Observing
When I was in grade school, we observed Martin Luther King Jr. Day with an assembly. I remember the 4th and 5th grade chorus singing “We Shall Overcome.” Our principal—the first African-American head of our public school—would lead us in a moment of silent reflection. We would hear a story of Rosa Parks or watch a film overlaid with “I have a dream.” I’ll confess that I didn’t know what exactly “we” were “overcoming” though I trusted our principal enough to go with the flow. I agreed that everyone should be able to sit wherever they like on the bus, and I really liked the conviction of that man’s voice, that man who had a dream.
Beyond these prescribed observances, MLK Day would come and go, bringing with it a long January weekend but little else. I don’t remember ever observing it in the large, suburban, mono-cultural church of my childhood. We didn’t speak of these things at home; somehow the question of “what did you do in school today” never quite got to “what does it mean to overcome” or “why do you think you sang that song?” Granted, weighty topics for an 8-year-old, but you get my point.
We observed because the calendar and society told us too. We took our day off, we went to an assembly, maybe we went to a special program at the local public library. As a child, I observed the legacy of Dr. King precisely by observing: I stood on the sidelines and watched.
“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child,” writes Paul in the First Letter to Corinthians, “but now that I am an adult, I have put an end to childish ways.” An adult standing on the sidelines observing another’s struggle for justice is no justice at all, nor will it welcome the reign of God.
This weekend as our nation, our church, and indeed many of our children’s schools “observe” Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I invite you to think about how to get off the sidelines and onto the field. Justice-making is not a spectator sport. Don’t just sit there, take a knee or stand up against oppression. “With this faith,” writes Dr. King, “we will be able to work together, pray together; to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom forever, knowing that we will be free one day. And I say to you my friends, let freedom ring.”
Let freedom ring. May we help make it so.
Will
