Barring the Road to The Promised Land

It is tempting, on this almost overwhelmingly rich feast of a weekend that combines MLK Day and the inauguration of our first black President, to think that we have gotten to the Promised Land. We have not. We have however, reached a mountaintop.

And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain.  And I’ve looked over.  And I’ve seen the promised land.  I may not get there with you.  But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.

Much is, and rightly so, being made of reaching that Mountaintop. But the Mountaintop is actually just a Vista Point from which to look out upon The Promised Land. With the election of Barack Obama, our nation and the world have joined Martin on that mountaintop. From this Mountaintop we can look out and get a glimpse of the Promised Land, but we can also see how far, far away it still lies from where we are now.

“Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring-when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children-black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics-will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

Between Martin’s Mountaintop and that Promised Land there still lies a vast unexplored expanse of terrain. So as we crest one mountain tomorrow and get a small glimpse of the Promised Land, we can also see that vast expanse. We can stand on this newly conquered mountain and look back…. and see how far we have come from both Martin’s and Moses’s day. We must do that, and we must celebrate the long, long journey. We must celebrate those who have guided us to this mountain and we must celebrate all those who have worked so hard to get us up here, each in their own way. From the humblest slaves shouldering their loads to the grand orators, those scouts pointing the way up the mountain with their ideas of what the Promised Land will look like, and the words they spoke of freedom that kept us going through long dark valleys and canyons on this seemingly endless journey.

But as we take a break and catch our breath and reflect on the past, we must also turn around and survey the land…and the challenges before us, and ask ourselves the questions that all good travelers on the road to freedom, the road to the Promised Land, must ask. How do we get there from here?

All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

What is it that keeps us from the Promised Land?

Martin’s death itself, along with the deaths of JFK, Malcom, RFK, and so many others…was one of those deep and lightless canyons. Martin and the others of his day led us to a fork in the road where we as a people had a chance and a choice to go, then, to the Mountaintop, or down into that valley of darkness. Then, as now, a small group of people chose to lead us into the darkness. Now after yet another long struggle, through the valley that the likes of Nixon and Reagan and Bush and those that hewed to their vision of freedom for only a select few, we have finally climbed back to a Mountaintop.

What is it that keeps us from the Promised Land?

Martin, once again, points the way.

“It is a historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture, but… groups tend to be more immortal than individuals.”  – Martin Luther King, Jr. “Letter from Birmingham Jail”

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.

Martin Luther King, Jr.  

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

What is it that keeps us from the Promised Land?

“Privilege,” “the oppressor,”  “destructive selfishness” as opposed to “the broader concerns of all humanity.”

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

For the last eight years we have fought against one face of that darkness. The face that was in front of us, the fight that was in front of us, that was barring the road to the Promised Land. And as we have fought against it, we have exposed it. OUR particular fight against THIS particular face has exposed the Republican Party and it’s leaders and the Powers That Be that it represents, as the Party of privilege, as the Party of those that wish to oppress us. As the Party of destructive selfishness. They have been exposed as the Party of the status quo. They represent the status quo that does, despite all of its protestations and excuses, exist to bar the road to the Promised Land of Freedom ….for all but themselves.

Of course it is not just “Republicans” that bar that road. That is just the face they wear today. Those that would bar the road have always been with us, and they have always barred that road, no matter what face they may wear at any chosen point or time… in the long struggle for freedom. When they have won battles, and they have won many, it has not been them alone. They are few, truth be told. They have won those battles by recruiting others. They recruit others by finding the place in those others hearts that resonate with their message of fear and hatred, and then planting the seeds of selfishness and oppression and nurturing them with the rhetoric of privilege, difference and divisiveness.

What is it that keeps us from the Promised Land?

It is that place of darkness inside all of us. And that is the true struggle, the struggle not to give in to the darkness, to not be tempted into the “darkness of destructive selfishness.” We each face that great battle every day.

“Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.”

But that battle is also fought outside of us. It is fought against our Brothers and Sisters who have lost that battle to the darkness….and allowed it inside of them and allowed it to rule them.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

We are in a great battle.

“Those who fight monsters should take care that they never become one.”

As we sit, for a moment, on the Mountaintop and look out at the obstacles that bar the road to the Promised Land, as we plan the next phase of the battle of Light vs. Darkness, let us not forget where the real battle lies, what we are really fighting, and what we are fighting for. And let us be mindful of who, and how, we fight.

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Ok, break’s over.

Let’s kick some ass!