Pilgrimage I, Day 3 – Sounds of Justice
I have just completed a six day pilgrimage to the civil
rights sites in the Mississippi Delta and environs. These are my reflections.
A Rich Matrix
Wednesday was the day our pilgrimage took us to the museums
in Memphis which told the story of the rise of soul, blues, and rock music.
From Isaac Hayes to Elvis Presley to Conway Twitty, the rich matrix of Black
Gospel, Blues, Appalachian Hillbilly and country western sounds informed each
other, merging, emerging, synergistically creating new forms previously
unknown. Blacks and whites crossed racial lines within their ranks and within
their audiences, a pattern that eventually spread across a racially divided
America. Music led the way.
I found myself smiling, singing along, remembering where I
was and what was going on in the world - my own and the larger world around me –
when those songs sprang onto the radio waves and television screens. What
occurred to me yesterday as I saw the outfits, the photos and heard the sounds
of my youth is what a debt America owes to this rich cultural matrix called
Memphis.
The Soil That Justice Grows Out Of
It is not an accident that the civil rights movement arose
in African-American churches. The passages from Exodus where YHWH leads the
enslaved Israelites to freedom were the very passages white slave masters
fought so hard to prevent them from ever hearing, much less reading, focusing
instead on Pauline injunctions for slaves to obey their masters because thereby
they obeyed God. Like the civil war where the majority of speeches of both
abolitionists and preservationists occurred in church pulpits, churches were
the epicenter of both support for and opposition to desegregation.
The spiritual roots of soul music were always there, just
below the surface. Soul music celebrated the human spirit, the divine image
that could be found on every human face beginning with the faces our racist
society had taught us were ugly. “Black is beautiful” was a needed corrective
to a depraved racism that had taught us to hate our brothers and sisters - the
antithesis of what Jesus had taught us.
This musical eruption from Memphis brought people out of
their pews, into the streets and into the voting booths. And it posed questions
to their white counterparts - where do you stand in the face of this imperative
to act, and how do you continue in attitudes and behaviors that are the
antithesis of the Gospel. These are questions as relevant in the face of today’s
MAGA Christian nationalism as they were in the death throes of Jim Crow in 1968.
This day I am grateful for the privilege of growing up in an
era and a place where music spoke to our souls and fueled lives of Justice
seeking. There is a reason we still listen to these sounds today.
The Path of the Disciple
It was a supreme privilege we were unexpectedly afforded.
There were no tours being conducted at the Mason Memorial Temple. But the
security guard we had met Monday had agreed to come to the site a half hour
early to let us inside this historic site.
The Temple is massive, seating 5000 at a time. In the midst
of the cavernous space was an altar with a beautiful, polished wood pulpit.
This was the place to which Martin Luther King, Jr. had been summoned that
stormy night amidst the Garbage Workers strike. And it was here, without a
script or notes, with no time to prepare, that he gave his famous Mountaintop
sermon. Hours later he would lie fatally wounded on the second floor balcony of
the Loraine Motel.
During my time in seminary, I had visited El Salvador as an
international election observer. On that trip we visited the convent where
Oscar Romero had been martyred. As I stood behind the altar where he was shot
down in the midst of the Eucharist, a bronze star in the terrazzo floor marking
the spot, I looked out the open door to the side where the CIA trained gunman
had stood waiting to murder a saint.
I felt a chill run down my spine. In that very sacred space,
evil had temporarily had its way but did not have the last word. The spirit of
Oscar Romero was still powerfully present there. And so were we.
As I sat in the Mason Temple, a fellow pilgrim played King’s
Mountaintop sermon on her cell phone. As I closed my eyes, I could hear the
passion in his voice, the prescience of his words foretelling his pending
death, much like the Jesus he followed in the Garden of Gethsemane. Martin was
present. And so were we, his latter day disciples.
I felt an urge to go stand in that pulpit where he preached
his last sermon. A wave of spiritual energy washed over me. And in an instant,
I was there, standing in that imposing place, a space infused with the spirit
of a martyred saintly man.
After a moment, I returned to my seat, the altar still in
view. As I closed my eyes, listening for whatever might come, I suddenly
visualized Jesus at the Last Supper. He was fervently trying to prepare his
disciples to take up the mantle, to carry forth his movement, his Way of Jesus,
to continue seeking a kingdom of God already present, within and all around his
disciples, yet not yet fully realized. If his Way of Jesus, his dream of the
Beloved Community, was going to survive, it would be up to them.
I suddenly realized that this was what Martin was doing that
last night here in this place. He had been to the mountaintop but it would be up
to his disciples to carry that vision forward. And just as quickly, I realized
that was why we were here, Martin’s modern day disciples, still seeking Justice
for all of G-d’s children, still working to create the Beloved Community. And
so I asked, “Martin, what are you calling us to do?”
The response came quickly: “You will know.” And then
these familiar words: “I am with you.” As I rose to depart this
spiritually powerful place, I could not stop myself from asking: “So, who is
speaking to me? G-d? Jesus? Francis? Martin?” And I almost detected a bit
of amusement as the Voice responded, “Yes.”
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Harry Scott Coverston
Orlando, Florida
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely
an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth
holding. Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.
Those who believe religion and politics aren't connected
don't understand either. – Mahatma Gandhi
For what does G-d require of you but to do justice, and
to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d? - Micah
6:8, Hebrew Scriptures
Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.
Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to
complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. - Rabbi Rami
Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)
© Harry Coverston, 2025
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