November 30 Matthew 24:36-44
Advent marks the beginning of the church year. It encompasses the four Sundays before Christmastide. Though we equate Christmas with Jesus’ birth, its deeper theological significance is God’s in-breaking into our world. The liturgical arc takes us from the very faint glow of dawn on the distant horizon which grows brighter each week until we reach a new day’s full light on Christmas. Symbolically, Christmas is the mini-Parousia.
Tomorrow marks the 70th anniversary of Rosa Parks not standing up. Coincidentally, it seems fitting that it falls close to the beginning of Advent. Her small act of defiance was a faint glow of dawn on the distant horizon. It was a turning point in American history. By not giving up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, she sparked a bus boycott, which began on December 5, four days later.
Though community leaders planned the initial boycott for one day, 90% of the city’s Blacks stayed off the buses. Its success led the local clergy and activists that evening to extend it indefinitely. They also formed the Montgomery Improvement Association to begin challenging the bus system’s segregation through legal proceedings. They elected the pastor from the Dexter Avenue Church, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. to lead them because he was new in town, and being a good orator with few enemies, the leadership believed King could unite the community’s various factions.
An extensive carpool system helped to sustain the boycott. Additionally, many people walked miles every day. On June 5, 1956, a federal district court ruled in the case Browder vs. Gayle that bus segregation was illegal. The Supreme Court upheld it on November 13. The boycott ended when the federal order came down on December 20, 1956.
Rosa Parks, however, was not the first person arrested for defying segregation on the Montgomery buses. Her decision might have been expected. In March 1954, the Women’s Progressive Caucus of Montgomery pressed the city’s mayor, W. A. Gayle for changes. A year later, March 1955, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin was arrested when she did not yield her seat to a white woman. Seven months later, 18-year-old Mary Louis Smith was arrested for not giving up her seat.
How was it that Parks ignited the movement and not Colvin or Smith? Colvin was 15-years old, considered “feisty,” and lived on the wrong side of town. The civil rights leaders didn’t deem her the right kind of model to organize around.[1] As for Smith, her father paid her fine and didn’t protest.[2] Nevertheless, Colvin and Smith along with two other women became plaintiffs in Browder vs. Gayle.
Parks’ arrest was calculated. Though Colvin “lit a fuse,” Parks, already a local activist, was more appealing.
As for King, his arrival was serendipitous. The boycott garnered coverage across the country. Being the association’s leader and face combined with his oratorical gifts and having endured fire bombings of his home and arrests, he drew national attention. He ascended rapidly in the nation’s conscience. On February 18, 1957, he was on the cover of Time magazine.
No one on December 1, 1955 knew the impact Rosa Parks would have. It wasn’t a big gesture. Her simple act of defiance became the start of the civil rights movement, which culminated in 1965 with the Voting Rights Act. Why did Parks remain seated? Dr. King quoted her in his 1956 essay Our Struggle, “It was a matter of dignity; I could not have faced myself and my people if I had moved.”[3]
Though December 25 is the symbolic Parousia, in truth, we don’t know when the real Parousia will come. Yet, when we’re attentive, we see flickers of resistance which remind us that there is hope even in a dystopian world. Elizabeth Kroo was interned at Birkenau. Her kindness, compassion, and friendship with other interned women helped them to survive their unrelenting indignities. Despite the possible penalty of death for securing scraps, her friends cobbled together birthday gifts for her, including cards and a dustpan.[4] When we’re awake, we can see flickers of justice growing amid a tangle of oppression. Mamie Tape was an American-born Chinese girl who in 1884 was denied enrollment in San Francisco’s Spring Valley School because she was Chinese. Her parents sued and won. The California Supreme Court in 1885 ruled in Tape vs. Hurley that all children, including immigrant children, were entitled to public education.
Despite the obvious injustice and demeaning oppression of the Blacks in Montgomery, Parks’ defiance galvanized a movement which changed the course of history.
While mass demonstrations and protests make clear our anger and opposition to injustices, which go beyond authoritarianism, erasing racial, sexual, and gender identities, and xenophobic immigration policies, when we are awake, we open ourselves to seeing flickers of resistance and defiance. They could become dawn’s faint glow on the horizon. They could ignite a movement to further the cause of justice for all. As Dr. King wrote in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial ‘outside agitator’ idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere in this country.”[5]
Small acts of resistance and defiance have power. Samuel Beckett displayed this in his most political play, Catastrophe. I saw this play in the 1980s. This play, about six minutes long, was one scene. The setting was a theater. The protagonist stood on a plinth. He was bald and dressed in ill-fitting, disheveled pajamas exposing parts of his body. With his bowed head, he remained still and did not speak. The director and his assistant conversed among themselves to suggest positioning parts of the protagonist’s body, such as the tilt of his head or position of his arms. They repositioned him as if he was a manikin. Finally, the director and assistant achieved the protagonist’s position they desired. The director ordered dramatic lighting upon the protagonist’s head as an audio track of applause filled the theater. Just before blackout, the protagonist lifted his head to stare at the audience. The applause faded. Coming after his dehumanization, that final movement was shattering.
Though they are small acts, we don’t always know the power they carry. We don’t know how a small act will galvanize a community into action and people’s commitment to sustain it. We also don’t know the culmination of that act, nor do we know how long it will take to see a new day. Rosa Parks’ defiance came ten years later with the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Mamie Tape’s court victory finally came to full fruition 69 years later in 1954 with Brown vs. Board of Education.
Even with a new day, we cannot become complacent. History tells us that setbacks will occur as administrations and courts try to chip away and erode the hard-won gains of an earlier generation. Thus, we must remain awake, be attentive to setbacks, and watch for signs of resistance and defiance. Compassion and kindness as resistance in a dystopian world. Righteous anger in the face of oppression. Good trouble as a refusal to accept discrimination. Asserting our dignity to deny power to soul-sucking inhumanity. Bearing in mind that love always trumps fear and prevails over sin.
Rosa Parks did not stand up. Defiance and resistance don’t need to be big and grand. Just noticeable enough to awaken people in our community. Then, what began as a faint glow on the horizon will become brighter as more people join in solidarity, and the stars will fall.
Stay awake and watch for signs because love, not sin or fear, is the final word.
[1] https://rosaparksbiography.org/bio/claudette-colvin/
[2] https://time.com/5786220/claudette-colvin-mary-louise-smith/
[3] Martin Luther King, Jr. Our Struggle. I Have a Dream Writings and Speeches That Changed the World. Edited by James Washington. Harper: San Francisco 1992. Page 5
[4] https://mjhnyc.org/blog/the-remarkable-power-of-friendship/
[5] https://www.samford.edu/arts-and-sciences/files/History/Statement-and-Response-King-Birmingham.pdf
