On Martin Luther King, Jr., Minneapolis, and the Holy Land

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his last speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” in Memphis, TN on April 3, 1968, the day before he was assassinated. Dr. King’s final public words are remembered for many reasons, most notably his prescient acknowledgment that his life was at risk: “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will.”

This year, I marked Martin Luther King, Jr. Day having just returned from a solidarity trip to Palestine and Israel; and perhaps for this reason, I was drawn to another part of Dr. King’s speech: his reflection on the parable of the Good Samaritan, in light of a pilgrimage he took to the Holy Land, as an invitation to “dangerous unselfishness”:

Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. One day a man came to Jesus, and he wanted to raise some questions about some vital matters of life. At points he wanted to trick Jesus and show him that he knew a little more than Jesus knew and throw him off base.... Now that question could have easily ended up in a philosophical and theological debate. But Jesus immediately pulled that question from mid-air and placed it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho.

Having driven the road from Jerusalem down to Jericho, Dr. King noted that the “winding, meandering road” with a 3,400-foot drop in elevation is “really conducive to ambushing.” He speculated that the priest and Levite who neglected the injured man in Jesus’ parable were perhaps simply afraid: afraid that they might also be ambushed by the same bandits, or even that the apparently injured man was a trap to lure them into danger. In contrast, the Good Samaritan “decided not to be compassionate by proxy,” King said. When “the first question that the priest asked—the first question that the Levite asked was, ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ …the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’”

This month, I joined a delegation of bishops and leaders from the ELCA and the ELCIC (the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada) in an accompaniment visit to Palestine and Israel, and particularly our partner church there, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL). This visit included a joyful celebration, as the ELCJHL consecrated their new bishop, the Rev. Dr. Imad Haddad. At 1:30 in the afternoon on the day of the consecration, hundreds of local church members and international church leaders, both Lutherans and ecumenical partners, gathered to join a procession from Jaffa Gate to the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer for the consecration service. Christian youth scouts with drums, bagpipes, and brass instruments waited to lead us. We met in a buzz of excitement: greeting old and new friends, taking selfies, waiting for the Bishop-elect to arrive. And waiting. And waiting.

Then an alarming word started to spread through the crowd: Bishop-elect Imad’s 70-year-old mother had been detained at the checkpoint and denied entry, despite having a valid permit to enter Jerusalem. Elsewhere, checkpoints were closing arbitrarily at 1:30pm, with no advance warning, blocking people on their way to the church even though Palestinian Christians had been granted special permits to travel to Jerusalem for the duration of the Christmas season. Later, we learned that Bishop Imad’s mother had not only been refused entry but that a young solider at the checkpoint had held a gun to her head. It was, Bishop Imad reflected that evening at dinner, a day of anger and humiliation as well as joy; but as Bishop Imad declared to us, “it is a choice to rejoice in the day that the Lord has made, or to succumb to the brutality of human beings.” When, after hours of phone calls and negotiations, Bishop Imad and his family—including his mother—finally arrived at Jaffa gate and the procession began, with the scouts playing Christmas music in the streets of the city, Bishop Imad chose to rejoice.

In much the same way that Dr. King invited his audience to “dangerous unselfishness,” Palestinian Lutheran pastor and theologian, Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac, also encouraged our delegation to join in “costly solidarity.” Dr. Isaac implored us as Christian leaders to listen and learn from the witness of our Palestinian partners about their lived reality, and to be willing to speak the truth: that systems of genocide and settler colonialism are operating in the West Bank and Gaza today that employ humiliation and violence, the deprivation of human rights, and capricious demonstrations of power with impunity, all based on the idea of Palestinians as less than fully human. That this is unjust and immoral. That, as Dr. King also taught, "true peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice."

In a tragic echo of this witness, as our group journeyed in the Holy Land we also followed the unfolding news from Minneapolis and throughout our nation about ICE activity that, while ostensibly meant to arrest and detain dangerous criminals, instead has widely and randomly targeted people of color, including Native Americans; has abused U.S. citizens and legal residents; and has treated as criminals people who have been following the pathways to legal immigration while the rules shift under their feet. Protests, including civil disobedience, have arisen because so many have witnessed ICE violating civil rights; and these actions of protest have been met with violent and in some cases deadly force.

Like Dr. Isaac’s call to costly solidarity, Dr. King’s exhortation to dangerous unselfishness was not abstract or theoretical. His final speech was made in support of sanitation workers who were protesting in Memphis for fairer working conditions. Whether in pursuit of racial justice, an end to the war in Vietnam, or economic fairness, Dr. King consistently supported acts of nonviolent resistance. These acts were not merely quiet demonstrations in convenient, sanctioned areas. They were public actions that blocked traffic, impeded business, and interrupted the flow of daily life to bring attention to injustice.

Witnessing nonviolent protests against ICE activity in Minneapolis and in communities throughout the nation, including throughout our Rocky Mountain Synod, I hear Dr. King’s urgent call echoing, even as people I love and respect question whether these protests are legal, or right. Dr. King reminds us:

If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe… I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they hadn't committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right.

Our history, in this nation and in the world, has shown us that not all laws are just. The Holocaust was legal; so were the enslavement and segregation of Black Americans. As followers of Jesus, we are reminded that our faith and identity are placed in a Savior who was crucified because his ministry and disrupted the power of the Roman Empire who occupied first-century Palestine (legally, according to the Empire’s own rules). And we remember the many examples in history of those who faithfully broke unjust rules: like those who helped enslaved people escape to freedom, hid Jewish neighbors and smuggled them safely away from the Nazis, or staged bus and restaurant sit-ins for civil rights.

Following the example of Jesus, we are called to be faithful to the Gospel above all: not to be “compassionate by proxy,” but to ponder, in deep prayer and in community discernment as the body of Christ, what it means to love and serve our neighbors in Jesus’ name. The Good Samaritan practiced costly solidarity by proceeding from the question, “if I do nothing, what will happen to my neighbor?” And his response was to get involved, to show compassion by proximity rather than by proxy and in action rather than in words alone.

The indigenous Christians of the Holy Land have taught me what it means to resist injustice nonviolently: not only through public protest, but also through education and health care, gender and environmental justice, arts and culture, the refusal to be victims or enemies, the determination to live and foster the conditions of life. Through the reclaiming of human dignity in a million small ways, they practice the Arabic principle of sumud: steadfastness and resilience, resistance through existence.

In a community hall in Bethlehem the night of Bishop Imad’s consecration, Bishop Imad spoke the truth about the day: and then we chose to rejoice in the day that the Lord had made. The music turned up, and God turned our mourning into dancing. This is sumud. In Minneapolis in these days, I have seen countless clips of people singing, praying, walking, sledding, caring for their neighbors, even in the wake of death and fear. This, too, is sumud. And I know and am grateful that so many of our people and ministries throughout the Rocky Mountain Synod are continuing to persist in loving and serving our neighbors, in speaking the truth and proclaiming the Gospel, in combining prayer with acts of service and justice.

Dr. King could not have known that this mountaintop speech would be his last, but as though he were speaking from beyond this life, he reassured his hearers that he had no desire to choose a different path. He imagined standing with God looking at the whole expanse of human history and asking God to place him exactly where, and when, he lived:

Now that's a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land; confusion all around. That's a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a way that men, in some strange way, are responding.

Something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee—the cry is always the same: "We want to be free."

Dear siblings in Christ: may we also find sumud in the presence of God, in the times and places in which God has placed us. May we find the fullness of the Gospel in compassion by proximity, and in costly solidarity. May we choose to rejoice in the day that the Lord has made, in the name of Jesus our Savior.