On Monday, our nation will celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  President Obama will also be inaugurated after presenting his plan to reduce gun violence, just yesterday. This is shaping up as a year when we must hold many things in our hearts…all at the same time.

What would Dr. King be preaching today?

He would certainly be supporting the first African American President in his efforts to control gun violence. Even when he was alive he preached: “By our willingness to allow arms to be purchased at will and fired at whim…we have created an atmosphere in which violence and hatred become popular pastimes.” King’s death was by the gun.

Dr. King is rightly honored as one of the great proponents of non-violence. But he needed help and support to reject violence.

Bayard Rustin, who was with Dr. King from the beginning, is not well remembered although he was the lead organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. When Rustin arrived in Montgomery, Alabama  in 1956 to help with the nascent bus boycott, he found guns inside Dr. King’s home and armed guards posted at the doors. It was Rustin who persuaded King and the other boycott leaders to adopt complete Gandhian non-violence.

But Rustin, who was openly gay, took no public role in Montgomery. In fact, he was secreted out of Montgomery, hidden in the trunk of a car, because it was feared that having an openly-gay man visible in leadership would discredit the Civil Rights Movement. King was not ready to broaden his vision.

But, had he lived, I’m certain that his position would have “evolved.” He demonstrated the ability and the courage to see how all our oppressions are linked. His vision expanded when he “came out” against the Viet Nam war. He recognized that people of color made up a disproportionate number of those who were fighting and dying for a nation that did not grant them true equality. His enlarging vision called him to Memphis, where he was killed. He was there to support garbage workers—black and white. He recognized that as people of color began moving out of apartheid, broad issues of economic fairness had to be addressed.

Today, Dr. King would be urging support for sensible gun control. He would, I think, be pointing out that, though the face of gun violence in America is overwhelmingly white (just like the face of poverty), African American men are six times as likely to die from gun violence as whites.

Dr. King would be preaching non-violence.

Last week almost 600 congregants signed my letter to Vice-President Biden urging a broad and effective approach to reducing gun violence. We now have the President’s proposal. I personally wish he had gone further, opening the conversation with more systematic approaches like universal licensing and gun registration requirements. But I will be offering whole-hearted support for his proposals. The urgency is too great to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good.

Contact information for our state and national elected leaders will be available at the Peace Action table in Fuller Hall this Sunday. We need to keep up the volume of support. The financial contributions and the access of those who oppose even these measures need to be offset with our commitment and our constancy.

I will be honoring Dr. King on Sunday and remembering him throughout these days. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” he preached. I believe this to be true. And I also believe the path to peace and justice cannot be followed with gun in hand.

Have you heard that gun advocates are planning a “Gun Appreciation Day” on January 19^th? Opposition to sensible gun control measures is well funded and well organized. I, and we, have a choice. We can do what we’ve done after every other mass killing and allow our energy and attention to wane. There certainly are other issues that demand our attention. Or we can be faithful, keep up the pressure for action and help get something done. I urge you to join me in keeping the faith…this time.

Our collective heart was broken by the Newtown massacre. We were sad and mad. We wrote our elected leaders, made contributions to gun control groups and argued for a mental health safety net with fewer gaping holes. But we’ve done that before…after Virginia Tech, after Columbine, after Tucson, after Aurora. Nothing changed after those tragedies. That reality is a result both of effective pressure from gun advocates AND our short attention span.

What I know is that no action is, in fact, action. If we cannot organize and motivate ourselves to keep the pressure on for change, then we become complicit in the next mass tragedy and the daily tragedies of gun violence that are so common they rarely make the news. 400+ gun deaths just since Newtown.

This Sunday, our collection will go to CeaseFire Oregon for their gun buy-back program. You can also support their legislative efforts to pass more rigorous gun control laws in Salem. The “Gun Free Zone” banner that many of you will remember from two years ago will be hanging outside the church again. And I will be inviting all of you to join me in sending a letter to Vice-President Biden, who is leading the development of recommendations to reduce gun violence for President Obama. Click here to read my letter and come to the Peace Action Table or the Buchan reception following both services to sign-on to this letter.

My promise is to do everything that I can to help this nation chart a different course. I’ve realized that, for me, this is a matter of faith. Remember Einstein’s famous definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. We cannot change the effectiveness or the funding of the gun advocates. What we can change is our response.

I look forward to seeing you in church on Sunday.

Bill

In a normal year, I would be writing a warm holiday message just before Christmas. But before I could write those words of hope and love, I read about the loaded semi-automatic pistol, with the safety off, found by a child in a Tillamook theatre yesterday. No more children killed…this time. But our national approach to guns has risen to insanity. It is time for us to stand our ground.

President Obama said at his press conference this week that sensible gun control legislation would require immediate and sustained pressure from the American people. I urge you to join me in answering his challenge. We know our political system is corrupted by money. I have lamented this reality and urged change. So have many of you. But this time, reeling from the most recent tragedy, let us move beyond lamentation and force our elected leaders to listen to the will of the people.

Right now, the pressure is still on. The Newtown funerals continue and some 2nd Amendment fundamentalists are changing position. Polling shows that even NRA members favor minimal reforms with mandatory background checks and limitation on assault weapons as well as large ammunition clips. But the NRA will not remain silent for long. Federal courts are busy reducing restrictions on carrying and using guns. And the American people (that would be us) have a notoriously short attention span.

I wrote to President Obama this week, promising support for his leadership in obtaining passage of at least minimal, sensible gun legislation.

A perfect approach may not be possible. It was 1968, following the deaths of Dr. King and Robert Kennedy when President Lyndon Johnson pushed for sane gun laws, including national registration of all guns and licensing of all gun owners. He would have treated guns with only the same level of control that we treat automobiles and drivers. We have known what we should do for decades. His broad proposals were not enacted. I will be writing to Vice-President Biden, chair of the new task force charged with bringing recommendations to the President in a matter of weeks, urging him to put these simple and sane proposals on the table once again, as well as proposals to strengthen our mental health safety net.

But we should not allow the desire for perfection to be the enemy of the desire for good.

I urge you to join me in writing to our President and congressional leaders demanding action. Send an e-mail; make a phone call, type out a text, write a letter. Support the Brady Campaign. This congregation has long supported CeaseFire Oregon. Join their effort to pass legislation at the state level.

I’ve written our political leaders once this week, and I plan to write every week until we end this insanity.

If we are going to make this democracy work, we must develop the capacity for sustained citizen pressure. Let’s help make sensible gun legislation a model and an inspiration to us all for what is possible even in our flawed political system. This season asks of us to hold a great deal in our hearts. We are up to the task.

Maria and I wish you all a safe holiday season. May you know love and share love. And may these days help us all find peace.

Bill