January 17, 2010 Second Sunday after Epiphany,
Martin Luther King Jr. Sunday
First Congregational Church in Thetford, Vermont, UCC
Matthew 5:1-16
Seven Readings from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
1. This hour of history needs a dedicated circle of transformed nonconformists.
Our planet teeters on the brink of…annihilation; dangerous passions of pride,
hatred and selfishness are enthroned in our lives…and [people] do reverence
before the false gods of nationalism and materialism…. We as Christians have a
mandate to be nonconformists.
2. I think this is what Jesus meant when he looked at his disciples one day and
said, “I come not to bring peace but a sword.” Now certainly he didn’t mean he
came to bring a physical sword. Certainly he didn’t mean that he did not come to
bring true peace. But Jesus was saying in substance:…whenever I come, a
conflict is precipitated between the old and the new. Whenever I come, tension
sets in between justice and injustice.
3. Jesus took over the phrase “the Kingdom of God,” but he changed its meaning.
He refused entirely to be the kind of a Messiah that his contemporaries expected.
Jesus made love the mark of sovereignty. Here we are left with no doubt as to
Jesus’ meaning. The Kingdom of God will be a society in which men and women
live as children of God should live. It will be a kingdom controlled by the law of
love.
4. 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.
5. Today the choice is no longer between violence and nonviolence. It is either
nonviolence or nonexistence.
6. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to
a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light
can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that…The aftermath of
nonviolence is the creation of the Beloved Community, while the aftermath of
violence is tragic bitterness.
7. Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter—but
beautiful—struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the [children] of God,
and our brothers [and sisters] wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the
odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? … Or will there be
another message, of longing, of hope…whatever the cost? The choice is ours,
and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment
of human history.
Last week our Mission Committee Chair Christina Robinson shared with
us her experience of searching the web for national organizations promoting
nonviolence. She kept finding that the organizations’ websites were inactive. It
was as if they all had gone to sleep or walked away from their posts in the last
year or so. Whether it is because of the economy, or the false sense of security
after the election of President Obama, or burn-out after so many years of
frustration, for whatever reason, the movement for nonviolence is hard to find at
the moment, and with disastrous results.
The majority of Americans may want an end to the war in Afghanistan, but
the mere wish for peace is nowhere near as strong as the culture of violence in
which we live. The majority of Americans may wish for universal health care
coverage, or the vast majority of scientists may insist that stopping climate
change requires immediate, drastic action, but the mere wish for mercy and
justice and doing what is right is not nearly as strong as the culture of materialism
and greed in which we live.
Decisions like those on Afghanistan, health care and climate change
would be completely different in a society with a strong culture of nonviolence.
But the movement of people working toward that culture seems to have been
overwhelmed by opposing forces.
Many organizations are diminished or have gone out of business, but the
church is still here. King said, “The contemporary church is often a weak,
ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound,” and that is as true today as it was
then, but the church is still here, and it still opens the Bible from time to time to
hear Jesus say in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the meek, blessed are
the merciful, blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are those who are persecuted
on my account.” The church is still here, and it still carries forward the most
powerful voice for creating a culture of nonviolence that the world has ever
heard. So there is still hope. The hope is that we will listen to that voice. The
hope is that we will confess our weakness, ineffectiveness and uncertainty, and
commit to starting over at the beginning, going back to the source of our calling
and vision and power.
Martin Luther King Jr. published an article in 1958 called “An Experiment
in Love.” It was an excerpt from his book, Stride Toward Freedom, and it began
with these words:
From the beginning a basic philosophy guided the movement. This
guiding principle has since been referred to…as nonviolent
resistance…. But in the first days of the protest…the phrase most
often heard was “Christian love.” It was the Sermon on the Mount,
rather than a doctrine of [nonviolent] resistance, that initially inspired
the Negroes of Montgomery to dignified social action. It was Jesus of
Nazareth that stirred the Negroes to protest with the creative weapon
of love.
If we want to design a culture of nonviolence to stand against the culture
of violence in our world, we need look no farther than the Sermon on the Mount
for the fundamental principles. The revolution of values is there that King called
for, the transformation of society away from militarism, materialism and racism.
Jesus tells us to love our enemies, not to worry about material things, and to do
unto others as we would have them do unto us.
But there is something else in the Sermon on the Mount, as well. There is
a calling—no, there is a commandment—for us to give our lives to this cause.
Jesus said in today’s passage, “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its
taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything…” And
he said, “You are the light of the world…. Let your light shine before others, so
that they may see your good works and give glory to God…”
We need to hear these as binding commandments. It is imperative that we
live what we believe. King is right when he says that Christ leads us into conflict
between the old ways and the new, between violence and nonviolence. Christ
commands us to be what King called “a dedicated circle of transformed
nonconformists.”
King is right when he says, “Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate
ourselves to the long and bitter—but beautiful—struggle for a new world.” He is
right that we are just at the beginning. He is right that the struggle will be long
and bitter. But he is also right that it will be beautiful—nothing is more beautiful
than when we struggle together toward the Beloved Community of God’s realm
on earth. And King is right when he says, “The choice is ours, and though we
might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human
history.”
Christ and Martin Luther King Jr. and the entire world that is suffering
from the violence of poverty, injustice and war right now all demand that we
make a choice. They ask us to commit our lives to creating a culture of
nonviolence even as society around us works against it. The time to decide is
now. Will we commit ourselves, here in this church, to give our lives to a cause
that we may not live to see fulfilled, to give our lives to something that will
certainly get us ridiculed as idealists and extremists, and may even get us
persecuted and crucified? Will we commit ourselves to walking together, loving
and supporting one another wherever this path may lead?
The King Center in Atlanta has a pledge they ask people to make, a pledge
of nonviolence in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. People who sign the
pledge promise “to do everything that I can to make America and the world a
place where equality and justice, freedom and peace will grow and flourish….
[and] make nonviolence a way of life in my dealings with all people…. [and]
dedicate my life to creating the Beloved Community of Dr. King’s dream.” The
King Center pledge is a good translation of what Jesus was requiring of us when
he said, “Let your light shine.”
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for not giving up her seat
to a white person on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. It sparked a movement to
boycott the buses. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the newest African-American
pastor in town and was only 26 years old, but on December 5th the community
elected him unanimously to be the leader and spokesperson of the movement.
King said it happened so fast he didn’t have time to think. If he had had time, he
said he probably would have declined the nomination. He rushed home. He later
recalled, “I had only twenty minutes to prepare for the most decisive speech of
my life. As I thought of the limited time before me and the possible implications
of the speech, I became possessed by fear…. I turned to God in prayer.”
God gave King the courage and love and faith he needed to overcome his
fear, not just that once, but over and over. And here is an interesting thing. That
movement of turning from fear or discouragement to God and love, that
movement of making a courageous, recommitment to serving with our whole life,
turns out to be the engine that drives the entire movement to establish God’s
realm on earth. The secret to this power is to go back after every challenge or
defeat and start over at the beginning, to turn back to God and say yes once
again.
Right now many people feel discouraged by the compromises on
Afghanistan and health care and climate change. Many feel hopes deflated that
were so high a year ago. Many hear the virulent hate of those who oppose the
culture of nonviolence and recoil in fear. But we have this day to remind us not
to give in to discouragement and fear. We have this day to remind us why we
should not give up the struggle. We have this day to remind us that someone
once said, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the peacemakers. blessed are
those who risk persecution for the sake of Christ’s way. We have this day to ask
us to recommit our lives and fill again with the power of that movement.
You have the opportunity to make that commitment and gain that power
this morning. We are putting you on the spot, as the movement in Montgomery
put Dr. King on the spot, and as Jesus puts his disciples on the spot. We have
copies of the King Center pledge in the Newcomb Room for you to consider
signing. What it will mean that we do as a church, or how it will change your life,
no one can say. But there will be no change unless we take the first step and
commit to starting over at the beginning, stepping out on this path together,
putting our future direction in the Holy Spirit’s control. The first step is
declaring our intention again not to give up.
Let us pray together, seeking within us whether we are ready to commit
ourselves anew to creating Christ’s culture of nonviolence with whatever gifts
God has given us to use...
Sermon 01/17/2010