A longstanding tradition, Calvary Baptist Church’s annual celebration of Martin Luther King’s Birthday, was carried forth on Sunday in the form of what many hope will become a new tradition: an interfaith prayer service at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church that loops in the wider faith communities of East Hampton.
A diverse group of at least 100 people hailing from Montauk to Southampton converged at St. Luke’s, filling the church with prayers, poetry, songs, scripture, and readings from the work of Dr. King himself, fitting for the occasion.
“I was moved emotionally like I’ve never been moved before in an interfaith service,” the Rev. Walter Silva Thompson, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in East Hampton, said Tuesday after having a chance to reflect on the experience. “There was something unique that was taking place that words could not describe at the moment.”
On Sunday, the celebration began with a public acknowledgment that worship was taking place “on territory previously occupied by the Montaukett people, that some of the wealth that built this community may have come from industry related to the slave trade, and that rather than being distant, slavery was practiced right here, in plain sight,” said the Rev. Ben Shambaugh, pastor of St. Luke’s.
Reading from an affirmation published by the United Presbyterian Church, Mr. Shambaugh also reminded the audience that Dr. King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech “is not about an ideal world; it is about the real world.”
Together, he and the audience said, “I also have a dream. I have a dream that the Holy Spirit will arouse in me that very flame of righteousness that caused Martin King to become a living sacrifice for the freedom and liberation of all of God’s children. Then I will be able to resist injustice everywhere I see it, even within myself.”
The Rev. Bill Hoffmann of the Montauk Community Church was among the clergy offering prayers. “On this day, we specifically gather to remember to give thanks for your servant, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,” Mr. Hoffmann said. “In his words and in his life, he both challenged and moved this nation toward a greater justice and equity. In death he continues to call forth the best in us and challenges us to work for the fullness of unity and reconciliation that is yet to be realized. May we honor his service through ours. . . .”
Griffin Beckman, an East Hampton High School sophomore, read his poem “Star in the Night,” saying that Dr. King was “a revolutionary, but not just that / a disruptor, but not just that / an embodiment of all that is just.”
A peer, Maya Taveras, also an East Hampton sophomore, read an original poem titled “Connected” that reminded the audience that “we all live under the same sky.”
By way of example, the Rev. Candace Whitman, the pastor at large of the Presbytery of Long Island, and who is of Armenian descent, recounted an anecdote from a disturbing experience she recently had at a gas station in Port Jefferson: seeing a portrait of an infamous Turkish leader, Mustafa Ataturk, who had been credited with modernizing the nation after World War I, but who had also carried out the genocide of the Armenian people.
“I heard the words of Jesus afresh,” Ms. Whitman said. “In my mind, I heard, ‘You have to love your enemies. You have to pray for those who persecute you’ . . . but love for Turkey? That is very challenging because even the slightest friendship feels like a betrayal of my relatives and a disregard for what they endured. . . . Martin Luther King in the early ‘60s wrote a sermon on Jesus’s instruction to love our enemies. In his sermon, he says: ‘Far from being the pious injunction of a utopian dreamer, the command to love one’s enemy is an absolute necessity for our survival.’ “
Here in East Hampton, Ms. Whitman said, “joyfully, thanks to the work of many people . . . we are making strides toward unity.” She cited the Plain Sight Project “righting historic wrongs” and the positive community response after the “shameful violent acts of antisemitism right here in our own backyard.”
After the unified choir sang “Lean on Me,” Mr. Thompson looked out at the audience and said what he saw was “a mosaic.” But he also said he saw, in general, “something happening in our nation, something happening in our world today. History is replete with political, racial, ideological tension, animosity, and division.”
“Typically, in moments of chaos and destruction, comes the opportunity for rebirth and for reckoning how a community can rebuild, reimagine, and start anew,” he said. “At this time and this very moment in history, the possibility of rebirth has obvious implications, and more importantly, the burning question is: Where do we go from here?”
Quoting from Dr. King’s book “Where Do We Go From Here,” Mr. Thompson said, “We can be the change that we desire to see, not as detached spectators but involved participants in making it so. Taking the disconnected aspects of reality and bringing them together to a harmonious whole.”
“This must be our goal,” he said.
Another goal emerged Sunday, too, though perhaps not one explicitly stated.
With many church congregations generally dwindling in size across the country, it takes people like Tina Giles of East Hampton to get people to think creatively about how to worship and celebrate.
Ms. Giles, 61, is a lifelong parishioner of St. Luke’s with close family members who were brought up within the Calvary Baptist community. She consulted with Mr. Shambaugh before opening an invitation for collaboration to Calvary’s Martin Luther King Scholarship Committee, which has traditionally organized the event to raise money for its annual scholarship.
“It was 100 percent successful. We got nothing but positive feedback,” said Ms. Giles, who with a bright smile led the procession to the altar at the start of the service. “Someone said, ‘What do we do next?’ That’s what we have to work on.”
