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| "A City Built Upon a Hill Cannot Be Hid" Giotto, Legend of St. Francis, 1297-99, detail, http://edgeofenclosure.org/epiphany5a.html |
“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16)
Addressing the founding members of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1630, as they approached the New England coast, John Winthrop urged them “to follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, we must be knit together, in this work, as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly affection. We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of others’ necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each other; make others’ conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body. So shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace... For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.”
What does it mean to let our light shine before others, to shine as a city upon a hill? How are we to conduct our lives, in relation to one another, and to the society and the land around us? One answer finds itself in the continuous striving for justice and reconciliation in American history.
Aunt Carol gave me a copy of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ by Harriet Beecher Stowe once she thought I was old enough to read it. She’d already given me ‘King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table’ by Roger Lancelyn Green (Penguin) and ‘Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ by Mark Twain. The edition of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ she got for me was built to last. It survived mailing back and forth across the country better than the Mark Twain book did. And so it endures. The story is controversial now, as the old man of the title is one who survived a lifetime of bondage and chattel slavery, by enduring his condition, and while not condoning it, somehow accepting it as his life. People don’t put up with that anymore and the younger people in the story don’t always either. Remember, if only from ‘The King and I,’ the famous scene of Eliza crossing the ice of the Ohio River, to freedom in the northern states. Or more safely Canada. The reason I bring up this book at all is that it illustrates not only progress in attitudes but also the historical legacy of people who did work against the dismal institution. Sometimes slavery is called, along with the treatment of indigenous peoples, America’s original sin.
On April 9th 1865, the same day Lee surrendered, three brigades of U.S. Colored Troops fighting alongside other Union soldiers overcame the defenses at Fort Blakeley, Alabama, and received the surrender of some of the last soldiers still fighting for a lost cause: slavery. While other days are more commonly celebrated in connection with the Civil War or with the struggle for liberty for all, this marked the end of the war for many, and a new birth of freedom; the campaign for justice continues. Indeed, some of the soldiers who fought in that battle served months or years longer before going home, as they worked to bring the benefits of freedom to the newly free.
Aunt Carol - who said of her own Southern forebears “they were all secesh (secessionists)” - was liberal for her day, a lifelong supporter of the NAACP (perhaps since its institution) and subscriber to Ramparts magazine (which she would dutifully forward to us once read). NAACP and SCLC fostered the Civil Rights organizations of the 1950s; and then there followed the Black Power movements of the 1960s, not to mention the emerging theologies of Black Liberation and womanist - Black feminist - theologians. Today we strive to make progress, or regain it, in an era when the churches, including our own, hold racial reconciliation as a goal.
Some members of our congregations were delegates to the last diocesan convention, whose theme was ‘Reconciled in Christ: Becoming Beloved Community,’ with its title from Saint Paul and its subtitle from Josiah Royce and Howard Thurman - and Martin Luther King Jr. This is Black History Month...
On January 15th 1981, as a gentle snow was drifting down, thirty thousand people gathered at the foot of a slope southwest of the Washington Monument. From the Park Service stage raised for the occasion, we heard political leaders like Elihu Harris speak on behalf of a new federal holiday they proposed. The chant went up, “We want a holiday – Martin Luther King Day!” And then Steve Wonder introduced a new song, sung gently in the drifting snow: “Happy Birthday, dear Martin.”
We have a long way to go, to become beloved community, and worthily shine as a city upon a hill, showing light to the world, that all people may rejoice in the gifts of our Creator, doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with our God. We have a long way to go, but if we are reconciled in Christ, the work is well begun, and the road is before us.
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* Union troops at the Battle of Appomattox Court House, that preceded Lee’s surrender, included some 5,000 United States Colored Troops.
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https://blackhistorymonth.gov/about/
https://www.blakeleypark.com/About-Us
https://www.nps.gov/apco/learn/historyculture/the-surrender-meeting.htm
https://www.nps.gov/apco/learn/historyculture/the-battle-of-appomattox-court-house.htm
https://www.nps.gov/linc/learn/historyculture/lincoln-second-inaugural.htm
https://www.nps.gov/linc/learn/historyculture/gettysburgaddress.htm
Psalm 112:4 Light shines in the darkness for the upright; *
the righteous are merciful and full of compassion.
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