I’m in the process of changing churches, having one more Sunday to do down at Grace, then I’ll be heading over to Beaumont (108 miles one way a couple of times a week) to do an interim stint at a little church called Bethlehem. It’ll be an interesting change, eh, moving from a tiny Lutheran church comprised of glbt’s and mid-life singles and some old people in a kind of artsy-funky section next to downtown in the country’s fourth largest city to an only slightly larger (say, 50 in worship) church of old line white Lutheran grandparents and an east Texas oil town with a past history of klan activity. I anticipate this new experience in the words of the poet W B Yeats, “What rough beast slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” The church itself was begun in 1927. Lovely facilities, made more beautiful by the sculpture work of a member. They were in very nice shape.
 
Evidence, no doubt, of the little use that they get. I’m discovering that Lutheran churches in general don’t seem to be good at engaging the communities around them. When I got to Grace, asked them about Interfaith Ministries, the central ecumenical service organization of Houston, a mere three blocks away, “Duh. We dunno.” I hear stories like that from pastor buds all over the place. Same at Bethlehem: it’s smack-dab in the middle of a solid lower working class neighborhood of African Americans and Latinos.  The church is lily white; literally all of their members drive in from beyond. And they’re asking, “Wha’ happened?” Well, m’friends, life, for Lutherans especially, is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.
 
I enjoyed the interview. That process is so much more fun when you’re not needing the job. So, to the mostly gray-haired assemblage, “It’s up to you geezers. What kind of legacy do you want to leave?  You’re the ones who’ll have to pay for it, since you know as well as I that young families have little disposable income.” I could say that because I’m going to be a granddad next week, so am taking my own first steps into geezerhood. I figured that even if my ponytail didn’t scare them off, this might. Though I also knew that they’d been turned down by at least two pastors, and had now spent five months in the process of trying to find somebody to do a maybe nine-month interim, and so were getting desperate.
 
When you go in to a new congregation, you gotta learn about its history, its culture and community. Since I’ve been on this jag of reading Martin Luther King, Jr., I’ve been drawn to wonder about the civil rights days in Beaumont. Certainly the geezers I’ll be working with must have lived through that; they must have memories of life before integration, of white and black drinking fountains and such. They must have shared in the cultural anxiety of bringing white people and black people together in previously segregated places. I wonder how they wrestled with it, what the discussions at church coffee klatches were? MLK called the efforts the agape love of God at work creating and restoring community? Did they?
 
I got a great story from a seminary friend, Karen Bockleman. She was one of the real, live feminists I knew, forever ragging about sexist language, thus earning my torment ever since as Ms Bockleperson. She was born and bred into a family of church “high officials”, as it were, and so caught a glimpse of our churches from a nation-wide perspective. Here ’tis:
 
Larry,
 
Thought you might be interested in more MLK history. . . .
 
Here’s the story. In August 1961 the (then) newly formed American Lutheran Church held its first Luther League Convention in Miami Beach. MLK was an invited speaker. My father (Wilfred Bockelman) was at that time the associate editor of The Lutheran Standard and was assigned to write articles about the LL convention. What follows is at least a portion of his article, published in The Lutheran Standard, September 26, 1961.
 
  “Dr. Martin Luther King, undoubtedly the best-known national leader in the fight for racial equality, addressed the leaguers. Fears of some that there might be some kind of demonstration against him because of the deep feeling about the Negro in the South never materialized. Instead the youth gave him a long, standing ovation.
 
  “Dr. King is a controversial figure, even among Christians, for they too are not without some deep-seated prejudices. A few were reported to have walked out before Dr. King began his address.
 
  “After it was over one counselor was overheard telling her group, ‘Now that we’ve heard him, let’s forget all that hogwash he told us and enjoy the rest of the convention.’
 
  “Another person was overheard saying, ‘I thank God that a man like Dr. King is the leader for the desegregation forces.’ For contrary to the expectation of some who had never heard him speak, whatever else Martin Luther King may or may not be, he is a thousand miles removed from being a rabble rouser.
 
  “‘You may hate us,’ he said, ‘but we will not hate back. We will meet hate with love.’
 
  “One responsible group of leaders within the church voiced grave concern over the fact that Martin Luther King was to speak. In a letter to the youth director a month before the convention they expressed the opinion that the speakers on the program ought to be Lutherans, and they called into question the wisdom of having ’such a man as Mr. King on the program because of his affiliation with movements that tend to arouse the passions of people.’
 
  “One father wrote to THE LUTHERAN STANDARD a week before the convention, ‘If I had known that Martin Luther King would be on the program (it had been announced for over a year that he would be) I would not have allowed my son to go. I do not want him to be exposed to what King has to say.’
 
  “If there are those who feel that the voices of world turmoil can be kept from the ears of young people, the planners of the Luther League convention did not share this opinion. They felt that a church youth convention was the ideal place to tell them that Christians who want to witness for a living Christ cannot close their eyes or ears to the tumult around them, even though it may not always be pleasant to see or hear.”
 
Before the convention, a July 18 issue of The Lutheran Standard had the following brief note:
 
  “Members of the national board of the Luther League indicated endorsement of Dr. King’s views on prejudice when they extended the invitation to the controversial Baptist minister, said the Rev. L. David Brown, youth director of the ALC.
 
  ‘We feel Dr. King’s views represent an exciting and positive way of wresting rights for the Negro,’ said Mr. Brown.”
 
Karen
 
My pal, NT Ray says that the whole gospel of Matthew is about one question: “How, then, shall we live?”
 
Slouching towards Bethlehem,
 
Larry