here does courage come from? I think about that question when I consider the life and ministry of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Where did he get the courage to stand up for justice in the face of overwhelming resistance? Where did he find reservoir of energy and determination to tackle the lofty goals of the civil rights movement?

On March 25, 1965, Dr. King stood on the steps of the state capitol building in Alabama at the conclusion of the historic Selma to Montgomery march and made this announcement.

"I want to say to the people of America and the nations of the world... We are on the move now.  Yes, we are on the move and no wave of racism can stop us. We are on the move now.  The burning of our churches will not deter us.  We are on the move now.  The bombing of our homes will not dissuade us.  We are on the move now. The beating and killing of our clergyman and young people will not divert us.  We are on the move now.  The arrest and release of known murderers will not discourage us.  We are on the move now.  Like an idea whose time has come, not even the marching of mighty armies can halt us.  We are moving to the land of freedom."

Where does courage come from?  When Dr. King spoke of "the beating and killing of our clergyman" it was not just rhetoric.  It was a direct reference to three Unitarian clergymen who were beaten by racist thugs a few days earlier in Selma, Alabama.  The minister’s names were Orloff Miller, Clark Olson and James Reeb.  The Rev. James Reeb died as a result of massive head injuries he suffered from that beating.

All three Unitarian ministers were people with the courage to come to Selma, Alabama, to assist Dr. Martin Luther King in his march from Selma to Montgomery.  The year was 1965.  The cause was the right to vote.  At that time there were 12,000 African Americans living in Lowndes County, Alabama.  Only 12 of them were permitted to register to vote.  The local officials had an elaborate system of intimidation designed to prevent black citizens from exercising their right to vote.  And so to protest this injustice Dr. King and other civil rights leaders organized a 50-mile march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.  The first attempt to make this journey on March 7 was turned back when state troopers ordered the marchers to disperse and then attacked the crowd with billy-clubs.  This savage attack was captured by television cameras and broadcast to the nation and to the world.  People from all over the globe were shocked by what they saw.

One of the people who was shocked by the violence was the Rev. James Reeb who was a Unitarian minister living in Boston and working for the American Friends Service Committee or the Quakers.  Let me tell you a little bit about this unusual man. Reeb began his career as a fairly conservative Presbyterian minister but as time went by he became frustrated by the confines of the theology of that church.  He left the Presbyterian Church to take a job with the YMCA in 1957 and during that time he began to move in the direction of Unitarianism.  In 1959 he took a position as assistant minister at the All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington D.C. where he focused his energies on social action and a project to improve life in the surrounding inner city neighborhoods.  It was while working on this project that he found his calling.  He served the All Souls Church for five years before taking a position for the American Friends Service Committee in Boston where he worked to improve housing in largely African American inner city neighborhoods.

One of the reasons I find James Reeb to be so interesting is a personal one.  I am a Unitarian Universalist minister who studied at a Quaker theology school.  James Reeb was a Unitarian minister who worked for a Quaker service organization.  So, I feel a certain sense of identification with him.

In the 16^th century George Fox help to start a religious movement that would be called the Society of Friends or Quakers.  Fox taught people about the Inner Light.  He told early Friends to look for that of God in every person. This idea was similar to an idea held by 19^th century Unitarian ministers like William Ellery Channing and Theodore Parker...that there was a divine spark which shined in every human being giving each person worth and dignity.

James Reeb picked up on this theme in many of his sermons at the All Souls Unitarian Church.  In a sermon he gave in 1961 he said,

"For as long as I can remember, and it is as true today as it ever was, what I have always thought of as the light within has been of more importance to me than anything else in life.  As I have tried to think recently about how to describe that which I find important, I can only come back to one thing - the light within    it makes no difference what one calls this inward light, if you call it God, of if you don’t.  It is not increased by the names we give it nor is it diminished if we do not give it any name at all...It is our task to take the light within and deliberately and consciously set it before men (and women)."

It was this belief in the Inner Light that guided Reeb in his work as a minister and an advocate of social justice.  It was this belief that led him into the Unitarian ministry and this conviction that led him to take the position with the American Friends Service Committee. And it was this belief that would forever alter his life on March 7 1965 when he turned on the television and saw the Alabama State troopers brutally beating nonviolent protestors in a little town called Selma, Alabama.

Reeb was horrified by what he saw and he made the decision to go to Selma to support Dr. King on the next attempt at a march.  He caught a flight from Boston to Alabama and he was able to participate in the second effort to march on March 9.  He was one of 50 Unitarian ministers to take part in the march.  This time the marchers simply prayed and sang in front of the state troopers before dispersing peacefully.

That night James Reeb joined two other Unitarian ministers, Clark Olson and Orloff Miller, for dinner at a local restaurant.  Rev. Reeb called his wife from the restaurant to tell her he was planning to stay in Selma for another effort to make the Selma to Montgomery march.  After dinner the three ministers walked into the street and made their way to a church where Dr. King was to speak that night.

On the way they were confronted by four white men who approached them carrying clubs.  The men were shouting racial slurs as they attacked the ministers.  One man brought a club down on to James Reeb’s head causing him to suffer a massive skull fracture.  After the attack Olson and Miller helped Reeb to get medical attention.  A local doctor arranged for Reeb to be sent via ambulance to a hospital in Birmingham.  Clark Olson accompanied Reeb. The ambulance got a flat tire on the way there.  A second ambulance had to be sent for to take Reeb the rest of the way.  As they waited for the second ambulance a car full of white men stopped and made threatening gestures.

Finally the second ambulance came and Reeb was taken to Birmingham.  He stayed in the hospital a couple of days but they were unable to save him.  On March 11 James Reeb died leaving his wife Marie, without a husband and his four children, John, Karen, Anne and Steven, without a father.  In April of 1965 three of the men who attacked the Unitarian ministers were brought to trial.  The jury deliberated for a mere hour and half before finding the men, not guilty.

This travesty of justice might make one bitter.  But other events happened after Reeb’s death that helped to show the better side of America in the midst of this tragedy. Two days after his death, James Reeb’s wife Marie, received a letter from a war veteran by the name John D. McCarthy. The letter read,

"Dear Mrs. Reeb,

Twenty years ago I was awarded the enclosed medal. The citation read in part - ‘volunteered to accompany a platoon of light tanks in order to point out targets for their effective fire - he advanced through the street of town in advance of the armored vehicles - firing his submachine gun at targets of opportunity.’ Your late husband, Reverend Reeb, volunteered to accompany his fellow men against a force of greater threat to the principles of our country, than my opponent, the German soldier. Rev. Reeb was unarmed except for his convictions, his "Armed Support" was the songs and prayers of the oppressed. Would you please give this medal to your oldest son, John - his father was a much braver man than I.

Sincerely, John D. McCarthy."

Four days after James Reeb’s death, President Johnson spoke before a joint session of Congress and a national television audience to appeal for passage of the Voting Rights Act.  Lyndon Baines Johnson was indeed a complex man.  This was quite possibly his finest hour.  He told the Congress and the nation;

"At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man’s unending search for freedom.  So it was at Lexington and Concord.  So it was a century ago at Appomattox.  So it was last week in Selma, Alabama.  There long suffering men and women peacefully protested the denial of their rights as Americans. Many were brutally assaulted. One good man, a man of God, was killed."  Johnson went on to say, "It is wrong - deadly wrong - to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote."

He then challenged America to overcome its crippling legacy of bigotry and he surprised many by quoting the now famous civil rights hymn when he told the nation, "We shall overcome."

When I was serving the UU Church of Spartanburg I had the opportunity to meet and befriend, Clark Olson, one of the ministers who was attacked in Selma.  Olsen was the minister who accompanied James Reeb on that long scary ride to the hospital in Birmingham.  Clark Olsen has been active in efforts to keep the memory of James Reeb alive by speaking to different church groups and appearing on a special on CNN.  He said that at first it was hard to share his memories without crying but over time he has gained the ability to tell the story with some sense of self-control.  He said that the life of James Reeb reminds us of an important truth that, "Occasionally one person will simply do the right thing at the right time and the changes which unfold are amazing to behold."  If you want an opportunity to hear Clark Olsen for yourself I invite you to come to my installation ceremony on March 3 at 4:00 pm where we will celebrate the beginning of a new ministry and where Rev. Clark Olsen will be giving the sermon.

Clearly the death of James Reeb was a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement and in the history of America.  Reeb himself might have wondered why his death meant so much...when the deaths of many before him had seemed to mean so little. And yet like an idea whose time had come things were definitely on the move now.

On March 25, 1965, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. was at the head of the march as thousands of people from all over the country completed the same Selma to Montgomery march.  In what has got to go down in history as one of the greatest moments of interfaith and ecumenical cooperation in the history of the world people from all over gathered to march for freedom.  The Board of Trustees of the Unitarian Universalist Association suspended its meeting in Boston in order for members to fly down south to march to Montgomery with other leaders from all across the spectrum of American religiosity.

There was a surprising outpouring of the ecumenical and interfaith spirit.  One Roman Catholic newspaper even made the radical suggestion that James Reeb should be considered a candidate for sainthood in the Catholic Church.  The editor wrote for the paper, "Is it heresy to think a Unitarian Universalist minister is a saint of the church, and to wish - and pray - deep in our hearts that the American hierarchy in a true ecumenical spirit should recognize him as such and petition the Holy See for sainthood? We think not."

Is it heresy to think of the possibility of Unitarian Universalist saint?  Some may think so. Others may not.  But the story of James Reeb reminds us that sometimes this little tiny denomination can make a big difference.  Of course, Reeb was just one of many deaths in the civil rights struggle.  His death presaged the death of Martin Luther King Jr. a few years later on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.  Both Reeb and King knew that their support of the civil rights movement involved taking risks.  Both knew that there were elements of danger in working for justice.  And yet they did it anyhow.  As Reeb once told his congregation, "There are some things more important than life itself."

Where does courage come from?  I want to make the radical suggestion that courage can come from a spiritual community.  Last week I talked about when I was a counselor working with a program grounded in the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. It was there that I learned the serenity prayer.  "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."  Some people go to church simply to find serenity...Some simply want to learn how to accept the things they cannot change....but that is not why I participate in a religious community.  I go to church in order to discover the courage to change the things I can.  I come to find the strength and courage to resist oppression and injustice in its many forms.

Looking backward can help us look forward. Understanding the past can help us have a vision for the future.  This past week a cross was burned in the front yard of the mayor of Newport.  Newport is a predominately white down that elected a black mayor. And in my opinion the community has responded to this incident and the KKK rally on Saturday with wisdom and foresight.  However I think it is not enough for us to react to the activities of hate groups.  We need to actively participate in coalitions that bring people together across the lines of race, religion.  That is why I think it is critically important that our congregation support the efforts of groups like the National Conference of Community and Justice, the Interfaith Alliance and the Knoxville Interfaith Network.  After September 11 it was leaders in all these groups that led the community effort to send a clear signal that we did not want to see any ethnic group targeted for hate crimes and harassment.  We need to be a part of coalitions.  The cross burning reminds us that the old forms of racism may resurface.  But we also need to be prepared to respond to the new faces of bigotry that may emerge without warning.

But we also need to make stands on issues even when no one else will stand with us.  We need to be proactive in securing the full citizenship rights of gay, lesbian and transgender Americans.  We need to have the courage to create a religious community that embraces equality in ways that are radically different from the patterns that are considered normative in East Tennessee.  To embrace the words of Dr. King we need to be headlights that shine the way forward instead of taillights that send the signal to have caution and slow down.  We need to embrace the vision of diverse people living together in harmony; a rainbow of differences which like the arc of the universe bends toward justice.  If we are criticized or condemned or attacked for our advocacy we should embrace it as a badge of honor.  We should stand in the face of opposition and say clearly and directly, “We ain’t gonna let nobody turn us ‘round.”

Where does courage come from?  It comes from the people in this room.  It comes from the support and encouragement we give each other to take new risks and tackle bold projects.  It comes from the Inner Light that shines in each person that has the potential to illuminate our world.  It comes from remembering James Reeb, Martin Luther King and many others who struggled for freedom.  Therefore, surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything than hinders us and entangles us...let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us...to work for equal opportunity for all...to make everybody count.  We are on the move now.  Let no opposition dissuade us.  We are on the move now.  Let no criticism deter us.  We are on the move now.  Like an idea whose time has come.