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Evensong on the Feast of The Baptism of Christ

THE DRUM MAJOR INSTINCT

 

Like me, you will have been closely following the news from Washington this week-

I wonder what it reminded you of?  What historical parallels you drew?

 

Amidst the fury- many miles away-

the focus as on the minister of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Georgia-

(  where once a very different American leader- Martin Luther King-

preached and ministered to a dispossessed congregations.)

 

His grandmother was a cotton picker.

 

But this week Raphael Warnock was elected as the first Black Senator in the States history.

It reminds that the voices that are noisiest and the people who bang on loudest are not necessarily the most significant or enduring.

 

Thank God.

 

 

Tomorrow is |Martin Luther King day in America and when I was watching the storming of the Capitol- I wasn’t thinking of 1789, or 1814, or 1933-

 

I was thinking of 1963 and the Martin Luther King’s March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

You will remember it was the famous occasion of his ‘I have a dream speech’

                    That incited PATIENT DISCIPLINED CHANGE

                                                  ENDURING HOPE

                                        AND LIFE CHANGING RECONCILLIATION

 

 

You certainly won’t have seen the footage of another incident in King’s life, which happened back in Ebenezer Baptist Church five years later.

 

Though it was live-streamed (on the radio) and you can listen to it online…

 

It is one of my favourite sermons-

And Im pretty sure I talked about it this day LAST YEAR too.

 

 

It was a small rally- and his number two Ralph Abernethy was supposed to do it but he fell ill with a virus

so King adapted someone else work called The Drum Major instinct.

 

 

It stands for us today- in these grave times- as a clarion call to Christian Life

 

It challenges us to CHOOSE CHRIST

To PRACTICE CHRIST

To FOLLOW CHRIST.

 

In the sermon King says that all have a Drum Major instinct in us.

We all want to bang the drum for US and OUR NEEDS.

 

King points out that that desire for recognition and importance is deep in all of us.

 

He  reminds us of Jesus’ own teaching about Baptism recorded in Mark:

where the Sons of Zebedee do the same

and ask to sit on his right and left in his kingdom.

 

The tradgedy is that to feed this instinct we push other people down…

 

It is the root of prejudice,           of exclusion,          of vanity      and insecurity..

 

Of course, now we all have a new archetype of this destructive and base desire

 

Getting past this instinct-  learning another way

Of BUILDING UP and not TEARING DOWN

– King says-  is the great issue of life.

 

Instead Jesus says to us:

 

“Oh, I see, you want to be first.

You want to be important. You want to be significant.

Well, you ought to be.

If you’re going to be my disciple, you must be.”

 

 

But I want you to be first in love.

I want you to be first in moral excellence.

I want you to be first in generosity.”

 

 

 

The true nature of baptism INTO CHRIST

Is that it is an ongoing work to reorder our lives

Away from these instincts

And to learn Jesus’ HIGHER Way.

 

 

Who, being in very nature God,

 did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

rather, he made himself nothing

                     by taking the very nature of a servant,

                                           being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,

                                         he humbled himself

                              by becoming obedient to death—

                                                  even death on a cross!

 

 

 

Unlike in 60 years ago, following Christs Way in our time

is no longer a cultural inevitability or inheritance

 

But neither should it be reduced to a lifestyle choice

Or a vote in the culture wars

Unlike so much else in life it is not a transaction-  something to own or consume

 

As it seemed that Spring in Georgia

when King preached- what turned out to be- his last sermon

before he was martyred so it is today.

 

 

To be a Christian- to join Jesus Way-   is a STARKEST OF CHOICES

 

One we make in baptism

And need to remake everyday.

 

TO be a Christian is to embrace that HIGHER HARDER BETTER CALLING.

to march to the beat of different drum.

 

 

 

If you want to say that I was a drum major,   King said in that sermon…..

say that I was a drum major for justice;

say that I was a drum major for peace;

 I was a drum major for righteousness!! “

 

 

And he was- an icon of the rejection our baser instincts

of fear, vanity, and prejudice.

 

And of commitment to our way of life

 

 

Kings stands today in stark contrast to those who seek to want to appeal to and use those base instincts to political gain

and even to hijack our precious way of life to their own selfish ends.

 

 

 

 

For all his honorary degrees, awards, and other accolades

 

King is best remembered

for living out his Christian Baptism

following wherever that led him

and, in the end-

being baptised with the baptism of his master.

 

 

May it be so for us in our time

this epiphany

and throughout this year to come.

 

 

 

 

Amen