By Deidre Montague, Northend Agent’s
In observance of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, local faith leaders came together for a statewide preach-in this year on the same day, with the theme of “These Moral Times.”
Preachers who spoke for this event include The Rev. Anthony Bennett of Mount Aery Baptist Church in Bridgeport, The Rev. Diann Bailey of First Church of Christ in Suffield, The Rev. Bruce MacLeod of First Congregational Church in Massachusetts, The Rev. Terri Dennehy of Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Stamford, and The Rev. Josh Pawelek of the Unitarian Universalist Society East in Manchester.
Hosted by local leader of Moral Monday CT’s Bishop John Selders, the organizing Pastor of Amistad United Church of Christ, the event was held at Emanuel Lutheran Church on 311 Capitol Avenue in Hartford.
The Moral Monday CT coalition is “people of faith who support of #Black Lives Matter and call for justice for the state’s Black & brown people.”
After opening with prayer, Selders spoke about the annual commemoration of marking and observing April 4 and what it should mean, especially for people of faith in today’s times.
“It now has become a place where we can dawn on our faithful selves and be in conversation, not only about our Faith, but about the state of our nation, the state of our state, the state of our county, the state of our cities, the state of the world. And right now, if we ever needed a word from the Lord, we sure enough need it right now,” he said.
Bennett spoke from the topic of “The Gumption to Keep Going,” from the Biblical scripture, Galatians 6:9. He encouraged faith leaders to continue to fight for justice, even when it becomes difficult, just as King, Jr. did, who relied on his faith in God to strengthen him to continue in the struggle.
“Do we have the gumption to keep on going? Do we in this hour, in this moment? God knows, there are many issues pressing, so many issues, so many national issues, so many local issues…what will we do with Project 2025, the way that this present administration is raining down terror on this country, and the plethora of issues are enough to make us all want to pull the covers over our head and not get out of bed. The reason why it’s so important for us on this day, in addition to sharing his philosophy of sharing his strategy, but we are here today to reflect, to recognize, to recommit ourselves to the struggle,” he said.
“Perhaps the greatest way we can pay tribute to King, who is now a part of the ancestors and the great cloud of witnesses, is to say, ‘Thank you, King’, for having the gumption to keep going. Thank you for not allowing your fear to stop you. Thank you for remembering what you were taught: to walk by faith and not just by sight. That’s what we need to garner in this day, in this preaching, it’s not just about philosophies. It’s not just about it’s also about having the conviction that the ancestors who said I’m on the battlefield for my Lord and I promise God that I would serve God until I die,” he added.
Bailey spoke about the importance of affirming, loving, and supporting our transgender community members, as the current U.S. president Donald Trump and his administration are working to roll back protections for this community. She used the Biblical scriptures of Psalm 139, Galatians 3, and Matthew 22.
“I want to proclaim that our transgender siblings are beloved and affirmed and made in the image of God. We are called for such a time as this to stand up and hold people accountable for their actions, their unjust laws, and their executive orders. Transgender individuals have always faced systemic discrimination, marginalization and misunderstanding, from being pathologized in medical literature to facing legal and social ostracization, the journey toward recognition and rights has been long and arduous,” she said.
Since these political and social backlashes are happening toward this community, Bailey said that as people of faith, they have a responsibility to advocate for policies that protect transgender community members dignity and well being, along with fiercely fighting when their rights are taken away – if they are truly committed to justice.
“As people of faith, all faiths, we are called not to just preach love, but we are called to live it out, and this means taking real steps to ensure that gender people are affirmed and protected and fully included…,” she said.
“We need to create spaces of affirmation, not just tolerance. It’s about celebration. It means explicitly affirming transgender people from the pulpit in churches and synagogues and mosques, in our pastoral care and in our outreach, we must use language that reflects the full diversity of God’s people, ensuring that transgender and non-binary people hear messages of love and not rejection. We must advocate for justice, face down discrimination in health care, employment and in housing…Jesus was not neutral in the face of injustice. He spoke out. He overturned tables and demanded change, and we are called to do the same,” she added.
MacLeod spoke about acknowledging the difficulty of addressing wealth and privilege, especially of himself, as a white male preacher. He used the Biblical parable about the rich young man who could not give up his possessions, after asking Jesus what it will take to have eternal life.
“I identify with the rich young man, not that I’m rich and not that I’m young, except that by the standards of the world, I’m very rich, even if by the standards in North America, I am not. But I have what I need, and I have more. So the real thing is I am privileged, and the inclination of privileged people is to center ourselves, to move in and take over. But realizing that I don’t know enough about this movement, I don’t know enough to be able to be in charge. I’m not sure I know enough in the church to be in charge,” he said.
“What came into my mind was the rich young man went away sad, sure, because he had a lot of money, didn’t want to get rid of it and all that kind of stuff. But I also realized that he walked away because he could not quite imagine, I think, submitting himself to a poor carpenter to learn.., that had never occurred to me before…,” he said.
“It’s such a challenge for me to be authentic, to be real, to confess my sins around this oldest of American sin. I am part of it, because I drank of its water growing up in spite of my parents attempts to filter that water. I have eaten the food of racism and white supremacy… but just because the rich young man went away sad does not mean that at some point along the way, later, he didn’t get it all together and come and follow Jesus…So I come here to be part of this, to raise my voice so that I can speak louder than I am inclined to speak on my own,” he added.
Dennehy spoke about how being moral means not being silent, especially in the face of injustice.
She used an example of when she was a seminary student at Hartford Seminary and received feedback by one of her professors, Benjamin Watts, the director of the Black Ministries program, after preaching about the Biblical parable about the Good Samaritan for a class.
“I received feedback from Watts that while I offered a good interpretation and delivered well, I was perhaps just a little bit too nice, too nice to my imagined congregation. You see, Dr Watts said that he knew the kind of people he knew my congregation, that I would be preaching to: many white, privileged, college educated people, and that when it came to the work of justice, they needed to be compelled to feel, to feel into the suffering of another story and to be discomforted to know that this one here truly is my kin, and from that place of privilege to move to a place of solidarity, to act,” she said.
She encouraged people of faith that in these difficult times, it is still not the time to be nice – but to speak truth to power and take action, just as King did.
“This is not the time to look away. It is not the time to look away, when our immigrant neighbors are disappearing, when our Black and brown, transgender neighbors are targeted, when our disabled and physically and mentally ill neighbors, our single mothers and so many others in need lose access to the benefits that they need to survive. How are we going to show up for our neighbors? We are called to moral action today, to stand together with our immigrant neighbors in the schools and the courts, to rise with our trade union neighbors, to resist the stripping of civil liberties and the right to protest – to continue the fight for Connecticut to become the place where true equity can be realized and seen,” she said.
“As King told us, this is not the time for despair, as he cried out, ‘I have seen the promised land’, even knowing he would not arrive there in his own lifetime, and he called on his fellow preachers to show up and to continue that work,” she added.
Pawelek, The final preacher who spoke, spoke from the theme based on King’s final book released, “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?”, using the Biblical scripture of John 12: 1-8.
He said that everyone has a part to play when it comes to achieving justice for all people and not to shame people if the role they choose to take on is different from their own expectations.
“In the current national climate, the stakes are high. We need everyone. We need everyone’s contribution. We need everyone’s gift. We can’t be calling people out as a regular mode of operating. We can’t be canceling people as a regular mode of operating. Yes, some folks are toxic. Some people cause more harm than good, even when they mean good. Sometimes we need to pull those people aside and say, ‘Step back. Take a breath. Step back. Listen. Give space to people of color, give space to women, to queer people, but stay with us. We want you in this movement. We need you in this movement’,” he said.
“So much happening at the federal level is attempting to rip us on target, tear us apart, to frighten us, to keep us from communing with each other, to keep us from working together…some of our perfume needs to stay in house, so that we can tend to the spiritual needs of our people, so that when we go forth into the world to organize, to work on racial justice, social justice, economic justice, environmental justice, to challenge this tide of hatred and malice and cruelty, so that when we go out to minister to poor people, whether or not poverty is an enduring feature of human society, When we go out, that foundation is solid. Our bonds are thick. Our spirit remains unshaken,” he said.
In his closing remarks, Selders said that when talking about what is moral, right and wrong, we may not always see that there are people who are serving and living and doing the best they can – even if it does not look like it or they are not doing what we want them to do.
“We are one. We live on one Earth. We live on one planet. We live together, buried between one side, the other side…and it is our task. Preacher, it is our task, faithful person, it is our task to own and to call for the doing of what is right over what is wrong,” he said.
Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/holy-bible-on-stand-372326/
