Haiti and Martin Luther King Jr.'s Legacy

A few nights ago, I heard on the radio the voice of a reporter who had just arrived in Haiti to cover the aftermath of the earthquake that struck the day before, devastating the capital of Port-au-Prince. She had taken an extra seat on a chartered plane along with a small team of emergency medical specialists who were flying in from this country to help in any way that they could. She described how this small team had walked off the airplane directly into a makeshift medical center at the airport where they began to do triage work. They spent hours attending to the wounded, and were still at it when the reporter finally left for the night. I don’t know who those people were, or what motivated them to travel to Haiti and work long, exhausting hours. All I know is that in them, I recognize the grace of God at work.

On my computer, I looked up the United Church of Christ emergency fund, and an organization called Partners In Health, which has a long medical presence in Haiti, and is removed enough from the capital to have mainly survived the earthquake’s damage. I gave some money; it’s not much, but I want to support the people who have the necessary experience and relationships with Haitians to muster everything they can, as soon as they can. Haiti is one of the world’s nations least equipped to handle a disaster of this kind.

I am thankful for all of the ways in which compassion and relationships are not being held back at national borders, or contained within the boundaries of race, ethnicity, and religion. We live in an increasingly interrelated world, and I believe that our ethic of love must have all people in mind when we contemplate the old question “am I my brother’s keeper?”

This week, we remember Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday. A year before he was killed, he spoke at Riverside Church on the urgency of ending the war in Vietnam and embracing a call for every nation to develop “loyalty to mankind as a whole.”

“This call for world-wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men” (From "A Time to Break Silence," preached on April 4, 1967).

I am thankful for all those Haitians and Americans and others who are at work to ease suffering. They are in my prayers, because they are doing God’s work.