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MLK Jr. Day service draws 3,200 to Washington National Cathedral
2003-010-1
1/21/2003
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[Episcopal News Service]
An estimated 3,200 people filled the Washington National Cathedral January 20 to pray for a peaceful resolution of the Iraq crisis. Afterward, worshipers marched down Massachusetts Avenue with candles and 'War Is Not the Answer' placards to take that message to the White House.
'Today we pray to God and plead with our national leaders to avoid the destructiveness of war and find a better way to resolve the very real threats involved in this conflict with Iraq,' said the Rev. Jim Wallis, executive director of Sojourners and the convenor of Call to Renewal, one of the service's keynote speakers. 'We believe that is possible, and we believe we can still stop this war before it starts.'
The Martin Luther King, Jr., Day Prayer Service for Peace and Justice focused on the connection between war and poverty.
'Before there were Jews, Christians and Muslims, there was Abraham!' said Bishop John Bryson Chane of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington (DC) during a pastoral prayer at the service. 'And we must be reminded of that shared thread of monotheism, a thread that must not be broken by indiscriminate violence, terrorism, religious intolerance, racism and the desire of some to claim religion as the centerpiece of their political and national agendas.'
'Help us, creator God to repent of our warring ways... Help the elected, or self-appointed, leaders of the world to end their rhetoric that demonizes and dehumanizes others within the global community,' Chane prayed. 'Most gracious God, help us as a nation to use the richness of our wealth, technology, medical research and agricultural abundance as the new 'weapons of mass rebuilding' in our war against violence, poverty, disease, famine and the feeling of hopelessness that billions of people on this planet now experience.'
In his introduction to the series of readings and meditations on peace, racism/poverty and global community, the Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, recalled hearing Martin Luther King, Jr., in February 1968 at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. The concern then was the Vietnam War.
'Afterwards,' he said, 'we walked arm in arm with Dr. King to the White House, much as we will do today. The words of Dr. King that we will read today aren't from that February 1968 event, but from the pulpit of this cathedral, from which Dr. King preached four days before he was assassinated. As you listen, hear how prophetic these words are for today.'
The service was co-sponsored by the National Council of Churches, Children's Defense Fund, the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, Call to Renewal and Sojourners.
[Photos are available at http://www.ncccusa.org/]
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