'Do whatever he tells you': The Sunday coming and the call of the King

As we step back into Ordinary Time, we cherish the gift of Christ coming into the world. As people living in kinship and communion with Christ the King, we might suffer as we move towards the joy of the Resurrection in our lives. That joy is always found in our witness. The coming Sunday’s Scriptures begin with this Old Testament reading:

“For Zion’s sake I will not be silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not keep still, Until her vindication shines forth like the dawn and her salvation like a burning torch. Nations shall behold your vindication, and all kings your glory; You shall be called by a new name bestowed by the mouth of the LORD.”
(Isaiah 62:1-2)

This is the essence of our call to discipleship, to sharing in the kingship of Christ. We are called to witness on two occasions: when there is evidence of the joy of the Resurrection in our lives, and most especially when we see injustice, pain, and suffering in the world. The Gospel depicts one of those witness moments, the wedding at Cana. 

Of course, we know the story. Witness has two components, what is said and what is done. We experience both here: 

“When the wine ran short, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’  [And] Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come.’ His mother said to the servers, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’”
(Luke 2:3-5)

Mother Mary speaks to her Son, who let her know that this was not the moment for which he came into the world. Rather than enter into a great debate, Mary pondered her son’s reply and gave a five-word response: “Do whatever he tells you.” Mary’s response is simple and powerful, and it is the response of any disciple who lives in kinship and communion with Christ the King. Of course, this is our response because we are in conversation with the King, who is going to tell us something.

This is the season we celebrate one of Christ’s adopted sons, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He followed in the footsteps of our Blessed Mother, who St. Augustine called the perfect disciple. “Do whatever he tells you.” King, an Isaiah scholar, embodied the words and the way of Isaiah, when talking about the three evils that plagued our nation in his day and remain with us today. King’s witness against the evils of his day was like Isaiah’s witness:

“So let us stand in this convention knowing that on some positions; cowardice asks the questions, is it safe; expediency asks the question, is it politic; vanity asks the question, is it popular, but conscious asks the question, is it right. And on some positions, it is necessary for the moral individual to take a stand that is neither safe, nor politic nor popular; but he must do it because it is right.”
(King’s “The Three Evils of Society,” delivered in Chicago at the National Conference on New Politics in August 1967)

Amplifying his message against the three evils, King said that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” King and other powerful witnesses to our faith like Mary showed us the way. In 1968, the newly-formed National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus organized and witnessed in their founding manifesto against racism in our Church. 

Their action made possible another witness we recently celebrated: 40 years of “What We Have Seen and Heard,” the 1984 letter of the nation’s Black Catholic bishops. This witness was preceded by the U.S. bishops’ 1979 pastoral statement, “Brothers and Sisters to Us,” on the eradication of racism in our country, starting in our Church. It is maybe our Church’s most powerful and comprehensive statement about the sin of racism. 

King, whom we celebrate this month, and all others mentioned previously, were anointed by this same Spirit. St. Paul speaks of this Spirit’s gifts, saying that “one and the same Spirit produces all of these, distributing them individually to each person as he wishes.” (1 Corinthians 12:11)

On an August day in 1963, King spoke of a dream that had not been realized, and said to the assembly several times that “now is the time.” The dream has not been realized. Let’s celebrate our baptism and our part of Christ’s kingship with our witness. King’s last words when he spoke of the three evils still ring true today: 

“We will not be harassed, we will not make a butchery of our conscience, we will not be intimidated, and we will be heard.” 

Will you witness and be heard? That’s how we are to celebrate this holiday and this season.

Deacon Timothy E. Tilghman is a permanent deacon of the Archdiocese of Washington, currently assigned to St. Teresa of Avila Catholic Church. He has two master’s degrees, one in public policy and the other in theology. He is the author of “Going to the Well to Build Community: A Pastor’s Guide to Evangelization.”

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