By Georgia McKee
As we gather for worship today, we prepare our hearts for a week steeped in tension and possibility. Tomorrow, two significant moments will unfold: the inauguration of a president and the observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. These events call us to reflect on both the struggles and hopes of our shared life, and to consider what it means to live as people of faith in such a time as this.
I am reminded of the words Amanda Gorman shared at the last inauguration in her poem titled “The Hill We Climb”:
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true.
That even as we grieved, we grew.
That even as we hurt, we hoped;
That even as we tired, we tried;
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious …
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it
Pause for a moment. Read those words again. Notice the rhythm, the pauses and the transitions — the way they hold both struggle and possibility.
These spaces of the in-between are spaces we Christians know well, because they’re the very spaces God calls us to inhabit. Resurrection, forgiveness, repentance, transformation — these are not instant; they are processes that unfold in the tension between what is and what could be.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. knew how to live in those spaces. He stood in the gap between the “already” and the “not-yet.” He refused to accept the world as it was and dared to dream of the world as it could be. Even in the face of hatred, violence and fear, he pressed forward with faith, hope and love.
Maybe you’ve come here today carrying your own fear for the future. Maybe you feel stuck in the “what is.” But let me tell you, Wilshire, we serve a God who specializes in the in-between. We are called to the same sacred work as Dr. King — to stand in the tension, to step boldly into the struggle and to be instruments of God’s transformation.
So as we gather for worship today, let us come with open hearts and listening ears, ready to hear the voice of God, so that we might be brave enough to press forward in the “not-yet,” knowing that God is already there leading us forward.