In his “Letter from A Birmingham Jail,” Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”
Indeed, the universe is woven together by an infinite array of threads across time and space. Unfortunately, some of those threads include colonization, racism, white supremacy, sexism, xenophobia, and other injustices. Such threads often are so interlaced with the fibers of our collective being and have gone unnoticed—or worse, become indistinguishable from other threads.
The job of a good thread is never to stand out but, rather, to function unnoticed so that the integrity of the whole garment is maintained. One loose thread, when pulled, has the potential to unravel an entire piece. When this occurs, the structure of the garment is called into question, and we quickly realize the fabric has been showing signs of wear for years. There are even holes in various places. To be sure, the tattered garments of domination, fear, hatred, and oppression have been unraveling for some time now.
This unraveling is a sign of hope for the church now and in the times to come; it is slowly revealing of the great ills of our world. In the 1960s, Rev. Dr. King identified these ills as the three evils of society: racism, militarism, and materialism. In the 2020s, quite a few more have been revealed. These threads are being pulled from the garment, one by one, so that in the midst of the unraveling we might contribute new fibers that reflect the fullness of God’s hope, peace, joy, and love.
The way forward for the church begins with this revelation. We, God’s people, are being called to this unraveling of injustice not only by exposing it, but also eradicating it. Garments cannot be repaired with worn threads; only new threads can make them whole.
Ultimately, our capacity to hope is directly determined by our ability to expose and pull the worn threads in our world and within our communities of faith. Then, and only then, we might weave our communities anew by loving more deeply, celebrating more joyfully, and practicing true shalom in our worship, governance structures, decision making processes, ministries of justice and service, discipleship, and so on.
Jesus’ birth provides us with the template for this hopeful unraveling. When the world’s unjust chaos was on full display—as it was with Herod’s decree that all boys under the age of two be slaughtered—hope was born in a barn, a new enduring thread in our collective fabric.
Ongoing threads of colonialism (experienced most acutely within Native, Black, and Brown communities), racist actions of violence (like threats to houses of worship or police brutalities), and senseless ravages of war (in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria, and other places) impact our communities. Hope lies in our capacities to mourn and resist with those most harmed, and in the process interweaving threads of love and solidarity in word and deed.
When our frayed desires for maintaining the status quo in our churches obscure the truly revolutionary message of the gospel, hope invites new possibilities for what it means to be a Christian and practice one’s faith in an increasingly secular world. Pulling threads is a fearsome task, but it is the only way through to hope because we all are “tied in a single garment of destiny.” May this garment be made ever more durable and beautiful by our threads.
Questions for Reflection
- What are the threads most in need of pulling within your community? Your congregation?
- What threads are already being pulled, and how might you come alongside to support those doing the pulling?
- What new threads are needed in weaving together beloved community? Where and how might you add those threads into the “garment of destiny”?
- (Where) has hope been present to you in the midst of oppression and injustice?
