The Rt. Rev. Michael Curry, Bishop of North Carolina and newly elected Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, preaches to a gathering of pilgrims commemorating the 50th anniversary of the martyrdom of Jonathan Daniels.
I first learned about Jonathan when I was a junior in high school and was invited to enter a public speaking contest called the Voice of Democracy, hosted by the local Veterans of Foreign Wars (Post 9600). The topic: "What price freedom?" My dad, himself a Citadel graduate, introduced me to Jonathan's story, in part, because he was a product of that other great southern military institution, VMI. And while I did not fully understand the role he helped play in shaping the church that I loved so much and would one day serve, Jonathan's story captivated me from the start.
He was a young white man from a well-to-do New Hampshire family who, after graduating from VMI, entered grad school at Harvard to study English literature. In 1962, while attending an Easter mass at The Episcopal Church of the Advent in Boston, Jonathan had a revelation: God was calling him to the priesthood. He quickly entered Episcopal Theological Seminary (now Episcopal Divinity School) in Cambridge and took especially to issues of social justice, particularly as they pertained to the Civil Rights Movement. In March of 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made an impassioned plea to clergy from all over to come to Selma, Alabama to help folks register to vote and to stand for equality for all of God's people. Jonathan, while at Evening Prayer at ETS, heard in those familiar words of Mary in the Magnificat exactly what he must do. In Jonathan's words:
"'My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.' I had come to Evening Prayer as usual that evening, and as usual I was singing the Magnificat with the special love and reverence I have always felt for Mary's glad song. 'He hath showed strength with his arm.' As the lovely hymn of the God-bearer continued, I found myself peculiarly alert, suddenly straining toward the decisive, luminous, Spirit-filled 'moment' that would, in retrospect, remind me of others--particularly one at Easter three years ago. Then it came. 'He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things.' I knew then that I must go to Selma. The Virgin's song was to grow more and more dear in the weeks ahead."
So Jonathan Daniels, a white man from the north, came south to aid his brothers and sisters, to help lift up the lowly, to exalt the humble and meek. Initially he had planned to stay for a weekend, but after missing the bus and reflecting with his classmates on how it must look to the people of Selma for these white folks to come down and lend a hand for a day or two and then return to their cushy lives, they decided to stay. They spent the rest of the term in Selma, helping with voter registration and inviting African American folks to come worship at local Episcopal congregations on Sundays. In late May of 1965 Jonathan returned to Cambridge to finish his exams, only to return to Alabama in July.
On August 13 he and others went to the town of Fort Deposit to join in picketing three local businesses. On Saturday they were arrested and held in the county jail in Hayneville for six days until they were bailed out. (They had agreed that none would accept bail until there was bail money for all.) After their release on Friday, August 20, four of them were walking into a local shop and were met at the door by a man with a shotgun who told them to leave. After a brief confrontation, he aimed the gun at a young black girl in the party named Ruby Sales. Jonathan pushed her out of the way and took the blast of the shotgun himself. He was killed instantly.
Almost overnight the Episcopal Church took a look in the mirror and decided it had been on the wrong side of history. We had been the rich white man's church (and in many places we still are). How many of our parishioners had owned slaves? How many of our churches had been built on the backs of enslaved human beings? We had turned away individuals like Alexander Crommell from the priesthood because of his skin color. We had refused African Americans a place at our first General Convention in 1789, resulting in the creation of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. We had played a part in this narrative, even if it wasn't always explicit, and we set out to never make that mistake again. Within 10 years we ordained the first female priests in North America. Within 15 years we had a new Prayer Book, adapted from the language of the time, signifying a move away from the archane manners of old. Within 25 years we made Barbara Harris the first female bishop in the history of Christendom. And within 40 years we had consecrated the first openly gay bishop (Gene Robinson), as well as the world's first female primate (Katherine Jefferts-Schori). In the years since Jonathan Daniels' martyrdom, I am proud to say that the Episcopal Church has found itself at the front of the fighting lines for social justice, remembering the words of Mary that God has "exalted the humble and meek."
Our great sin is that it took the death of a white man to make it happen. It took one of our would-be priests being gunned down for us to finally say, unequivocally, that we had been wrong and that we would do all we could to make sure the rights and privileges of ALL of God's children would be upheld from now on. Still, one does have to wonder why it took us so long...
Nevertheless, thanks be to God for the witness of Jonathan Daniels. His witness reminds us that the price of freedom--and indeed, the price of equality for all men and women--is vigilance. That witness reminds us that, as baptized followers of the Suffering Servant, of the one who prayed for his enemies and called us to care for "the least of these," we mustn't sit on the sidelines. We mustn't be silent. We must stand and we must shout and we must work until the day when all truly are one.
When you proclaim that black lives matter, you speak with the voice of Jonathan Daniels. When you demand that gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals deserve all the rights and privileges that their heterosexual and cisgender brothers and sisters enjoy, you speak with the voice of Jonathan Daniels. Whenever you speak up for "the least of these" and work for the dignity of every human being, you speak with the voice of Jonathan Daniels. His voice is the voice of the prophet, of the martyr, of the one who calls us to eternal vigilance and service of to our brothers and sisters on behalf of our Lord.
So on this 50th anniversary of his martyrdom let us pray that we may have even an ounce of the courage and faith of Jonathan Daniels. Let us pray that we may hear God calling us to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, to care for those who have no one to care for them, to love in the spirit of the One who first loved us. And may blessed Jonathan pray for us!
O God of justice and compassion, you put down the proud and mighty from their place, and lift up the poor and the afflicted: we give you thanks for your faithful witness Jonathan Myrick Daniels, who, in the midst of injustice and violence, risked and gave his life for another; and we pray that we, following his example, may make no peace with oppression; through Jesus Christ the just one, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.Amen.