On November 16, 1961, The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed an interracial group called the “Fellowship of the Concerned.” This was a group of older white liberals, veterans of social action in their own day. But they had voiced concern over the “student” movement sweeping the country. This movement was going too far, too fast.
To them Dr. King wrote:
“True peace is not merely the absence of tension, but it is the presence of justice and brotherhood. I think this is what Jesus meant when he said, ‘I come not to bring peace but a sword.’ Now Jesus didn’t mean he came to start war… But I think what Jesus was saying in substance was this, that I come not to bring an old negative peace, which makes for stagnant passivity and deadening complacency, I come to bring something different, and whenever I come, a conflict is precipitated, between the old and the new, whenever I come a struggle takes place between justice and injustice, between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. I come not to bring a negative peace, but a positive peace, which is brotherhood, which is justice, which is the Kingdom of God.”
And the same is now true today in Hamden and in the state of Connecticut.
Dealing with racism and with racial inequity has never been more urgent. Even though perhaps the protests of Black Lives Matter are in our rearview mirror as an almost entirely white community at Christ the Good Shepherd, the ongoing pandemic, housing crisis, inflation, and so many other social issues continue to reveal the inequality between communities of color and white communities in Hamden and the Greater New Haven area. Simply stop and ask yourself, why is there so much gun violence on the Hamden-New Haven line? Consider that these kids are simply not receiving the same resources, respect, attention and love of white children.
Dr. King so deftly interprets the Gospel as saying to us: “What will you do?” As white folks we don’t have to do anything. It doesn’t often really affect us, personally. It’s too political, it’s messy. But when our Church confesses that in Christ there is no east or west, there is no Greek or Jew, there is no male or female, we have to realize—what affects any part of the Body of Christ affects us.
I have been blessed to be part of many powerful and God-led conversations and organizations dedicated to antiracism. Filled with hope, I truly look forward to beginning these conversations here at our congregation, and here in Hamden as well.
Making room for the Spirit, let us allow Jesus to bring forth that “positive peace” that Dr. King prophesied would come, no matter the cost to us.
The Rev. Joshua N. Sullivan
Pastor, Christ the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Hamden, Connecticut