Martin
Luther King, Jr.,
Dangerous Man and Prophet
Transcribed
from the sermon preached January 15, 2012
The
Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor
Scripture:
Exodus 4:10-12,5:1-2, Luke 6: 20-38
It
was one of the first memories of my mother crying: There were only
three tv
stations back then, ABC, NBC and CBS. A special news bulletin broke
into
regular programming: “Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has been shot.”
Shortly after
the announcement, they showed a clip of the Washington Memorial
speech….There
was something inspired, different, more powerful about this speech than
anything I had ever witnessed. My dad, the history teacher, gave us the
background. My mom, the passionate, angry and eager to show her small
part,
told a story. Years earlier, Mom was in the Dallas airport in Texas and
heard
white people next to her making fun of the African American woman
trying to
carry her bags and shuffle three small kids along. My mom got up, and
grabbed a
couple of bags and helped the family out to a taxi. On her way back
someone
said, “We don’t help niggers around here.”
I
was five years old when King died, and this was my first lesson that my
little
life was situated within a larger history, and this history mattered to
my
parents. And as I listened to King’s speech, I was moved by the passion
and the
massive crowd. It is to this moment, the death of Martin Luther King
Jr. and
the hearing of his dream, that I trace my dream of being a preacher.
What
a gift it is to the Church and society when someone answers the call to
be
Christ alive in his time. It reminds us who we are supposed to be, what
a
Christian is supposed to be. We know Martin wasn’t perfect, but by the
grace of
God he certainly embodied the command to love your neighbor as
yourself, to
turn the other cheek. We witness as well in his life, how the righteous
suffering of one or some, does in fact help redeem the world. He is one
of
those great examples of the living Word of Christ, and a witness that
the words
of scripture are not just hocus pocus, that a life of a Christian can
be set apart,
inspired, lifted up above the madness of the world.
And
thanks to King and all those who worked with him, we have a very
different
nation than when he first began his work. Certainly it would have been
unthinkable back then to imagine Barack Obama being elected president.
This is
a partial realization of King’s Dream, that one day we would have a
nation
where children are “judged not by the color of their skin but by the
content of
their character.”
It
is appropriate that we have finally erected a monument, a stone statue
of
Martin in Washington DC. But there is also the danger that as Martin
Luther
King Jr has become mainstream, we forget the radical prophetic nature
of the
embodied love of Christ.
There
has always been a danger that our prophetic religious figures are
co-opted by
the status quo. Since at least Constantine, Jesus has too often been
co-opted
and softened to fit nicely and quietly into unjust society. It is a sad
truth
that as the Western empires made their journeys of conquest, they
dragged along
a co-opted Christ and forced it down the throats of native peoples. In
the
conquest of the Americas the thirst for riches led the so called
Christians to
horrific crimes against indigenous people.
Bartolome de Las Casas chronicles the darkness:
pregnant women flayed
open, their fetuses skewered; fighting dogs ripping children to pieces.
Las
Casas tells the story of the Taino chief Hatuer, who was caught and
convicted
for armed resistance. When asked on his funeral pyre if he wished
baptism so that
he could live forever, he asked for clarification: “Do Christians go to
heaven?” “Yes,” replied the priest. “Then I would rather go to hell.”
Thankfully
the Spirit of Christ continued to bust out of the casket fitted by
empire and
shake people up. Prophets spoke out. In Hispaniola five hundred years
ago, the
Dominican Friar Montesino stood up to preach an advent sermon to his
brothers
and sister Spanish: “With what right and with what justice do you hold
these
Indians in such cruel and horrible servitude? With what authority have
you
waged such detestable wars against a people who were so gentle and
peaceful in
your lands, where you have consumed uncountable numbers of them with
death and
unheard of tortures? …Are they not men? Do they not have rational
souls? Are
you not obligated to love them as you love yourselves? Do you not
understand
this? Do you not feel this? How is it that you are in such deep,
lethargic
sleep? ” (Wilson, Andrew. With What Right and What Justice. First
Things. Dec.
2001. P. 50)
And
when indigenous people died off, the European so called “Christians
replaced
them with Africans. There was an African slave ship named the “Good
Ship
Jesus,” as if God had ordained their cruel oppression. And the
scripture was
used by oppressors to placate and keep the slaves subservient. But
thanks to
the protestant Reformation, literacy for the purpose of reading
scripture
trickled down to slaves. And it is one of the great truths of history,
that
though scripture has too often been brought as a tool of the oppressor,
the
liberating Word of God cannot be held down. Rather than simply accept
the idea
that slavery was ordained by God, slaves read how God heard the cries
of his
people, and sent Moses to tell ol’ Pharaoh, “Let my people go!”
The
co-optation of Jesus and the petrifaction of scripture is by no means
finished.
Somehow it is the so called Christian backed candidates who promote
hate and
war, and many churches are more concerned that children learn the world
was
created in six days than that those children have health care. They
want them
to be born, but they don’t care if they live.
And
so too it is a mixed blessing to incorporate Martin Luther King Jr.
into a
national and cultural treasure. Cornel West, Christian philosopher who
has just
moved from one Presbyterian University, Princeton, to another, Union
Theological Seminary in New York, warns against the
“Santiclausification” of
Martin Luther King. With all the cozy celebrations of King around the
country,
“He just becomes a nice little old man with a smile with toys and a
bag, not a
threat to anybody, as if his fundamental commitment to unconditional
love and
unarmed truth does not bring to bear certain kinds of pressure to a
status quo.
So the status quo feels so comfortable as though it’s a convenient
thing to do
rather than acknowledge him as what he was, what the FBI said, “The
most
dangerous man in America.” Why? Because of his fundamental commitment
to love
and to justice and trying to keep track of the humanity of each and
every one
of us.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/on-martin-luther-king-day-remember-the-message-not-the-monument/2012/01/11/gIQAx2YXrP_story.html
King,
the disciple of Christ, was a critic of racism, poverty and war, and he
preached that Christians ought to actively work to eliminate them. To
the
degree that we are complacent and comfortable as racism, poverty and
war continue,
we should be uncomfortable with King. We should feel uncomfortable to
the
degree we are a comfortable church. If the Gospel doesn’t shake us up a
bit,
then it is not likely the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Woe to us if we are
rich and
full and popular, and do nothing to further peace, justice and equality.
I
know we are all busy people. If we are lucky we have jobs and families
to look
after, soccer games and music lessons, back to school nights, dinner
and
laundry, bills and mail and email. And maybe we come back to church
because we
want our kids to know a bit about God. And we don’t think we are that
good a
Christian, and we have never been activist types and we don’t like
public
speaking. Yet God sees the disproportionate poverty and incarceration
rate
among African Americans, and the demonization of immigrants and gays,
and that
we treat corporations as humans for lobbying and speech yet there is
never any
human employee found responsible when corporate action and policy
results in
the destruction of homes, pensions, lives or Creation… God sees that we
spend
mountains of money on war while the poor are trapped in a valley of
despair
without adequate schools, health care, or job training, and God says, I
need
someone to go down and turn things around. And our excuses are not as
important
as the job to be done, our complaint of inadequacy not as great as
God’s love
or as important as the journey of liberation to which we have been
called.
“So I leave us with a quote from
King: Even a superficial look at history
shows that social progress never rolls in on the wheels of
inevitability. It
comes through the tireless effort and the persistent work of men and
women
willing to be coworkers with God. Without this hard work, time itself
becomes
an ally of the forces of social stagnation. “
Forgiving ourselves for being born into a world of
prejudice and
violence, let us commit body and soul to the transforming love of
Christ, and
in both small and bold acts, live and work with love and peace.
“Forgiveness is
not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.”
This
is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.