Civil Rights, Neighborly Rights: Yesterday, Tomorrow, Love Is the Way
AM Psalm 137:1-6(7-9), 144 • PM Psalm 104
Num. 24:12-25 • Rom. 8:18-25 • Matt. 22:23-40
58 years ago, on July 2, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. Many of you will recall the events leading up to this landmark bill, including the assassination of President Kennedy in November 1963. I still recall exactly where I was when I learned that Kennedy had been shot. “We sat down and wept.”
The lamentation in Psalm 137 refers to the captivity of a large number of Judeans being held captive by the Babylonians during the Jewish-Babylonian War (597 BC – 538 BC).
By the rivers of Babylon,
There we sat down and wept
When we remembered Zion
The psalmist in Psalm 144 (probably David) likewise pleads to be delivered from the land of aliens: “Rescue me and deliver me…out of the land of aliens / whose mouth speaks deceit.”
It comes as no surprise then that those brought to the southern United States from Africa to work in the cotton fields likewise saw themselves as aliens similar to their Judean ancestors captured by the Babylonians. As the spiritual proclaims, “Babylon’s falling, falling, falling / Babylon’s falling to rise no more.” Born in Georgia, my Daddy told me that he learned another spiritual “Amazing Grace” as a child and it remained his favorite hymn. I find echoes of this spiritual in Psalm 104, which speaks of God’s loving control of the earth. (Many days I find solace and hope in the belief that, yes, God is in charge.)
In the selection from Matthews, we find instruction from Jesus on how to behave/live. Hoping to test Jesus publicly, the Pharisees ask him: “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus’s answer is “Love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, and mind.” The second commandment is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
As Martin Luther King, Jr., stated “Yes, it is love that will save our world and our civilization, love even for enemies.” (Here I think of the story of the Good Samaritan.) Or as our Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church Michael Curry titled his 2020 book, Love Is the Way. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Written by Karen Hodges
A member of St. Paul’s Becoming Beloved Community.