“Prophets and
Martyrs” Easter, April 1, 2018 Dr. Roger Ray, pastor
“It is still one of the tragedies of human history that the
‘children of darkness’ are frequently more determined and zealous than the
‘children of light’.” MLK
To
mention a 50th anniversary usually is cause for celebration but
fifty years ago, in 1968, our country, if you can believe it, was more
turbulent than we are now. We have reasons for memorial on this 50th
anniversary. 
Two weeks ago, on March 16th, we marked
the 50th anniversary of the My Lai massacre in which US soldiers,
raped, mutilated and murdered more than 500 unarmed Vietnamese and they would
have killed more but for the courageous actions of a helicopter pilot, Hugh
Thompson, who saw the bodies, realized what was happening and set his
helicopter down in a position to defend what few villagers were still alive.
Two weeks ago, on March 16th, we marked
the 50th anniversary of the My Lai massacre in which US soldiers,
raped, mutilated and murdered more than 500 unarmed Vietnamese and they would
have killed more but for the courageous actions of a helicopter pilot, Hugh
Thompson, who saw the bodies, realized what was happening and set his
helicopter down in a position to defend what few villagers were still alive.
On Wednesday of this week, we will mark the 50th
anniversary of the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, TN. And later
this summer we will arrive at the 50th anniversary of the murder of
Robert Kennedy, on June 5th. 
We knew about King and Kennedy the moment they
were killed. We wouldn’t find out about My Lai for more than a year because of
a government cover up of the incident. I bring these things up on Easter, not
so much to avoid the traditional resurrection narrative talked about on this
holiday as to try to go more to the core of it.
The
first of the four canonical gospels to be written was Mark. We have no idea how
historical his account is in any of its details but, as ancient literature, it
is an amazing piece containing powerful character studies. We think that Mark
wrote the passion narrative the way that he did in order to inspire the early
church to follow the example of Jesus, quite literally, to martyrdom.
It is the plight of
prophets who refuse to be frightened, very often, to be made into martyrs. Mark
may have actually created the evil character of Judas to represent the entire nation of Judah that turned on
Jesus. Mark shows us a Jesus who is dishonestly accused by his own religious
authorities, then falsely condemned to death by his government, and then denied
and abandoned, even by his best friends, and yet he finds the courage to stay
true to his message, even though it cost him his life.
I
think that it vitally important to note that Mark’s gospel does not end with
any reported sightings of the resurrected Jesus. It was a generation later when
Matthew, Luke, and John recorded physical sightings of the risen Christ for a
much more literal audience, but Mark artfully suggests that even though he was
killed that his disciples will see him again in the Galilee as they carry on
his message and work.
I
think that Matthew, Luke, and John take away from the Easter story rather than
adding to it. Martyrs die. That’s what makes you a martyr. If you are certain
of coming back to life three days later…. And we all know it was two anyway….
The distance between the Good Friday crucifixion and the Easter morning
resurrection isn’t even quite two days…. But who am I to quibble about details?
No
matter how much Evangelicals try to hammer at their narrative of Jesus dying
for our sins, according to their story, he was only dead for a day and a half
and then was resurrected. That’s not death, that’s an ordeal.
Martin
Luther King, Jr. was a martyr. King was only 34 years old when he wrote the
Letter from a Birmingham Jail that we read this morning and he was already an
internationally known Civil Rights organizer. He was only 39 when he died. He
was only 29 years old when his house was bombed by white supremacists. He had
every reason to believe that he would be killed and yet he refused to live in
fear.
That
doesn’t mean that he wasn’t afraid. It doesn’t even mean that he didn’t cancel
some events and appearances because he was afraid. He wasn’t stupid. He knew
that an assassin would find him. He just didn’t know that it would be on April
4, 1968 at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis.
At
an astonishingly young age, he became a prophet. He was able to see through the
inertia of the status quo, he was able to masterfully articulate the sins of
our white dominated society, and to meaningfully point in the direction of
moral change. But he was constantly threatened with violence and he insisted
that he and those who followed him would be willing to pay the price for the
change they wanted to see in their own flesh.
He
was smart. He knew that the advent of Television news was his ally. He knew that America’s great sin of segregation went
on because most white people avoided looking at it or thinking about it. He
spent time in training demonstrators to kneel even when police dogs were
sinking their teeth into them. He insisted that they be willing to be struck
without hitting back.
That
made Malcom X crazy with anger, seeing black men and women being beaten without
ever fighting back but King knew what he was doing. He knew that when the
world, through the TV cameras, saw them suffering the abuses of the police, the
National Guard, and local KKK sympathizers, that the white majority wouldn’t be
able to stomach it. As he explained in his letter from the Birmingham jail, “we
would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the
conscience of the local and the national community.”
If
you are not willing to risk your own safety, if you are not aware that
martyrdom is always a possibility, then you need to give up on any hope that
you might become a prophet.
When
President Johnson announced that he would not run for re-election, he opened
the field for a Democratic candidate to run against the fiercely
anti-communist, pro-war, Republican candidate, Richard Nixon. Bobby Kennedy
had, I would say, largely after his brother, John Kennedy’s assassination
realized that the Civil Rights movement
and the protests against the Vietnam War both needed to be heard and
incorporated into the next President’s administration.
He
had been serving in his brother’s administration when John Kennedy was
murdered. He knew that he was representing a much more radical candidacy for
change in America, so I am sure he knew that martyrdom was likely for him as
well but that doesn’t make it something to be dismissed. We need to think about
it, we need to honor his memory, and we need to know that any serious challenge
to the status quo always has some assassin brooding on the side of keeping
things the way that they are.
I
have lately had an exchange with one of our listeners who mused about his own
service in Vietnam saying, “I arrived in Vietnam later in 1968 and, …. Of
course, had nothing to do with My Lai. But I cannot help but wonder what I
would have done if by “fate or chance” things had been different and I had been
there. I was about as young and naïve as most of the rank and file soldiers who
participated at My Lai. I, also, had been trained in the art. I like to think
that had I been there, I would have refused to participate. But there is no way
that one can ever be absolutely sure.”
In some ways we can look
back on My Lai as a story that revolves around two characters: Lt. William Calley, who ordered
the massacre, and the pilot, Hugh Thompson, who stopped it and flew many of the
wounded out to receive medical care.
But
that is, of course, a bit too simple. Calley gave the order to wipe out a
village where there was no enemy resistance but a whole lot of soldiers, under
the stress of war. . . young men who had lost friends in battle, took out their
fear and rage on innocent civilians, raping and murdering hundreds.
Even though Hugh Thompson
stopped the attack, he is not the one who sought to press charges against Lt.
Calley. A military reporter who had not actually witnessed the massacre, heard
about it, investigated the details and a year later, wrote a letter to
President Nixon and to thirty members of Congress and several Pentegon
officials. The letter was leaked, published in Time Magazine and that kicked
off the investigation. Calley was put on trial and convicted of murder and
sentenced to 40 years in prison.
But
the American people wouldn’t stand for it. The public felt that he was being
scape-goated and that rape and murder of women and children was just a part of
war. Calley served three days in prison…. Three days… and was released. How is
that for an Easter story?
There
is an urban legend that cropped up more than a decade after the war that
claimed that returning Vets were spat upon and called “baby killers” but there
are no news stories about such things from the Vietnam era. It is a story that
has been told and repeated until it has become a fact in some people’s minds.
But what is a fact is that someone who was a baby killer…. Who killed hundreds
of babies, came home, was put on trial, found guilty, and promptly released
faster than a green banana will ripen on a kitchen counter top.
The
mood in America was not primarily in the form of disdain for baby killers. The
mood was to tell blacks to stay in segregated schools, to overlook war crimes,
and to blame the poor for being poor. Hugh Thompson risked his life to stop the
killing. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy sacrificed their lives to
change the world towards justice.
But
my friend’s question is what hangs over this Easter for me. If I had been
there, what would I have done? We are used to being asked, in church, what we
would have done had we been in the place of Peter the night that Jesus was
arrested, but the more important question might be, what did you do when Lt.
Calley was released? Most of us know the answer to that one and the answer to
that might tell us what we would have done the night Jesus was arrested.
Martin
Luther King, Jr. said, “It is still one of the tragedies of human history that
the ‘children of darkness’ are frequently more determined and zealous than the
‘children of light’.” It has been my sad observation through the years, that
when an ethical issue explodes within a church or a denomination, persons of
conscience step back and quietly brood, while the most dishonest, evil, and
vicious people step forward and take charge. The “children of darkness” always
seem ready to go to battle for all of the wrong reasons while the “children of
light” form a study committee and hold discussions. That has to be changed.
One
of my favorite King quotes is: So often the church in our
struggle had been a taillight, instead of a headlight. Folks,
what I am asking of you today is to turn that around. We don’t come to church
to rehearse the stories about what Jesus did, or even just to remember prophets
and martyrs like King, Gandhi, Oscar Romero, and the Kennedys. We remember
their stories to inspire one another to be more like them.
