I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.

In seminary, he found an approach to eradicate social evils.

In the spring of 1950 he heard a lecture by Howard University president Mordecai Johnson on Gandhi [who had been killed in 1948; two years previous]. King wrote in his autobiography:

He had thought that love only worked between individuals in conflict. …when racial groups and nations were in conflict a more realistic approach seemed necessary. But after reading Gandhi, I saw how utterly mistaken I was.

This has been a week to remember Martin Luther King’s dreams.  Many people have been outraged over the shooting death of a young black man – Trayvon Martin -- who was walking down the street by a “neighborhood watch” captain with a gun.

What has upset many people about this event is that it is not an isolated incident, but rather reflects an on-going reality for many Black people in our society.

Charles Howard, U. of Penn. Chaplain, wrote this:

What I want and what I pray for is a changing of the culture around the millions of African American Trayvons living in the U.S. that allows for them to be thought of as "other," as criminals, as people up to no good. A changing of the culture that allows for people, non law-enforcement people, to carry firearms, use them on a 17-year-old boy, and then hide behind poorly thought out laws. And a changing of the culture where this situation surrounding the death of Trayvon Martin doesn't matter or is irrelevant to so many of my neighbors -- especially my neighbors in the faith community. That indifference hurts just as much as seeing a young man who looked just like I did when I was a teenager die. …

Perhaps most painfully, while I was enrolled in seminary studying for the ministry, I was walking back to campus one evening when a local policeman stopped me, made me put my hands on my head and kneel on the ground because "there had been a lot of car thefts lately and I "looked suspicious."

That officer who stopped me near my seminary did not believe that I was who I said I was and so he put me in the back of his car and drove me up to campus dormitory. He didn't believe me until I unlocked the door and went inside. No apology. Just silence

President Obama has said, “If I had a son, he would look like Treyvon.”

This situation is forcing many white people to become aware of how often a person of color is seen as “other” instead of “us.”

Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote:

The teachings of Thoreau came alive in our civil rights movement; indeed, they are more alive than ever before. Whether expressed in a sit-in at lunch counters, a freedom ride into Mississippi, a peaceful protest…, these are outgrowths of Thoreau's insistence that evil must be resisted and that no moral man can patiently adjust to injustice. In Thoreau's words, "We can no longer lend our cooperation to an evil system." And, "He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with evil."

Thoreau seems to have read Swedenborg, and may have absorbed some of his concept of “evil” and of “neighbor.” Swedenborg said:

As much as we avoid evils as sins, so much do we love truth, because that is just how much we are involved in what is good. On the other hand, as much as we do not avoid evils as sins, so much do we not love truth, because that is just how much we are not involved in good things? (The Doctrine of Life #21, 34)

Swedenborg said everyone is our neighbor – who strives for love.

(I.) To will not to do evil to the neighbor is to love him. For he who loves another
does not do evil to him. …This is evident, that he who loves the neighbor does not
commit these evils. [DP, 210]

The teachings of Thoreau came alive in our civil rights movement; indeed, they are more alive than ever before. Whether expressed in a sit-in at lunch counters, a freedom ride into Mississippi, a peaceful protest…, these are outgrowths of Thoreau's insistence that evil must be resisted and that no moral man can patiently adjust to injustice. In Thoreau's words, "We can no longer lend our cooperation to an evil system." And, "He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with evil."

White people need to absorb, at a deep level, that people of color are “us”; not “them.”  Yet we also need to recognize that the shooter, Mr. Zimmerman, is also “us.” We participate in a society in which such events have become commonplac

One week from today, we begin Holy Week.    This is a good time to remember that for Swedenborg,  the crucifixion has deep meaning for all of us in our lives.   We need to remind ourselves to stay aware of the crucifixions that happen every day around us.   By not noticing them, we participate in their continuation.

It’s a good time to remind ourselves that racism is not limited to the Mr. Zimmerman’s or the Sanford, FL, police departments.  Racism is a deeply entrenched  social problem that we must recognize and resist in order to achieve Swedenborg’s New Jerusalem and Martin Luther King’s Beloved Community.

Closing song

We Shall Overcome

Extinguish your candle.

                    

    

Close the Bible

   

 

Go in peace, dreaming about the New Jerusalem with racial justice.

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