the 14th verse.

9:07 And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write, The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the origin of God's creation, I know your works. You are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I'm about to spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich and I've prospered and I need nothing. You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. Therefore, I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich and white robes to clothe yourself and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. I reprove and discipline those whom I love.

10:15 Be earnest, therefore, and repent. Listen, I am standing at the door knocking. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and eat with you and you with me. And now let us pivot to consider counsel offered by the Apostle Paul to the church in Philippi. Before reading this text, I want to point out that the word gentleness that appears early in this passage can also be translated as forbearance or moderation. Listen now for God's word as it echoes to us from Philippians chapter 4, beginning with the fourth verse.

11:10 Rejoice in the Lord always again. I will say rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things. as for the things that you have learned and received and heard and noticed in me, do them and the God of peace will be with you.

12:21 This is the word of God for you, the people of God. Thanks be to God. Most people describe themselves as moderates. We do not think our opinions extreme. We are confident that our beliefs and hopes lie somewhere near society's bullseye. We are by nature middle of the road people. National pollsters concur. Gallup reports that a healthy majority of American voters believe that their personal perspectives represent the political, moral, and cultural center of this country. Most of us look in the mirror and see a card-carrying moderate.

13:19 And then along comes an election. Elections regularly shock us. They make us wonder about our fellow Americans. And they lead us to question our place in the American experiment. Wait, how can a politician, a policy, a party that I find extreme, garner so much support? Am I really part of the stable center that defines America? or is the moral, cultural, political center of our country, of any country, a moving target? These questions may help explain our so-called culture wars. Our society is engaged in a nod to the title of Paul Thomas Anderson's new movie, in one battle after another.

14:15 We are forever fighting to define the center, to set society's norms. forms. Case in point, did anybody spend time this past week debating the merits of last Sunday's halftime show? Opinions about Bad Bunny's performance have been flying around. One member of Congress expressing outrage has demanded an investigation. Good luck with that. I mean, I seriously doubt that our attention spans are that long because next week we'll be fighting with equal passion about something else. In the end, Paul Thomas Anderson nails it. We are locked in one battle after another. Is this a good thing? Noting humanity's long-standing addiction to conflict, the world's greatest thinkers have consistently urged people to pursue a more balanced, less volatile path through life. Aristotle and other philosophers counseled moderation.

15:26 Now to these luminaries a moderate demeanor does not mean pitch your tent in some ill-defined political mill ground. Moderation is an attitude. Moderation is a virtue. Acclaimed American inventor, politician, and philosopher Benjamin Franklin agreed. To Franklin, a moderate is someone who manifests a centered self, a controlled ego, and a self-critical perspective amidst conflict and life's travails. a moderate wants to lean in and hear the whole story and not simply a tale that confirms their bias. A moderate is slow to judge and slow to anger.

16:24 A moderate keeps broad goals in mind and is willing to compromise. In his letter to the Philippians, the apostle Paul counsels moderation. Be joyful and gentle, Paul writes. Don't be anxious. Don't get into silly fights. Pursue what is honorable and true. Do this and God's peace will envelop your heart and it will flow through your entire community. Put like this, moderation sounds like the virtue that our society most desperately needs right now. More joy, less vitriol, more gentleness, less anxiety, peace that falls on our fiery conflicts like a soft rain. It's a pretty picture, right?

17:20 And it draws us back to today's question. If moderation is such a good thing, if it's a tonic prescribed by the Good Book for conflicted souls and fractious communities, why does Martin Luther King criticize it? Why does the religious leader of the civil rights movement question the moderate impulses of his white colleagues?

17:48 These are important questions. Let's go after them. The letter King wrote from the city jail in Birmingham presents a respectful and passionate moral argument. In it, King contends that his movement's actions, peacefully protesting the racial segregation taking place in schools and on buses, in cafeterias and in city parks, King's movement's actions protesting were a critical step in holding the wider society accountable. To make his point, King rehearses the challenges that people of faith have faced whenever they've been confronted in the labyrinth of history by unjust laws. King points to ancient Rome and Nazi Germany.

18:52 He reminds his readers that passing a law doesn't make a policy moral. He asked, how did we get to a place where people can be refused a drink from a water fountain, denied a seat on the bus, refused access to a city park, denied an equal education simply based on their race.

19:17 As King presses his case, the pastor cites theologian, American theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr. In his book, Moral Man and Immoral Society, Niebuhr argued that contrary to popular opinion, large groups of people are more likely to embrace immoral behavior than a lone individual.

19:44 Indeed, down through history, Niebuhr claims, our biggest societal problems have resulted when governments have sought to legitimize and normalize immoral behavior. With this in mind, King points out correctly that wayward societies rarely turn from immoral paths without prodding, without confrontation, without protest. And as such, King concludes, peaceful demonstration is an essential and faithful tool in bringing about moral change. This is the point in the letter where King gets exacerbated. He expresses frustration with his clergy colleagues.

20:41 King challenges these pastors in words reminiscent of today's text from Revelation, you need to stop being lukewarm Christians. The fight against segregation, King asserts, is a matter of justice, but it is also a matter of faith. It's wrong, King chides his moderate colleagues, it's wrong to ask me to delay, to imply that our peaceful marches are the problem when the true problem is the soul-crushing racial bias and legalized segregation that my people face every day. Here King famously opines, justice delayed is justice denied. And then King pivots.

21:38 He tells his clergy colleagues that he truly loves America and he reminds them that there are other movements out there on the landscape of this country that have given up on the promise of America. Ironically, the leaders of these other movements, figures like Malcolm X, criticized King for being, you guessed it, too moderate. The accused King of accommodating his oppressors in advocating for non-violence. Reminding these other clergy of this wider reality, King presents himself and the marches in Birmingham as a middle way as a more faithful approach. Our non-violent protests, King says, are grounded, not in bitterness, anger, or hate. They take their strength from love, love for God, love for self, love for neighbor, and even love for a flawed America.

22:54 So is King for or against moderation? This is a tricky but really important question. And to answer it, I'd like us to take a look at two old terms. They're listed in today's bulletin right under the sermon title. They should appear on your screen right now. The first of these old terms is adiaphora.

23:24 Some 300 years before the birth of Christ, a group of philosophers known as the Stoics divided the world up into three categories. The good, the bad, and the indifferent. Adiaphora was the Stoics' term for the indifferent. According to these philosophers, adiaphora represents all the stuff that's not worth arguing about. My guess is that most married couples and even most friends have a bucket of things set aside that count as adiaphora. In this bucket you can find differences of opinion about how to load the dishwasher. Whether April or October is a better month to walk in the park. We can disagree over these matters, but they're not truly not worth fighting about.

24:24 They're adiaphora. Down through the centuries, Christians have found adiaphora to be a helpful distinction when talking about religious differences. The term compels us to ask what parts of the Christian faith are non-negotiable? What parts require that a faithful person go to the mat? And what parts of the faith are cultural relics, matters of opinion, tradition, diverse perspectives that are not really worth theological fisticuffs?

24:57 Today, for example, is the last Sunday before the season of Lent. Today our stoles are white. Next week they will be purple. Are these color changes marking different Christian seasons essential parts of what it means to be Christian? Will God hurl thunderbolts at those who wear colored stoles or don't wear colored stoles or wear the wrong colored stoles? Sometimes Christians look at each other, smile, and conclude, God doesn't care about that. These instances can be categorized as adiaphora. Now at the other end of the does God care spectrum, Christians have embraced a different term, status confessionis. status confessionis comes into play when Christians are certain that they are faced with a matter that God cares about very much an issue that's so troubling that it cannot be ignored by the church when declaring status confessionis the church draws a line in the sand and says this is wrong people of faith must condemn this action this practice this law this belief. We need to call this out or we will no longer be truly the church of Jesus Christ.

26:37 Now most often status confessionis is evoked to criticize the beliefs and practices of other Christians and as such it typically results in painful ecclesial breakups, schisms. When you draw a line in the sand, you're asking people to take a stand on one side or the other. What are some historical examples of the church invoking status confessionis? Well, in 1933, German pastor, theologian, and eventual martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer used the term to criticized churches in Nazi Germany that aligned themselves with Hitler's government. In 1982, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, an organization to which the Presbyterian Church belongs, declared that apartheid in South Africa was a status confessionis issue. Support for apartheid was deemed inconsistent with the Christian faith and churches unwilling to denounce apartheid were removed from broader Christian fellowship.

27:54 In recent years, evangelical conservative Christian movements within this country have declared so-called traditional marriage to be a status confessionist issue. And this line in the sand has brought about divisions in the Methodist, Episcopal, and Presbyterian communions. I cite these different examples to raise a basic point. It's not going to surprise you. Broadly speaking, Christians are not always on the same page when it comes to declaring status confessionis. What happens then? Well, that question takes us back to Birmingham. From his jail cell, King fights for a cause that sits at the absolute heart of his faith.

28:49 The struggle against segregation is, for King, a status confessionis issue. He believes that the soul of America hangs in the balance. At the same time, King is savvy. He knows that his clergy colleagues, together with the congregations that they serve, and indeed all of America in 1963 are not on the same page in regard to civil rights. So what does the good pastor do? King makes an argument, a brilliant, compelling, theologically informed argument that lays out the righteousness of his cause and that invites people to become allies in working for change.

29:44 This powerful and effective letter, this critical part of American history prompts now a follow-up question. As we approach our country's 250th birthday, can America still be swayed by a good theological and moral argument. I have two answers to this question. My first response, spoiler alert, is on the gloomy side. This past week, in his final column for the New York Times, conservative opinion writer David Brooks laments the current state of America.

30:41 Over the last two decades, Brooks writes, we have become a sadder, meaner, and more pessimistic country. Our elected leaders are openly corrupt. They sell pardons to criminals and feather their own nests at every turn. On the home front, we scapegoat the weak. On the world stage, we strut around like a schoolyard bully. Our leaders, Brooks writes, have made it clear that they believe morality is for suckers. How did this happen? When do we throw our moral compass overboard? Now rather than lay blame at the feet of a single politician or political movement, Brooks sees our current morass as the symptom of a deeper moral confusion that has been taking root in this country over the last 50 years.

31:45 To explain its genesis, Brooks points to a culture of hyper-individualism, fed by social media and often supported by higher education. Brooks argues, convincingly in my opinion, that multiple generations of young Americans have been told that they need to come up with their own set of values. Incidentally, C.S. Lewis once remarked that this is quite possibly the cruelest guidance you can give a young person. What should we expect if we tell the youngest generations that everything is up for grabs and if we suggest that civilization's deep, rich traditions of moral inquiry have no help to offer? Brooks describes the outcome in this way. Our privatization of morality has burdened people with a task that they cannot possibly do leaving them morally inarticulate and unformed.

32:50 It has created a naked public square where there is no broad agreement about what is true, beautiful, and good. All this is to say the conditions for making a moral argument right now are challenging. What do you think? Do you think that King's letter from the jail, which found a wide audience in 1963 and truly swayed public opinion, do you think a letter like that would be able to make headway today? I'm not sure. Too often what stands for modern morality arises out of people's base fields and fragile loyalties and not from a thick, thoroughly debated, many-layered moral tradition. And this, I think, is a huge problem.

33:46 Because a shallow morality, while capable of an occasional passionate outburst, is no match for populist leaders skilled in manipulation. We have got ourselves in quite a pickle. Still, I'm a person of faith and I'm cautiously optimistic. I'm optimistic in part because I've watched religious leaders in Minnesota play a key role in organizing nonviolent responses to the ICE incursion. I'm optimistic in part because this church is home to all sorts of remarkable young people who are eager to embrace Christianity as an alternative to the meanness of this time.

34:47 I'm optimistic in part because I know that we have been here before in American history and in Christian history. The Judeo-Christian faith, my friends, was forged by people who lived in chaotic and violent times under all manner of unsavory rulers. We've been down this path. The bulk of the Bible was written during historic periods when those occupying the halls of power were tyrannical, incompetent, corrupt, and cruel. In other words, our core story is totally in sync with the world around us. And our heroes and heroines are people who figured out how to be faithful under the most trying of circumstances.

35:48 This, this is the treasured wisdom that we hold in trust for the world. So what is this wisdom, this tradition, this God calling us to do at this raggedy moment in time? When answering that question, I typically echo my dear friend Tom R., who counsels, do the good that is yours to do. We have different skills, different resources, different perspectives, but we all have a part to play. Do the good that's yours to do. I would also counsel us to remember the Apostle Paul's challenge to the faithful in Philippi. Approach this messy and conflicted world, says Paul, with gentleness and love.

36:47 In seeking to do our part to repair the frayed places in our society, we must never lose sight of the one to whom we are discipled. In other words, as we seek to do our part, we must manifest Christ's love and gentleness. Some have told me that this sounds, preacher, like an impossible assignment. Are you saying go into battle with one arm tied behind our back? No. I'm saying that love is our model and love is also our surprising strength. A little over a week ago, I visited Frank Van Riel at NYU Langone Hospital. Frank was dying.

37:44 He was surrounded by his caring family. Werner visited them a week ago Thursday. I showed up on Friday. Standing in the room, I brushed Frank's wispy hair back from his face. I cupped his head in my hand. I anointed his forehead with oil. and then with tears rolling down my cheeks, I told this octogenarian immigrant from Holland how much he meant to me.

38:18 From my earliest days here at Fifth Avenue, during some rather challenging times, Frank always approached me with a smile and a kind word. He was a deeply encouraging soul whose ways were steeped in love. And this past week, our property manager, Derek, Madalena told me that Frank treated him and all of our maintenance staff the same way. Frank, Derek said, looking me in the eye, Frank made an impression. My friends, I believe that there is a power that arises out of gentleness and love that aspects of this world will never understand and always underestimate. At the end of his letter, composed on scraps of paper in a cell of the Birmingham City jail, King takes issue in almost a lighthearted way with the fact that his clergy colleagues expressed concern that the civil rights leader's actions might look extreme to people.

39:32 King's response reads like this. As I continued to think about the matter, I gradually gained a bit of satisfaction from being considered an extremist. Was not Jesus an extremist in love? The question we must consider is not whether we will be extremist, but what kind of extremist will we be? Will we be extremists for hate? Or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice? or will we be extremists for the cause of justice? So here we are at the end of this series and Lincoln's question from Gettysburg still lingers in the air.

40:30 Shall this nation conceived in liberty long endure? It's a sobering inquiry and yet it is a hopeful one too. Lincoln's words remind us that we have navigated extremely perilous circumstances before. But of course it took work. A lot of faithful, patriotic souls working together. I think it's fitting, my friends, that we end our series with Martin Luther King.

41:07 For King's powerful letter was and is a challenge to the church. It's a call to be faithful and brave disciples of Jesus, to be bold in wrestling with the demons of this age and gentle in our treatment of each other. King calls Christ's followers to approach the world as extremists for love. If we do this, partnership with the Spirit, I imagine that we too will leave an impression.