Rev Warnock speech 2018.

This is a transcript of the recorded remarks of the Rev. Dr. Raphael D. Warnock at an interfaith/ecumenical prayer service to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death April 4, 1968, of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The prayer service was held April 12, 2018, at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore.

Rev. Warnock has served since 2005 as the senior pastor of Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, Rev. King’s spiritual home.

The son of two Pentecostal pastors, Rev. Warnock responded to the call of ministry at a very early age, and at age 35, became the fifth and the youngest person ever called to the senior pastorate of Ebenezer Baptist Church, founded in 1886.

Well, good evening. [Congregation responds tepidly.]

Listen, I’m a Baptist preacher. You have to talk back to me. [Laughter]

Good evening, everyone. [Congregation responds “Good evening” loudly.] That’s better. Praise the Lord. Give yourselves a round of applause for being here. [Applause]

I am delighted and deeply grateful to be back in Baltimore, Maryland, where I served for about five years as senior pastor of the Douglas Memorial Community Church. [Applause] I am grateful to the members of the congregation for putting up with me for five years. And I’m grateful to this august body for inviting me to be here on this very special occasion. To your archbishop and mine, the Most Reverend William Lori; to your mayor and mine, Catherine Pugh, whose political career I remember during my time here and I’ve watched with great interest; to all of the clergy across many faith traditions and the leaders. I’m sitting next to the Chief of Police. I was trying to be on my best behavior. [Laughter]

And to this wonderful choir. Isn’t the future in great hands? Come on. [Applause] To all of you, my sisters and my brothers, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers and sisters to dwell together in unity. It is as the precious ointment upon the beard – even Aaron’s beard that went down to the skirts of his garment. It is as the dew of Hermon – there God commanded the blessing, even life forever more

I grew up in the Pentecostal church. So I bring a little learning and burning. I’m Penta-baptist, Bapti-costal. But I’m grateful to be in this wonderful cathedral.

Will you bow with me and will you reach out and join hands with your neighbor?

I saw a great multitude of men and women, boys and girls, gathered together on a hill. There they were, diverse and variegated, hailing from the four corners of the earth, yet they looked into each other’s eyes and they were not afraid.

So I asked the one standing there, “What is this?” He said, “It is the kingdom of God, imbued with love and justice.”

And so I asked, “Where is this?” And he answered, “It exists already in the hearts of those who have the courage to believe and struggle.”

And so I asked, “When is this?” And he answered, “When we learned the simple art of loving each other as sisters and brothers.”

And so, O God, give us wisdom give us courage for the living of these days, for the facing of this hour, as we bear witness to your kingdom. O God who loves us into freedom and frees us into loving, to you we offer this prayer. Amen.

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. Behold, I make all things new.

I just want to talk for a little while about a new heaven and a new earth – the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr. draws us to this place. And as we remember him we would do well to remember why he went to Memphis, where he would meet his destiny, in the first place.

He went to Memphis fighting for those on the margins of the margins. It was 1968. Garbage collectors, fighting for their basic human dignity, were trying to get a movement started, and if we are honest tonight the church was slow to get on board.

I don’t know if it was the politics of respectability. I don’t know if it was a lack of courage or uncertainty.

It’s difficult sometimes to discern in the moment what to do. The movement had a lot of fits and starts and then on February 1st – can I tell the story? Two garbage collectors by the name of Echol Cole and Robert Walker were literally crushed, their bodies were crushed in the compactor area of their garbage trucks. And their shed blood provided fuel for a movement that finally got started

I don’t know if it was the politics of respectability. I don’t know if it was a lack of courage or uncertainty.

It’s difficult sometimes to discern in the moment what to do. The movement had a lot of fits and starts and then on February 1st – can I tell the story? Two garbage collectors by the name of Echol Cole and Robert Walker were literally crushed, their bodies were crushed in the compactor area of their garbage trucks. And their shed blood provided fuel for a movement that finally got started.

Poor and marginalized, crushed by the machinery of systemic oppression. They were there in the back of that garbage truck in the first place because the curious logic of Jim Crow segregation said that they could not ride in the front of the truck, and so they were in the compactor trying to find some shelter from the storm.

But from the storm of racism and classism, there was no hiding place. So they were crushed and Dr. King made his way to Memphis and then he made his way to Memphis again and then on April 4th, he met his destiny on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel.

But what I want you to know tonight is that he was scheduled to preach at our church. He was scheduled to preach at Ebenezer on April 7th, 1968, and there among the effects in his briefcase were the early thoughts of a sermon he never lived to preach. We don’t know the text, but the title was “Why America May Go to Hell.”

I know that’s shocking but don’t get mad at me. That’s Dr. King’s sermon. You’re here to celebrate him, right

Perhaps it’s hard for us to imagine Dr. King preaching a sermon titled “Why America May Go to Hell” because Dr. King, although he lived and died long before our current era, years ago he was already the victim of identity theft. In other words, when Dr. King died we resurrected a new Martin Luther King Jr., one who does not make us too uncomfortable.

And so it’s hard for us to imagine the prophet of peace preaching with such harsh words. But you ought to remember that it was not the first time that Dr. King spoke to the country that he loved so much with some challenging words. He said to America a year before he died, in that famous Vietnam war speech, at the Riverside Church. He called America the greatest purveyor of violence on the globe. He said that the nations of our world are caught up in a colossal contest for supremacy. And I’m sad to admit that my nation is the supreme culprit. In other words, he was the best kind of patriot because he loved the country enough to tell the country the truth

Now is a time for truth-telling. Now is a time to call the nation to be the best, to stand tall with moral excellence. To push past the predictable partisan arguments of the public square and catch a glimpse of the vision of a new heaven and a new earth.

It’s bigger than Republican politics; it’s bigger than Democratic politics.

It is God’s vision of a new heaven and new earth. And whenever people of faith catch a vision of what God intends, it makes folks on the right and the left uncomfortable.

So that’s why in recent days I’ve been drawn to the book of Revelation. We don’t deal much with this book in our churches. And I submit to you that we need revelation in a time like this.

Don’t be afraid of the book. It just reminds us that our God reigns. Our God reigns in the heavens above and the earth below.

It reminds us that although it may not seem like it in the moment, our God really is up to something in this world. And I want to be wherever God he is. Reminds us that evil and injustice will never have the last word. Revelation encourages us to fight, to fight on, knowing in the words of George Frederick Handel, who was simply lifting words from Revelation, that the kingdoms of this world had become the kingdoms of our God and he shall reign forever and ever. [applause]

And if you know that, if you know that, you don’t mind making your way to Memphis, even with death threats all around. Because you remember that you serve one who was born in a barrio called Bethlehem, raised in a ghetto called Nazareth. One day he made his way into Jerusalem where prophets die.

We Christians celebrated, not long ago, Palm Sunday. I hope your preachers up here didn’t tell them it was a parade or a processional. It was really a protest march. Jesus was making his way on the east side of the city at the same time Pilate the governor would have been coming in on the west side. You understand east side/west side. I’m in Baltimore. [laughter]

See the governor, followed by all of his military might, surrounded by cavalry. Jesus comes in on a donkey. What is he up to? It is a parody of imperial power. It is a mocking of a power that is too impressed with itself.

He makes his way into Jerusalem, and then he sits down for a meal by Thursday – a Passover meal with friends because contrary to what we Christians think, Jesus was not a Christian. He lived and died a person.

He sat down for Jewish Passover meal, which reminds the people of God that God is the God who delivered us out of Egypt, out of the hand of Pharaoh into the promised land, into the good and spacious land. It is a land of human flourishing where everybody can live, where everybody has enough to eat.

It is the vision of a new heaven and a new earth and it is that vision that brings him into conflict with the powers that be.

So Jesus died, executed by the Empire, lynched on a tree.

Martin made his way into Memphis. If you believe that the kingdoms of this world belong to God, if you remember that he rose with all power in his hand and that he said, “Be faithful unto death and I will give you a crown of life,” then that causes you to stand up in the midst of injustice, it won’t allow you to be silent. So by the time we get to Revelation, the church movement is under attack.

Nowadays the church is seldom under attack, at least not for the right reasons. Perhaps we’re not under attack by the powers because too often we’re in cahoots with the powers.

You know, the simple folk that I grew up with down in Savannah, Georgia, used to say that if you never have a head-on collision with the devil that means you’re riding in the same car. [laughter and applause]

They sang, “I got shoes.” Stripped of basic material necessities they dared to sing, “I got shoes, you got shoes. All of God’s children got shoes.”

When I get to heaven, it’s a critique of this world and I’m going to put on my shoes. I’m circumscribed right now but guess what I’m going to show all over God’s heaven.

And then they give the master what we call side-eye and say “heaven, heaven, everybody talking about heaven, ain’t going there.” They were talking about a new world order.

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the old-world order – the first heaven and the first earth –had passed away and I came all the way from Atlanta to suggest that voices of faith and moral courage ought to lead the way. We ought to be raising our voices fighting for God’s kingdom imbued with love and justice where everybody can eat, where everybody has medicine, where everybody has education, where every child has a chance.

Do you believe in a new heaven and a new earth? A new heaven and a new earth. The longing for a new order, not some uninformed reminiscences of an old order. No desire to make Rome great again. I’m just preaching the text. [laughter]

Whatever your politics you ought to be suspicious of this idea, not of greatness but of again-ness. Because as a person of African descent I have to ask when was this again? Was it when I was three-fifths of a human being? Was it when women could not vote?

No, a new heaven and a new earth. Dr. King went to Memphis and died in Memphis fighting for that and you ought to keep fighting. Don’t give up. [applause]

The entire can be found here.

https://www.archbalt.org/transcript-of-remarks-of-rev-dr-raphael-d-warnock-at-the-cathedral-of-mary-our-queen/?print=print