Summary: Inside, in church, today is the Second Sunday after the Epiphany. Outside across America, this is a weekend for honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Inside, we listen to Isaiah: For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until her vindication shines out like the dawn. (Isaiah 62:1) Outside, we listen to King, who for his people's sake would not keep silent, and for his country's sake was restless to the end. Inside, we reckon with Israel, the ancient people who struggled with their high call. Outside, it's our turn to do the same. Tolstoy said happy families are alike and unhappy ones are different. That is probably about half-right. Though ancient Israel and modern America are worlds apart, our pain in one respect is similar to theirs. It is the anxiety of having fallen short of a high call, of disappointing something, someone, that we hold dear. America's call rings out from the sacred text of the American experiment. The Declaration of Independence says why the new country would be exceptional among nations: race, language, and geography don't define us, nor unite us. Love of freedom, with acceptance of the truth that all are equal, does. That was Abraham Lincoln's take on American uniqueness. The Constitution was the how of the American experiment, the Declaration gives the why. Immigrants from anywhere, and emancipated slaves, could hear in the Declaration principles that rise above ancestry and nationality. As Lincoln put it in 1858:
