Follow the Leaders

I probably won’t be with you in the parade tomorrow–not physically. I need to help transport the Savannah State choir to the church for the concert, and the end of the parade is too close to the start of the concert. But I’ll be with you in spirit. And, in fact, I’m already there in my imagination.

I’m thinking about how appropriate it is that Savannah celebrates Martin Luther King, Jr. Day with a parade. Hundreds of people walking together in singular purpose. It calls to mind the scores of images we’ve all seen of the man:

Addressing the crowd at the end of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (we too often fail to remember the full name of that event)

Marching in Memphis for the cause of striking sanitation workers;

Marching on three separate days to make it across the Edmund Pettus Bridge and then from Selma to Montgomery;

Walking for Freedom in Detroit

Marching in all white Chicago neighborhoods.

The singular purpose on those occasions was justice–voting rights and civil rights and fair housing and workers rights–whatever the specific precipitating event or cause–the pursuit of justice was the beat of the hundreds, thousands of feet of streets and sidewalks of those cities.

Images of others walking, marching, fill our memories, too:

Ruby Bridges walking into and out of William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, surrounded by men hired to protect her as she integrated that formerly all white school.

Vivian Malone and James Hood walking into the University of Alabama to register for classes

Countless unnamed people

marching for women’s suffrage

marching in gay pride parades

filling street, marching in the wake of George Floyd’s murder

walking breadlines, picket lines,

Asylum seekers and migrants walking toward safety.

And the singular purpose on those occasions was the intersection of justice and life itself–voting rights and civil rights, extrajudicial killings, freedom, hunger, education–whatever the specific precipitating event or cause–the pursuit of justice was/is the beat of the hundreds, thousands of feet on the streets and sidewalks of our nation and the world.

There is a space in our memories for images of sitting, too:

young people of color sitting at lunch counters,

Rosa Parks sitting on the bus,

protesters of war and nuclear power and pollution sitting in offices and universities and in front of gates and in the middle of highways.

And there too, the heartbeat of singular purpose was justice. And life. Whatever the specific precipitating event or cause.

I’ve walked in more than a few parades and here’s a thing about them, and you probably know it, too, from other MLK Day parades: organizers always pass out maps of the parade route to participants, but the maps really aren’t necessary unless you’re the grand marshal or the police vehicle leading the parade. Everyone else just follows the leaders.

Followers get a bad rap, often. Sheep, we call them. Unable or unwilling to think for themselves. Following orders without regard to conscience or morality. Far better, in our general assessment, to be a leader. The one with a plan and the means to motivate others to help us carry it out.

My sister once predicted that her very young, at that time, daughter would someday be the dictator of a small country. My sister has also more than once observed how much her now young adult daughter is like me. So that tells you something about my personal preference when it comes to following or leading. Nevertheless, I suggest today that honoring the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr calls us to be followers.

Now, it goes pretty much without saying that on days like tomorrow, and really anytime we march or work or pray for civil rights and racial justice, we’re following the lead of Dr. King, and Rosa Parks, and Malcolm X, and John Lewis, to name just a very few. Taking up the work that the fifty or more years between their day and ours has not yet completed. But I’m speaking of something different when I say this holiday calls us to be followers.

In March of 1965 our Unitarian Universalist Association board of trustees recessed its meeting so that members could respond to Dr. King’s call for religious leaders to go to Selma. In that moment our denominational leaders were followers; that was the role the moment called them into. I still don’t know whether members of this congregation accepted the invitation of the local NAACP to join its march just a week or two later. (I’m trying to find out). I do know that if any Unitarian Universalists joined that march they probably looked like leaders, because they may well have been, as Gene Navias wrote, the only white community to take part, but they were in fact, followers–as they needed to be. The leaders of the black community told the white Unitarian Universalists what role they needed white allies to play. And the white Unitarian Universalists stepped up to the degree they were able.

To speak of white allies is to speak the language of 21st century movements for justice. Allies are people outside an oppressed or marginalized group who support the liberation of those groups. Allies for racial justice. Allies of the GLBTQI community. Allies of the disabled community. In this moment of social history allies of oppressed or marginalized groups are called to decenter themselves, to allow members of the oppressed or marginalized group to determine current needs and how–if at all–they want allies to participate in the cause. In other words, those of us with the privilege inherent in white bodies or cis bodies or male bodies or temporally able bodies, and/or with education and generational wealth, and the power such privilege bestows—those of us with privilege are called to be followers of those with less privilege–if we choose to engage in the work of justice and liberation. We are called to set our ideas about what is needed, what is expedient, what is right, to the side, and listen instead to those whose lives are most immediately affected by the injustice we’re trying to address, the liberation we’re trying to effect.

Decentering ourselves and inhabiting the role of follower requires us to acknowledge that we don’t know everything, that we can’t fully understand the experience of others, and that just because a way of approaching a situation feels uncomfortable, awkward, slow or chaotic to us doesn’t mean it’s not the exact approach the situation demands. Decentering ourselves in order to follow leaders who live closest to the injustice we’re trying to address and most need the liberation we’re trying to effect requires listening more than we speak, and a willingness to be called back into the follower role when we slip up and start to center ourselves, our ideas, our knowing. Following the leaders takes practice, trust, perseverance, and love.

A message about following the leaders and decentering our individual or collective privilege (each of us holds different individual privilege but as a congregation of mostly white, mostly middle class, mostly highly educated folks we also hold a degree of collective privilege)—a message about following the leaders and decentering our individual or collective privilege in order to bring about social change may sound discordant or antithetical to our January theme, Finding Our Center.

The faithful life, however, is rarely about either/or. Either finding our center or decentering ourselves. Here’s the good and saving news: in matters of justice-making and liberation seeking, moving ourselves to the margins of the decision making, the edges of the stage, out of the center of the spotlight, moves us directly toward the center of our faith. Our living tradition draws inspiration from words and deeds of prophetic people which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love. Three of our current principles call us to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person; justice, equity and compassion in human relations; and the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all. The proposed 8th principle this congregation has adopted call us for journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community by our actions that accountably dismantle racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.” Moving ourselves to the margins of the decision making, the edges of the stage, out of the center of the spotlight, moves us directly toward the center of our faith.

Maps of parade routes and maps toward a more just future are well and good and sometimes necessary. They also are frequently static and fail to account for potholes and unexpected roadblocks or flooded streets or changed circumstances. But the folks in the parade unit ahead of us, and the unit ahead of them and the unit ahead of them, and up to the head of the line, are following leaders, both historic and contemporary, who from their positions at front and center see the road ahead, the floods, the potholes, the turns, and lead according to their vision and experience. If we trust the center we do not occupy, and follow the leaders best suited for the current moment, then each step of the parade or march, each hour of the sit-in, each day of the strike, will carry us steadily toward justice and liberation, and the diverse Beloved Community we seek to build.

Amen.