One of the key insights I gained from my week with Ched Myers, and his wonderful circle of pastor, seminarian, and activist friends, was the power of an apt analogy ("then" and "now," or as James W. McClendon used to say "this is that.")
Small example: Antioch (which may have been the social location of Matthew's eklessia/gospel) is to Jerusalem like San Fran is to L.A. (a big cosmpopolitan city up the coast), except L.A. just got destroyed by imperial occuppiers and you are a now marginalized refugees struggling for survival in the "ghettoes" of San Fran! Large example: the ministries of (Matthew's) Jesus and MLK Jr....the Sermon on the Mount as Jesus' "I Have a Dream" speech; King's 1967 "Beyond Vietnam" address as his "over-turning the Temple tables" moment; going to the aid of the Memphis garbarge workers' as King's "setting his face to Jerusalem"/Passion Week/execution by the state authorities; Jesus saying "you've heard it said..." (by Moses), King saying "I read somewhere..." (the Constitution).
One practical suggestion offered for bringing "sanctuary, seminary, and street" together in a "teachable moment" was to do something special in your community during the first week of April, to highlight the 40th anniversary of King's assassination (April 4, 1968). Framing it as "40 Years in the Wilderness" (or where have all the movements gone?) and using the tremendously powerful and evocative documentary on the Memphis sanitation workers' strike and King's participation in it (as part of his larger Poor Peoples' Campaign), seem like wonderful ways to covene a hopeful conversation as to whether we're entering into a new kairos moment, ripe for a new movement.
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