January 14, 2007 Second Sunday after Epiphany, and
Martin Luther King Jr. Sunday
First Congregational Church in Thetford, Vermont, UCC
Psalm 71; Luke 4:14-21
Words about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I see an America in which Martin Luther King’s dream is our national dream.
- Jimmy Carter
I think his important legacy is that human problems, no matter how big, can be
solved…and organizing to solve those problems is an ongoing process.
- Rev. Andrew Young
Martin Luther King represents a voice, a vision and a way….I am convinced that
the whole future of America depends on how seriously we take this voice, this
vision and this way.
- Rabbi Abraham Heschel
Martin Luther King Jr. was the conscience of his generation. A Southerner, a
black man, he gazed upon the great wall of segregation and saw that the power of
love could bring it down.
From pain and exhaustion of his fight to free all people from the bondage of
separation and injustice, he wrung his eloquent statement of his dream of what
America could be.
He helped us overcome our ignorance of one another. He spoke out against a war
he felt was unjust as he had spoken out against laws that were unfair.
He made our nation stronger because he made it better. Honored by kings, he
continued to his last days to strive for a world where the poorest and humblest
among us could enjoy the fulfillment of the promises of our founding fathers.
His life informed us, his dreams sustain us yet.
- Citation, posthumous award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, July 4, 1977
Words from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must begin to ask, “Why are there forty million poor people in a nation
overflowing with unbelievable affluence?” Why has our nation placed itself in the
position of being God’s military agent on earth…? Why have we substituted the
arrogant undertaking of policing the whole world for the high task of putting our
own house in order?
….
If America would come to herself and return to her true home, “one nation,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,” she would give the democratic creed a
new authentic ring, enkindle the imagination of mankind and fire the souls of men.
- from "Where Do We Go from Here?"
We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly
begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society.
When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered
more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and
militarism are incapable of being conquered….A nation that continues year after
year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is
approaching spiritual death.
America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way
in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to
prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take
precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a
recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a
brotherhood….If we do not act we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and
shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without
compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.
- from "A Time to Break Silence", a sermon delivered at Riverside Church, New York
City, April 4, 1967
Today the choice is no longer between violence and nonviolence. It is either
nonviolence or nonexistence.
- from "Strive Toward Freedom"
We stood every morning at school when I was growing up and put our right
hand over our heart and said, “ I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States
of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
This past Thursday evening VPR’s Switchboard program discussed the
growing movement to have Vermont secede from the Union. The people involved
feel they would rather not pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of
America. They feel that the republic for which it stands no longer stands for the
ideals of its founders and greatest leaders. They feel that our republic has become
an empire too corrupt and too powerful for its citizens to control.
What do you think? What are the values for which America stands now?
As a follower of Jesus Christ, how do your spiritual values align with America’s?
This fall Marilyn Stone spoke passionately here after her trip to Europe,
saying that the people she talked to over there love America and wish they could
live here. They love its freedom and democracy and the economic opportunities it
presents. She said that for all its faults, America still looks like a great nation to
many.
On the other hand, to some, America represents the out-of-control
materialism and consumerism that are leading to a global climate catastrophe, as
we will see in the movie An Inconvenient Truth this evening.
And to some America represents an economic catastrophe, as the rich get
obscenely richer and the poor cannot make ends meet sometimes even when they
find two or three jobs to work.
And to some whose features make them appear to be of certain non-
Caucasian races, America is not free, but is a place where they could be pulled
over and searched at a check point or speed trap at any time based only on the
color of their skin. Others are disillusioned with America as the Patriotic Act
diminishes their freedom and rights.
And to all the world, America now stands for an escalating war in Iraq. All
the world can see the fulfillment of Martin Luther King Jr.’s prophetic warning
that “ A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military
defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
The Iraq war is taking money from programs of social uplift for the poor
and middle class in America, from health care coverage to college loans.
According to a recent Christian Century article by Columbia University Professor
Gary Dorrien, the war is on its way to costing close to two trillion dollars for its
first five years, averaging out to $18,000 per American household. The interest
alone on all that our government is borrowing to pay for the war amounts to three-
hundred billion dollars.
Think of what we could be doing with all that money. It would be enough
to provide health insurance for all uninsured Americans for the next fifty years.
Instead we are paying it for a war of aggression, condemned from before it began
by the world’s religious leaders as a blatantly unjust war, a war that has killed
many tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis, a war that has taken from the poor and
given to the military industrial complex and the oil companies—the huge
corporations that the current top officials in our government are so closely
connected to—pouring hundreds of billions of our tax dollars into their corporate
pockets.
This is what many think of when they think of our flag and the Republic for
which it stands. And that is a deeply disturbing thought, if you love this country.
For some of us it would be unbearable and make us want to secede from the Union
if it were it not for the spirit we are celebrating today, and the ideals and dreams
and historical accomplishments for which this day stands.
Martin Luther King Jr. Sunday has become one of the most important in the
church year for me. Bruce Nelson is a Thetford neighbor and Dartmouth history
professor and veteran of the Civil Rights movement. In years past he has come to
this service and reminded me afterwards that there were many great leaders who
were important to the movement, and that it may not be good to put all this
emphasis on Martin Luther King Jr. So I have been asking myself why this day is
so important. While it is partly the man himself, it is much more what he has
come to represent.
I still want to cry or want to go out and make a great sacrifice for a noble
cause every time I listen to his recorded speeches, but if he were merely a great
orator and one of the greatest leaders of a great movement, this day would not be
central to the church year. It stands for much more, though.
This day stands for the hope expressed in today’s Psalm that God will be
our rock and our fortress, and rescue us from the hand of the wicked and the grasp
of the unjust and cruel. Martin Luther King Jr. preached that and he showed it in
his life over and over. So it is a message that comes alive today.
And this day stands for the mission that Jesus Christ claimed as his own
and then passed along to us. He picked up the scroll that Sabbath in the Nazareth
synagogue and he turned to the prophet Isaiah and read, “ The Spirit of the Lord is
upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent
me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and to let
the oppressed go free.” Martin Luther King Jr. represents all those who have
stood up to corrupt, overpowering forces and lifted up the poor and freed the
oppressed and opened the eyes of those who have not seen the truth before. He
represents all who did not quit or secede, but stayed in the system working for
change.
This day stands for the church at its best—a church full of people who
rejoice when they are deemed worthy to suffer for what they believe—a church
that is not ‘a thermometer recording the ideas and principles of popular opinion,
but a thermostat that is transforming the mores of society.’ (Letter From
Birmingham City Jail)
Past confirmation classes here have watched films that show the role some
churches played in the Civil Rights Movement. After seeing what they did, our
children say that those are the kinds of churches they would want to belong to.
Those heroic churches are part of what we remember today.
This day stands for a dream that could and should be our national dream, as
Jimmy Carter said about the dream Martin Luther King Jr. had: a dream that
America’s actions could once again stand for ‘ideals that enkindle the imagination
and fire the souls of people around the world.’ (Where Do We Go from Here?)
It stands for a revolution in American values from a “thing-oriented
society” to a “person-oriented society” that overcomes “the giant triplets of
racism, materialism and militarism.” It stands for an American society where the
pursuit of peace and all that makes for peace takes precedence over the pursuit of
war, a nation that chooses nonviolence over nonexistence, a nation that guides its
power with compassion, its might with morality, its strength with spiritual in-sight.
(A Time to Break Silence)
Most of all this day stands for the hope that drove Martin Luther King Jr. as
it drove Jesus Christ—the hope that love will prove stronger than fear, that
nonviolence will prove stronger than violence, and that the Holy Spirit’s power
will prove stronger than the most powerful empire in the history of the world.
Because of all this day stands for, we may dare to dream of the United
States of America changed so that it lives up to the values we are celebrating. We
may imagine the world that such a nation could help create if it truly stood for
liberty and justice for all. We may imagine that even a small congregation like our
own could make a difference, even individuals like us, if we dedicate ourselves in
the spirit of this day, if we become part of a movement that shares the spirit of
movements of old, from the earliest church to Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist
Church.
Today we dare imagine children hearing the words of Martin Luther King
Jr. and saying, “ Yes, those are the ideals for which my church stands, those are
the ideals for which my nation stands, those are the ideals for which my life will
stand.”
These dreams can come true if we let the spirit of this day be that for which
we stand. So the final thing that today represents is a moment of choice. In a
world of global climate change, we must choose what we will stand for—what we
will do with our lives. In a time of the rich inflicting increasing injustice on the
poor, we must choose what we will do. In a time of war, we must choose. What
will we do now?
What will you do?
Let us pray in silence…
Sermon 01/14/2006