Rev. Gregory Groover of Boston (AME)

Inspired by the Inauguration 2009 Sermons and Orations Project of the Library of Congress’s American Folklife Center, the Globe invited local clergy to e-mail the texts of inauguration-related sermons and prayers for posting here on the Articles of Faith religion blog. You can find all of the submissions by clicking on the Inauguration Sermons category in the blog’s right rail.

At the Historic Charles Street AME Church in Roxbury, the Rev. Gregory G. Groover Sr. read a letter he wrote, imagining what he would say today to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.:

"Dear Martin,

If I need to, I will first apologize to you for addressing you at the outset of this letter not as Dr. King, or Reverend King or Reverend Dr. King but as “Martin.” I beg your forgiveness if my style of addressing you is taken by you, in any way, as inappropriate. And still, I deliberately begin this letter in the very personal sense by writing – “Dear Martin.”

It’s intentional “Martin” because this letter is very personal for me. Penning this letter in the backdrop of this gathering of ten years of two completely different congregations commemorating, in their oneness, your legacy and in the context of this weekend of all of America and the world celebrating a son of the motherland assuming the presidency of the United States, I take this letter that I write to you, Martin, as very personal.

And with mixed feelings. We all have mixed feelings about this upcoming inauguration. Because as grateful as we are to be alive in such a time as this, there is also a sadness about our loves who didn’t live to see this moment. Yes isn’t true that while so many of you here have said over and over again since November 4th, “I never thought I’d live to see this day,” you have also said repeatedly, “I only wish so and so was here to witness this?”

I invite each of you right now to think about that one or two persons in your life that you wish were still living to see this moment and then turn to your neighbor, take them by the hand for a moment and say to them, “I wish [whoever that person’s name is] was here to see Barack Obama become president.”

You see Martin, each of us here can’t help but to take the presidential swearing-in of the first African American as personal. I think immediately of three persons who I really wish with all my heart could have lived to see this day.

My father is one of them. One of the dearest and yet troubling childhood memories of my dad was waking up one day as a seven year older and seeing my dad sitting in the living room chair weeping his heart out. My dad was almost 300 pounds, I had never seen him cry before and there he was weeping. My mother later told us that the only time she ever witnessed my dad weep as he did that morning was when his mother died.

So there I stood at a distance watching my giant-size father weep and when I asked my mother, “what happened,” my mother pointed to that round-tin picture of a man on the living room wall who I always thought was one of our uncles and mother said, “because that man died yesterday. Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed.”

Martin, I wish my father was here today. My father, who worked as a sanitation worker, yes it was his profession, Martin, that drew you to Memphis to join them in their strike where you would be assassinated. My father wept that morning Martin knowing that you put your life on the line and had it snatched away for him and other sanitation workers, I wish so badly Martin that my father were living to witness what we’re seeing.

And oh how I wish Juanita Groover could also be here to see this day. Like my dad, my mother grew up in segregated south. Like Rosa Park, she was an AME stewardess who often had to stand in the back of the bus. Like the mothers of the Little Rock Nine, my mother sent her children off to integrate a school, to a high school that was shaken by racial riots spurred by angry white students and their parents that didn’t want black children in “their schools.” Like many Black parents, my mother had a child, my oldest brother, who was one day chased from school and was even hit in his head with a large rock by a mob of white students.

Martin, I so wish my mother had lived to see the presidential primaries and elections of 2008. Because I recall just twenty years earlier when my mother voted for Jesse Jackson in 1988. And I remember my mother telling me, “I voted for Jesse not because I knew he’d win but because I wanted to help this country get ready one day for its first black president. Because that day is coming. Maybe not in my lifetime, but son, we will see it happen.”

Why did she have to say, “maybe not in my lifetime?”

Not too long ago, Martin, I came across a letter that my mother had written to me while I was in college at Morehouse – that’s right Martin, while I was living in Robert Hall. During my four years, my mother wrote me once a month and enclosed, in each letter, thirty dollars cash, which was a lot for my mother to send every month. And in this particular letter, my mother shared that she hadn’t heard from me in a while. She was wondering whether I was actually getting her letters. She was worried how I was doing? “Please write me back” she urged me, “to ease my worrying.”

I remember initially reading the letter and saying, “yeah, I’ll call her or I’ll write her back later on in the week,” but you know Martin, I don’t think I ever wrote her back. So caught up and so self-centered in my daily college life that I wasn’t wise enough, caring enough, no decent enough to spend a few moments to return a letter to a mother who took the time to sit down to write me and sacrifice $30 dollars. I wasn’t mature enough to respond, “mom, I’m ok.”

Oh, Martin, how I wish not only that my mother could see this day but that I would have taken that time to write her back.

But then, Martin, I wonder how you felt when you too wrote a letter to which was never responded. Yes, in April 1963 [five years before your death] you, sitting alone, inspired by God, wrote a letter from the Birmingham City Jail. Like the apostles of Jesus, you found yourself beaten and put in prison for preaching the gospel of freedom. Like Paul who ended up writing his letter from the Roman jail to the churches at Ephesus and Philippi and other cities, there you were in that southern jail being led by the Spirit, writing a letter to the Church at Birmingham.

The white liberal church at Birmingham that took the position that your coming to Birmingham was “unwise and untimely.” The church that referred to us as “an outside agitator” coming into the city to incite violence and civil disobedience. That chided you for just not being patient and tolerant enough to allow the slow wheels of the courts to eventually ensure equality.

You responded to the liberal church at Birmingham with a letter explaining how we were inescapably tied to a single garment in destiny. How injustice anywhere was a threat to justice everywhere. How, why and when it comes to a point that direct action such as sit-ins, marches and boycotts should be the only paths to take?

Your letter, written forty plus years ago to the church of Birmingham and consequently to the believers in Christ everywhere, went out from that jailhouse and returned without response. And yet, it so deserves one.

And partly for that reason Martin, you would be the third person that personally I wish, that we all wish would be alive today to witness this moment in history. If for no other reason, to answer your letter. To let you know that as your people, your sisters and brothers of a loving God move into a new chapter and a new era that we enter it prayerfully never forgetting your words, your teachings, your instructions engraved even in that sacred letter.

“Don’t forget the teachings, the instructions, and the commandments that My servant gave you,” God told Joshua and the Israelites. “Those guiding principles, those moral laws that I inspired Moses to put on tablet some forty plus years ago while you were segregated in the wilderness.”

“Now that Moses is dead, and you Joshua and My people are getting ready to cross the Jordan into the promised land,” God says, “go forth being always strong and courageous, being never of fear and discouraged and being always careful to remember and obey the teachings and the words of My servant Moses. And should you remember the teachings My servant Moses gave you, should you not depart from them from your mouth, should you not turn from it to the right or to the left, then you will be successful wherever you go.”

Martin, in some ways, Barack Obama’s election represents America’s long-delayed response to your letter. We all wish you were here to read her response.

America’s long-awaited response to your letter, as seen on that night of November 4th when that great multitude of people of all backgrounds gathered with tears falling down their eyes standing together at Grant Park in Chicago. That night, when thousands of people in Harlem took it to the streets not to riot but to dance in jubilation. That night when church folk had gathered by the millions in their sanctuaries or in their homes, shouting “glory Hallelujah, God’s truth still marches on.”

And yet Martin, November 4th and even January 20th’ represent a response to your letter only in part. While this extraordinary moment in history marks us moving further across the Jordan and moving closer to the promised land, the truth is, we ain’t there.

And only when we get to the promised land. The promised land that like Moses you too was allowed only to see on the eve of your death. Only when this country truly makes way for everyone to experience life in the promise land, will your letter then be responded to fully.

Yes only, Martin, when there is no achievement gap between white children and children of color. Only when there will no longer be needed a METCO program for all inner city children to access quality education. Only when all students can get the support to go to college and complete it.

Only Martin, when there is affordable health care for everybody. Only when no child goes to bed hungry. Only when people of good will across urban and suburb divides come together and figure out a way to stop the violence and the murders of our children.

Martin, only when Roxbury and Wellesley stop becoming two totally separate and foreign worlds. Only when it no longer becomes the “profoundly unusual moment” to have an African American governor of this commonwealth or president of these United States. Only when poverty perishes, discrimination disappears, division dissolves, violence vanishes, and fear and being afraid of each other fades away and evaporates into oblivion. Martin only when that day happens, will the promised be fulfilled, will your dream be realized, and will your letter receive a full response.

But until then, we will celebrate this weekend, this unbelievable and enormous moment along the journey into the promised land. And oh how I so wish, how we all wish you were.

Barack Hussein Obama will become the 44th president of these United States. He, a decedent of Africa, will become the leader of the free world. And Martin in our celebrating him, we must celebrate you. For just as, had it not been for a Moses there wouldn’t have been a Joshua, so too had it not been for you Martin there wouldn’t, on this day be a Barack Obama.

Barack Obama is here, we believe, to simply carry on your work. To move us closer in writing that writing the full response to your letter. May the God keep us ever faithful in that work always and in all ways, until we see you again, in Christ Jesus, in THE promised land!

Grace and peace,

Greg Groover"

(Photo by Matthew J. Lee/Globe staff)