It seems incongruous to argue, as supporters of the Covenant do, that it is exceedingly significant document that is required to save the Anglican Communion, but that it pass only the most minimal test a democracy allows.
Like the ancient “Fathers of the Church” King emphasized that “the least of these” are children and “icons” of God, whose treatment is the measure of our “salvation or damnation” as persons and as a nation. Like them he argued that excess wealth is “robbed from the poor.” Like them he cautioned us against the ineluctable tendency of consumption to addict us to status and power.
Martin Luther King gave his last Sunday sermon at Washington National Cathedral on March 31, 1968. Some of that sermon is reproduced below, but we
Antony was confused as he meditated upon the depths of God’s judgements, and he asked God, “Lord, how is it that some die young and others grow old and sick? Why are there some poor and some rich?
We are meant to gather together, to learn and laugh together, to love and cry together. And, together, we account for each other. We teach each other and hold each other to standards of civility and grace. We love (and live) for the long term and not the short term. The Christian Church, at our best, offers true and beloved community.
The first disciples of our Lord had, some of them, been disciples of John the Baptist, and the function of that wonderful prophet was to proclaim that now the time was come, and God’s purpose was about to be consummated—the kingdom was at hand,
Jesus frequently illustrated the characteristics of the hardhearted. The rich fool was condemned, not because he was toughminded, but rather because he was not tenderhearted. Life for him was a mirror in which he saw only himself,
The language is frank, trusting, and uninhibited, different from that of the public services in the Book of Common Prayer that “get treated as the Emily Post or Miss Manners of prayer practice, authoritative manuals instructing us in the approved terms of flattery and self-deprecation.” Instead, it is a response to Jesus’ invitation to enter the kingdom of heaven as children.
The more we pray for others, the more we shall pray for ourselves. Praying for others, instead of hindering us in prayer for ourselves, will lead us to pray the more for ourselves. We may perhaps learn, by praying for others, what is meant by prayer, and what its value is, and how to practice it;
O Wondrous giver of the light!
By whose eternal ray serene,
After the lingering hours of night,
The glory of the morn is seen,