James A. Joseph - "The Ministry of Reconciliation" (January 14, 2001)

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-	Let us pray.	0:08
	Oh, Holy Spirit, come unto us.	0:11
	For without thee our service is nonsense,	0:16
	and perhaps even a sacrilege.	0:20
	Oh, Holy Spirit, come.	0:23
	Amen.	0:26
	On this Sunday, when we pay tribute	0:31
	to the life and legacy	0:35
	of Martin Luther King, many of those who knew	0:38
	and worked with him cannot help but wonder	0:43
	what he might have said if he were alive today	0:48
	to a nation that is trying to put the pieces back together	0:52
	from an election that did not so much divide us	0:56
	as it demonstrated how divided we are.	1:00
	We cannot help but wonder what he as a proponent	1:05
	of an integrated society would say to a world	1:09
	that is integrating and fragmenting at the very same time.	1:15
	While I would urge caution in speculating	1:22
	about how Martin Luther King would respond	1:25
	to the particular issues we face today,	1:28
	it is possible, nevertheless, to speak more definitively	1:32
	about where he would turn for moral guidance,	1:37
	and where he would turn for divine inspiration.	1:41
	He was especially fond of quoting from the letters	1:46
	attributed to the Apostle Paul.	1:49
	Even using them as a model for his own letter	1:52
	from the Birmingham jail.	1:56
	It seems fitting, therefore, that we reflect on these words	1:59
	from Second Corinthians.	2:03
	From now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view.	2:07
	Though we once regarded Christ in this way,	2:15
	we do so no longer.	2:19
	Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,	2:22
	he is a new creation.	2:26
	The old has gone, the new has come.	2:29
	And then he wrote, "All this is from God	2:35
	"who reconciled us to himself,	2:40
	"and gave us the ministry of reconciliation."	2:44
	Paul was writing to a small band of Christians in Corinth,	2:51
	a city located at the crossroads of commerce.	2:57
	It was the wealthiest and most important city in Greece	3:02
	at the time.	3:06
	But while the small community to whom Paul wrote	3:08
	consisted of a few who were powerful and well-born,	3:13
	the majority were freed men, and slaves,	3:17
	dockhands, and shopkeepers.	3:20
	It was a city in which the rich	3:24
	were alienated from the poor, men from women,	3:27
	and the true believer from those who acknowledged doubts.	3:32
	It was not surprising that Paul saw reconciliation	3:39
	as the community's greatest need.	3:43
	He begins his letter, not with a dissertation	3:47
	on the psychology of alienation,	3:50
	or the sociology of community,	3:55
	but he begins with the insights of theology.	3:59
	When he says that we must first be reconciled to God,	4:04
	he is reminding us that the ministry of reconciliation	4:10
	must be grounded in the claim of all religions	4:15
	that we are not here alone.	4:19
	That each of us is a pod of something bigger	4:23
	and more mysterious than the self.	4:28
	He is reminding us that the search	4:32
	for a higher level of being,	4:35
	the urge toward a universal connectedness	4:39
	is a reflection of a human condition.	4:44
	It may be then that it is in our common search,	4:49
	rather than in our different answers,	4:55
	that we find the basis for common ground.	4:58
	Paul spoke first of the Christian claim	5:03
	that God was in Christ reconciling the world.	5:06
	Other religions may define and address holiness	5:11
	from different perceptions,	5:14
	but we are one in our recognition	5:17
	that because of our spiritual kinship with the universe,	5:21
	prejudice and discrimination should have no place	5:27
	among people of faith.	5:31
	That was the message of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists,	5:35
	Native Americans, Jews, Protestants, Catholics,	5:40
	Orthodox Christians, and others who released a statement	5:44
	a few weeks ago at the National Cathedral in Washington	5:49
	declaring that racism is a sin,	5:52
	a matter of the heart.	5:57
	One of the rabbis present highlighted this ecumenical claim	6:02
	when he said that Jews are taught that God formed Adam	6:07
	out of the dust from all over the world.	6:12
	Yellow clay, white sand, black loam, and red soil.	6:15
	To remind us that we are all of this earth,	6:21
	that we are all equal, and that no one race	6:25
	can put itself above others.	6:30
	The chief of a Mohawk nation,	6:34
	and a leader of the American Muslim Council both argued	6:37
	that we diminish the preciousness and sacredness of life	6:41
	when we denigrate, disrespect, or oppress people	6:47
	based on the color of their skin or their ethnicity	6:52
	or their culture.	6:57
	To deny the dignity of another,	7:00
	to deny the humanity of another, they said,	7:04
	is to dishonor the sacred in the world,	7:09
	in oneself, and in others.	7:14
	This is precisely the point that Paul was making	7:19
	to the Corinthians.	7:21
	Reconciliation must begin with a spiritual dimension.	7:24
	It moves next to a personal dimension.	7:31
	What is probably best described as	7:35
	an existential rebalancing of the self.	7:38
	In other words, there must be an awareness	7:44
	and acknowledgment of the alienation	7:46
	before there can be a restoration of what is broken.	7:49
	Bringing back in the balance means	7:56
	undoing historical illusions, deceptions, and misteachings.	7:59
	For as Wordsworth has said,	8:06
	"To be mistaught is worse than to be untaught,	8:09
	"no errors are so difficult to root out	8:15
	"as those which the understanding has pledged to uphold."	8:18
	That is why South Africa is engaged in the process	8:25
	of exorcizing the ghosts of the past.	8:28
	For while many blacks lived in political exile,	8:33
	most whites lived in a state of psychological exile.	8:38
	When Americans ask me what can we learn from South Africa,	8:46
	I like to point out that in South Africa	8:51
	race is now on the table.	8:54
	In the United States, it is under the table,	8:59
	if it is anywhere in the room.	9:03
	The South Africans chose to emphasize truth	9:07
	as a prerequisite for reconciliation	9:11
	because they were trying to reconcile,	9:15
	not only the alienation among cultural and racial groups,	9:19
	but they were trying to reconcile conflicting images	9:25
	of the past as well.	9:28
	In the United States, we may first need to reconcile	9:32
	conflicting images of the present.	9:38
	For too many white Americans failed to acknowledge	9:42
	the widespread mistreatment of black Americans	9:45
	that can be found in all aspects of American life.	9:50
	They tend to know at least one black person	9:54
	who is doing well so they accept the worst stereotypes	9:57
	about those who are not.	10:01
	Tomorrow, the American people will honor Martin Luther King	10:06
	as an authentic American hero.	10:12
	Some will listen again to his spellbinding speech	10:16
	delivered on the Washington mall in 1963.	10:19
	Others will be moved by visual reminders on television	10:24
	and in our newspapers of the Montgomery march,	10:28
	the water hoses in Birmingham,	10:32
	and people throughout the South	10:35
	who were beaten but not broken.	10:36
	Many will use the language of Paul to say in obvious joy	10:41
	the old has passed away.	10:47
	Thank God the new has come.	10:50
	But has it really?	10:54
	It is true that African Americans who live, work or study	10:58
	in North Carolina are no longer denied access	11:02
	to lunch counters.	11:06
	It is true that in the city of Tuscaloosa, Alabama,	11:08
	where I first met Dr. King at a mass meeting,	11:14
	the schools are now open,	11:18
	and the universities compete	11:23
	for the best minds.	11:25
	They compete for the best minds and the best athletes	11:33
	without regard to the color of their skin.	11:37
	But today, as we remember how far we have come,	11:42
	it is important that we also remember	11:46
	how far we still have to go.	11:48
	Some Americans seem perplexed that many African Americans	11:52
	who are proud to see members of their race	11:57
	given an opportunity to perform at the highest levels	11:59
	of our society are much more concerned about public action	12:02
	that will benefit the many, rather than individual action	12:07
	that will elevate a few.	12:11
	Some Americans seem baffled and downright disappointed	12:14
	when African Americans refuse to allow them	12:19
	to pick their leaders, and to reinterpret the legacy	12:22
	of their heroes.	12:25
	There is no longer a single black community	12:29
	largely poor and largely separate.	12:32
	There are several black communities divided	12:36
	like the rest of the society, but regardless of how high	12:40
	members of these community climb,	12:45
	or how low members of these communities fall,	12:48
	they find out either early or late that race still matters.	12:53
	It matters because too many Americans	13:00
	live in psychological exile.	13:03
	Given renewed credence to Ralph Ellison's notion	13:07
	of the invisible man.	13:10
	"They refuse to see, and where they see,	13:13
	"they seem unable or refuse to understand."	13:19
	If Martin Luther King were alive today,	13:25
	he would still dream of a world where little white boys	13:28
	and black girls would be judged	13:32
	not by the color of their skin,	13:33
	but by the content of their character.	13:36
	Yet he would have no illusion about the corrosive power	13:39
	of the new civility that wants to ignore race,	13:44
	rather than deal with its legacy.	13:48
	It is still true that if you break a man's leg,	13:52
	and it is an illusion or a cruel deception to then place him	13:59
	at the starting line of 100 yard dash,	14:04
	and claim that he now has an equal opportunity.	14:07
	There is simply no equal opportunity	14:12
	until the broken leg is taken into account,	14:15
	and special efforts are made to mend that leg.	14:19
	This spirit of reconciliation of which Paul spoke,	14:26
	first with the universe, secondly with oneself,	14:30
	has a third dimension.	14:35
	If the first is based on the acknowledgment	14:38
	of a spiritual kinship with the universe,	14:40
	and the second on the need and the urge	14:44
	for a rebalancing of the self,	14:47
	the third is based on the natural urge	14:51
	toward community and bonding.	14:54
	Paul spoke of a community that is neither Jew nor Greek,	14:57
	male nor female, slave nor free.	15:03
	The South Africans have a word for that kind of community.	15:08
	They call it Ubuntu,	15:12
	and it is best reflected in the Xhosa proverb,	15:15
	"People are people through other people."	15:18
	It follows then that to deny the dignity	15:24
	or damage the humanity of another person	15:27
	is to deny or damage one's own.	15:30
	The contribution of Ubuntu to our understanding	15:36
	of reconciliation is that it provides	15:39
	an alternative to vengeance.	15:42
	It provides an opportunity for forgiveness.	15:45
	It does not mean that the victim forgets,	15:49
	but it does mean that without forgiveness,	15:53
	reconciliation loses its depth and loses its daring.	15:57
	It should now be clear then that the work of reconciliation	16:04
	is not some cozy glossing over what divides us.	16:08
	A ministry of reconciliation that seeks only an apology	16:15
	and confession from those who have benefited	16:20
	from a wrongdoing, and forgiveness	16:23
	from those who have been victimized by it	16:26
	is empty and incomplete.	16:29
	Here's what Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu had to say	16:35
	in his recent book, "No Future Without Forgiveness."	16:39
	"Once the wrongdoer has confessed	16:44
	"and the victim has forgiven, it does not mean	16:49
	"that this is the end of the process.	16:54
	"Confession, forgiveness and reparation	16:59
	are part of a continuum," he says.	17:04
	He goes on to say in South Africa,	17:09
	the whole process of reconciliation has been placed	17:13
	in very considerable jeopardy	17:18
	by the enormous disparities	17:22
	between the rich, mainly the whites,	17:23
	and the poor, mainly the blacks.	17:27
	The huge gap between the haves and the have nots,	17:31
	which was largely created and maintained	17:35
	by racism and apartheid, poses the greatest threat	17:38
	to reconciliation and stability.	17:44
	The argument here is not over whether or not	17:49
	there should be some form of restitution	17:53
	and, or reparation,	17:57
	but over how it should take place.	18:00
	To quote again the Archbishop who is affectionately	18:03
	referred to by his friends as "The Arch",	18:07
	"Unless houses replace the shacks in which most blacks live,	18:12
	"unless blacks gain access to clean water, electricity,	18:19
	"affordable healthcare, decent education, good jobs,	18:23
	"and a safe environment, things which a vast majority	18:27
	"of the whites have."	18:31
	And listen to this, what he says.	18:34
	"Unless these things happen,	18:37
	"we can just as well	18:40
	kiss reconciliation goodbye."	18:42
	These are the words of the Archbishop.	18:48
	These are not the words we tend to hear about South Africa	18:51
	from those seeking reconciliation in the United States.	18:55
	The emphasis is on forgiveness from those who have been	18:59
	the victims while very little is said about reparations	19:03
	from those who have benefited,	19:07
	and what form of restitution is morally defensible	19:10
	and politically feasible.	19:14
	The idea of reparation,	19:19
	once attributed only to nationalists,	19:22
	is picking up support from intellectuals in universities,	19:25
	activists, and civil rights groups, journalists,	19:29
	church leaders, and ordinary people who are persuaded	19:32
	that this is the only way to get at the root	19:36
	of the enduring racial problem.	19:39
	Some argue from the perspective of Old Testament theology.	19:42
	Others argue from legal precedent.	19:47
	And still, others from social need.	19:51
	But like South Africa, there is a difference of opinion	19:55
	as to what form of corrective action is desirable.	19:59
	There is much to be learned here from the South Africans	20:05
	who concluded that the idea of government-initiated	20:08
	cash payment was unworkable,	20:13
	and they chose instead corrective action	20:17
	based on the idea that if race created the problem,	20:20
	then race must be considered in designing a solution.	20:24
	For many Americans, the ministry of reconciliation,	20:31
	confession, forgiveness, and empowerment	20:35
	seems like such a large undertaking	20:38
	that even the most well-meaning	20:41
	are perplexed about how to proceed.	20:44
	If Martin Luther King were alive today,	20:49
	I am sure he would urge you to begin where you are,	20:52
	here on this campus and in this community.	20:58
	I don't have time to suggest what this requires,	21:04
	but I must at least remind you	21:08
	of the basic moral obligations of the modern university.	21:11
	While the medieval university could cloister itself	21:17
	in isolation as a community of scholars,	21:20
	the modern university would clock her in the 60's	21:26
	called the multiversity,	21:29
	is a community of diverse stakeholders	21:32
	bound together in support of the scholarly enterprise.	21:37
	Each stakeholder has needs that are legitimate,	21:43
	and each stakeholder makes contributions	21:48
	that should be respected and rewarded.	21:51
	The same is true of the local community.	21:56
	The old division between town and gown no longer applies.	21:59
	I learned a long time ago as a business executive	22:06
	that the success of the business depends to a large degree	22:09
	on the quality of life in the community	22:13
	in which the business is set.	22:17
	The same is increasingly true of a modern university.	22:20
	I cannot conclude without at least one final word	22:26
	about what Martin Luther King might say	22:31
	to those who take on the work of building,	22:34
	sustaining, or changing communities.	22:37
	He would undoubtedly remind us that the language we use,	22:41
	the strategies we adopt, like the ends we seek,	22:47
	must be aimed at changing the practices of the wrongdoer,	22:52
	rather than destroying his dignity or damaging his humanity.	22:58
	That is why so many of us in the 60's took the worst	23:04
	that the clan and the defenders of segregation had to offer.	23:08
	But we were still able to speak of loving the enemy.	23:13
	We refused to hate the wrongdoer	23:20
	because hate corrodes the hater	23:24
	and leaves the hated untouched.	23:27
	In every sermon I ever heard Martin Luther King preach,	23:32
	in every call to action I ever heard him utter,	23:36
	there was always this notion of love and respect.	23:40
	But there was another element as well.	23:47
	It was his optimism about our better nature.	23:52
	His hopefulness about the future,	23:57
	It was the kind of hope about which Paul spoke.	24:03
	It was the kind of hope that Vaclav Havel had in mind	24:07
	when he wrote, "I am not an optimist	24:10
	"because I do not believe that everything ends well.	24:14
	"Nor am I a pessimist because I do not believe	24:20
	"that everything ends badly.	24:24
	"But I could not have accomplished anything	24:27
	"if I did not have hope within me.	24:30
	"For the gift of hope is as big a gift	24:33
	"as the gift of life itself."	24:36
	Paul understood this, and so did Martin Luther King.	24:40
	It is my prayer, therefore, that when this service is over,	24:46
	and this sermon has faded into the background,	24:52
	you will remember in all you do to keep the dream alive.	24:56
	That the gift of hope is as big a gift	25:01
	as the gift of life itself.	25:06
	Amen.	25:09

Item Info

Title:

James A. Joseph - "The Ministry of Reconciliation" (January 14, 2001)

Description:

Sermon start time: 00:08. Sermon end time: 25:10.
Reconciliation is not only about confession and forgiveness. It is about reparation and restitution from those who have been systematically oppressed. Joseph specifically compares race relations between black and white people in South Africa and the US. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Key quotation: "It should now be clear then that the work of reconciliation is not some cozy glossing over what divides us. A ministry of reconciliation that seeks only an apology and a confession from those who have benefitted from a wrongdoing, and forgiveness from those victimized by it is empty and incomplete."

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4gh9bq9w

Date:

January 14, 2001

Speaker:

Joseph, James A.

Liturgical Calendar:

Epiphany

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Duke University. Chapel

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UA.17.01.0003 CS-1048
ref10253_1xp
uachapelsermaud
duke:321200
dcrau001692
ark:/87924/r4gh9bq9w
82996fc4-6b4f-42dd-bd9d-158a5ab17380

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The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

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