UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Speaker tells annual celebration ‘radical love’ is key to continuing King’s dream of justice
POTTSTOWN >> The legacy of civil rights icon the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is more than we so often celebrate today.
That’s what the Rev. Brandon Harris, the keynote speaker at the 14th annual Pottstown Community Celebration of King, told the more than 100 people assembled in the Alumni Chapel at The Hill School Sunday.
King’s full legacy, said Harris, is no longer appreciated.
“We have reduced him to ‘I have a dream’ and “a day of service. I must confess to you that in recent years, I have become rather tired of Martin Luther King Day,” Harris said.
Working for a time on staff at Ebeneezer Baptist Church where King preached, Harris said “it really became a tourist site on
“This love is a dangerous love. It can get you killed. This is the love that tears down walls instead of building them.”
— The Rev. Brandon Harris
this day.”
“Dr. King has been lost,” said Harris, who is, among other things, the Protestant chaplain at Georgetown University.
“We have forgotten is the radical prophet of justice and truth who was followed by the FBI. Disowned by most of his friends at the time of his death. Assassinated organizing garbage workers,” said Harris.
But King left us much to do, said Harris; what he called “unfinished business.”
Invoking the poem by Langston Hughes, Harris said for too many Americans, “life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.”
As the civil rights movement battled racism, “it took on new forms. We imprison children on our borders.”
In his own city of Washington, D.C., “we punish the homeless in a city where rents start at $2,000 a month for a studio apartment. We justify mass incarceration and dismiss those on the marches,” said Harris.
“We view our neighbors through the lens of political partisanship that is clouding our humanity,” Harris said.
“But our neighbor is not someone we think highly of or a group we identify with. It is all of humanity,” Harris said.
“There is a weariness in America’s soul,” said Harris, caused by a longing “for what the country should be.”
The fight against racism and injustice “is a journey that seems to occur in endless night, we go forward and then backward. We had slavery, and then reconstruction. We had lynchings and then civil rights, but then we had red-lining,” Harris said.
But there are flashes of hope, “and God uses moments of hope to remind us to keep working toward justice. God will always remind us there is unfinished business,” said Harris, invoking the theme of his sermon.
“We have unfinished business, and it is the business of love,” he said, but not like the love for a spouse or a child.
“Loving our neighbor is not easy, otherwise, we would be doing it. Love means loving the people who vote differently from you, the people who look different than you,” he said.
“This love is a dangerous love. It can get you killed. This is the love that tears down walls instead of building them. This is the love that has you sit down with your neighbor to get to know them. This is a radical love,” said Harris.
“And when people ask me why I believe that love wins, I say it’s because there were some people in Pottstown, Pennsylvania who dared to love,” he concluded.
Also winning are those who use the Ricketts Community Center.
The offering from the day’s celebration went to Boyertown Area Multi-Service, which has taken over operation of the center and which will, with the help of the Pottstown Ministerium, hold an open house there on Feb. 13 from 2 to 6 p.m.
A total of $1,559 was raised from the audience, which was matched by The Hill School, bringing the total donated to the center to $3,118.
“This will help us to spread love and hope in this community,” said MultiService Executive Director Lydia Messenger. “We are so thankful.”
Intentionally or not, Harris’s theme of “unfinished business” and a greater love could be found in the speakers who came before and after, even in something so simple as choice of the readings.
In urging people to give generously to the Ricketts Center, the Rev. Christian
McMullan, pastor of Emmanuel Lutheran Church, said “Dr. King gave us a vision and a dream bigger than ourselves, to pull us out of ourselves and toward our neighbors.”
The Rev. Marcia Bailey, pastor of First Baptist Church, read from Psalm 12, saying, “everyone utters lies to his neighbor; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak. May the Lord cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that makes great boasts. Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan, I will now arise.”
Quoting from St. James, Austin Chinault, pastor of Zions United Church of Christ said: “Don’t sin against the truth by boasting of your wisdom.”
Brother Yassine Benzinane, an instructor in Arabic and French at The Hill, read from the Qur’an, first in Arabic, and then in English.
“Never let hatred of anyone deviate you from justice. Avoid most guesswork about one another, for guesswork in itself is a sin. Do not spy on one another,” he read, concluding that God created humanity and its tribes “to know one another, not to despise one another.”
The Rev. Nichole Jackson, pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ chose to read from Matthew:
“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my family, you did it to me.’”