Answering the Knock
Reverend Janet Parsons
Gloucester UU Church
January 20, 2019
Year after year, Martin Luther King Day is observed in various ways all across the country. Right here in Cape Ann a week ago, despite the ice, we had the march and service at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Rockport in the morning, and then the third annual MLK Symposium organized by the Gloucester Meetinghouse Foundation in the afternoon. But no matter what else takes place, we can almost guarantee that we can turn on the television and hear a sound bite that will include Dr. King’s famous 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech. Because he was assassinated at the age of 39, in 1968, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is frozen in time. Last week he would have turned 90, had he lived. And I find myself wondering about his life; the life that was cut short. I picture him at Selma for the 50th anniversary of the march across the Edmund Pettis Bridge – perhaps in a wheelchair – but alongside President Barack Obama and Representative John Lewis. Can you imagine what a moment that would have been? Sadly, we have nothing but our imaginations.
He has been frozen in time, captured in snippets of black and white film, the same words repeated over and over. And we could be forgiven, all these years later, for believing that that is all Dr. King ever had to say.
But Reverend King, as I like to think of him, was not just a civil rights leader; he was a Baptist minister and one of the great preachers of modern times. He is remarkably relevant today. And so, this morning we are going to look beyond the sound bites and discover in one of his sermons just how King’s message applies to us over a half century later.
In September 1958, just over 60 years ago and almost two years after the Montgomery bus boycotts, Reverend King preached a sermon titled, “A Knock at Midnight”.
The sermon is based on the parable in the Gospel of Luke that I read a moment ago. Someone in need knocks on a friend’s door at midnight to ask for three loaves of bread. The friend replies: “Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.”
What appears to be happening in this parable? It’s the middle of the night, which King interprets as dark times in the lives of humans: times of war, hopelessness, or segregation. Perhaps today we might add climate change, or gun violence, or the worldwide immigration crisis. But regardless of the interpretation, there is a friend who is being asked for help at midnight. For King, this friend is a metaphor for the church. And the three loaves of bread? King considered the loaves of bread to be metaphors for hope, for love, or — for justice.
“On the door of the church millions of people knock,” King preached. And what happens? Churches can make the mistake of aligning themselves with the status quo – with safety – by staying in bed and letting their children, that is, their members, sleep – and so they do not answer the knocks on the door at midnight. King preached in his sermon, “How often have (people) experienced a similar disappointment when at midnight they knock on the door of the church. Millions of Africans, patiently knocking on the door of the Christian church where they seek the bread of social justice, have either been altogether ignored or told to wait until later, which almost always means never…
One of the shameful tragedies of history is that the very institution – (the church) – which should remove (people) from the midnight of racial segregation participates in creating and perpetuating the midnight.”
Perpetuating the midnight. If we think of midnight as oppression, as the withholding of justice, in what ways are we perpetuating it; still keeping the doors locked? There are multiple answers to this question, sadly enough. But here in January of 2019, 60 years after Reverend King wrote his sermon, the knocking on our doors by immigrants seeking asylum is a sound that can no longer be ignored.
They are not knocking so much on the doors of churches as on the southern border of the United States. The knocking began in earnest following the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, in 1994, which contributed to tremendous economic dislocation, particularly for Mexican farmers. In recent years economic migration to the US has lessened considerably, as economic conditions have changed.
However, in recent years the breakdown of society and of public safety in Central American nations has resulted in whole families traveling to our border, knocking on our door, seeking political asylum. The United States has responded to the knocking by not just locking our doors, but barricading them; by building walls and fences and guard towers, and by increasing surveillance. We have passed laws such as Secure Communities that erode our civil liberties. We are tolerating agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rounding up undocumented workers. This summer we witnessed the separation of young children from their parents as a deterrent for trying to enter the United States, a policy which is continuing. And until Friday the federal government was partially shut down: being held hostage for the construction of a wall all across the southern US border. As a result we must wonder who we are and what we are becoming.
The knocking on our door has lessened, but it has not stopped. Some Biblical scholars interpret the meaning of the parable of the Friend at Midnight as being about the power of persistence. The persistence of people trying to enter the U.S. to find a better life has been evident.
“Ask and it will be given you, search and you will find, knock and the door will be opened for you.” And indeed, Jesus goes on in the parable to say that the friend ultimately did get up and unlock the door, and offer the seeker the bread that he needed.
How do we provide the bread that is being asked for: the bread of justice, the bread of hope?
What are we, as Americans, as Unitarian Universalists, called to do?
What kind of Friend at Midnight are we?
Dr. King warned us in his sermon: “The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.” These are strong words. How can we live up to them?
We can return to the parable of the Friend at Midnight for possible answers. Scholars know that the parables have a historical and cultural context. This parable would have made sense to Jesus’ listeners because it described the expectations of life in rural villages in first century Galilee. People in these villages knew that they were called upon to help one another. The network of mutuality often referred to by Reverend King was a fact of life then: you give me what I need, and I in turn give you what you need. What Jesus is describing in the parable is nothing short of what we would call radical hospitality; according to the value system of the time and the place, a villager must host an unexpected guest. And the sleeping friend would be shamed for not providing what was needed. People had every right to ask, and people were expected to respond, to provide. The relationships were reciprocal. So, as liberal religious people, if we believe in breaking down barriers, we are called to go beyond what the law and the government mandate. In other words, the law will only take us so far.
As I have reflected in recent days on the meaning of a knock on the door: as a request for hospitality, or as persistence in expressing a need, I am struck by a third interpretation of knocking. (I should note that the wonderful thing about biblical parables is that they can expand to hold many different layers of interpretations!) But it occurs to me that when we knock on a door, we are also asking for permission to enter. What would you say when you were knocking on someone’s door – perhaps something like, “May I come in?” Or perhaps just wait to be invited?
When I think about knocking in that way, I am forced to remember how the white European settlers took control of this land over the course of the last 500 years. They didn’t knock and wait, or ask permission to enter. They took what they wanted. Indigenous peoples have systematically been deprived of their ancestral lands.
In the Sonora Desert in the southwest, there is an ancient people known as the Tohono O’odham. Their ancestral lands are roughly the size of Connecticut, which they have inhabited for hundreds if not thousands of years. Long before the United States and Mexico even existed, and negotiated the border between them, the Tohono O’odham lived there. And now, their land is bisected by the Arizona-Mexico border, so their ability to move back and forth is now restricted. Tribal members born in Mexico cannot visit the main part of the reservation in Arizona. As they say, “We did not cross the border. The border crossed us.” (https://medium.com/race-law-a-critical-analysis/the-border-crossed-us-the-tohono-oodham-s-nation-divide-32c9260f1458)
The original border between the US and Mexico, until 1853, was farther north, and all of the Tohono O’odham land would have been located in Mexico. But then, the US bought land in what is known as the Gadsden Purchase, in 1854, so that there would be room to build a transcontinental railroad. (Ibid.) The Tohono O’odham were not consulted. There was no knock at the door, no invitation, no response requested or waited for. Land was simply taken, without relationship, without the reciprocity described in the parable. And today the indigenous people wait for a wall that they do not want, that would divide them. They have not been asked. Their door has not been knocked on, nor do they have anything to give. (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/at-us-mexico-border-a-tribal-nation-fights-wall-that-would-divide-them?fbclid=IwAR0jWFQSQxm2RH3-6YW0P3gBHM3sdmnZFvX3_vjmeWIyyC9DFbnBsW8zfxg)
In this climate, in this era where so many hard-won civil rights are threatened, it is not enough for us religious people to simply be aware of the crisis at the border. As Dr. King said, “The church must be reminded that it is … the conscience of the state… If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.” The prophetic zeal that Reverend Dr. King warned us about is still needed. We need to stand with the people who have lost so much.
People in need are knocking on the doors of our country. Today the response is mostly to try everything to shut them out. But we have forgotten that once this was their land, and we were the ones who should have knocked. Instead, we took without asking. Today, we reject without asking. We forget to ask, “What has happened to you? What are you so afraid of, that made you willing to walk a thousand miles to come here?” Too many people say in response to the knock, “Build the wall!” Or, “You should come here legally.” Or, “Go back where you came from.” But what is legal in this situation? And what is moral? And if we do not answer the door, and if we do not allow a relationship of mutuality, of reciprocity, to develop, we will never transcend the barrier of fear, the barrier of rejection of those we see as Other. We do not understand that in rejecting people, we are rejecting the possibility that they have something of value to offer us: more understanding, more compassion, more human relationships.
To truly build Reverend Dr. King’s Beloved Community, to create a network of mutuality, we must receive as well as give. In accepting what others offer us, we gain knowledge and compassion. Together we hope for a better future for our country and our world, and we grow in ways we never could have anticipated.
My friends, let us remember that there are those who need us, who will knock on our door. And let us remember that we have loaves of bread to offer: the bread of justice, the bread of hope, and the bread of love.
We must also remember that there is darkness in our world, midnight, and people need each other to bring us all into the light together. We must welcome people to knock at our doors and hope that they will continue to do so. May we remember to knock at their doors as well; to ask permission, to ask for help and advice. Let us work to build relationships based on mutuality, to find a way forward together.
Reverend King concluded his sermon in 1958 with these words: “The dawn will come. Disappointment, sorrow, and despair are born at midnight, but morning follows. ‘Weeping may endure for a night,’ says the Psalmist, ‘but joy cometh in the morning.”
May it be so. Amen, and blessed be.
Benediction
I leave you today with the words of Martin Luther King: “Let us rise up…with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation.”
And may you go in peace and with love.
Amen.
