“MLK for Today”

Sunday, January 20, 2019

First Congregational United Church of Christ of Manhattan, KS

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

A week ago, I was standing in the freezing cold on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon with a dear friend, hands tightly gripping steaming cups of coffee. It was our last morning at the canyon and as we stood there watching the sun rise I thought about returning home and my thoughts leaped forward a week to today. The Sunday of Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend.  

Did you know that Dr. King loved nature? It’s true. Though he was a city-kid, born and raised in the Sweet Auburn neighborhood of Atlanta, he made a conscious choice to get more in touch with the land (and his ancestors) when he sought out summer employment on a farm in Connecticut before entering college [1]. In his autobiography, he wrote of his time in seminary in Rochester, NY, where he would intentionally make a daily trip “to commune with nature.” “Every day,” he wrote, “I would sit on the edge of the campus by the side of the river and watch the beauties of nature. My friend, in this experience, I saw God. I saw him in the birds of the air, the leaves of the tree, the movement of the rippling waves.” [2]

Dr. King sat by the side of the river each day and found God there. How many of us have had a similar experience of seeking and finding the Holy in creation? Many of us, I’m sure.

Dr. King looms larger than life in our collective memories – have you seen the size of the statue at his memorial in Washington, D.C.? It inspires awe, as is fitting. But as we pause each January to remember this colossal prophet, we have to take care not to turn him into a caricature or object.

Dr. King was, after all, a human being, just like the rest of us here. He grew up squabbling with his siblings. He loved music and dancing. He told bawdy jokes with his best friends. He probably berated himself for his shortcomings as a father and husband, because none of us are as perfect as we would like to be in our closest relationships. He enjoyed good food and driving a new car. He struggled with lonely nights of the soul and deep existential exhaustion. He was a bold, unique, struggling, soaring, beloved human being…just like each of his here.  

Dr. King changed the world for the better because of his unique attributes and his relentless, faithful desire to be a part of building God’s Beloved Community here and now. It always breaks my heart a little to see his legacy boiled down to one speech when we remember him on MLK weekend each year. Yes, he had a dream. Yes, that dream was powerful and moving. Yes, it is right to remember his dream and notice how far we still are from that dream and to keep working to make it a reality.

But Dr. King was more than a dreamer. He was also a brilliant strategist who brought a laser-like focus to his ministry. He had that rare ability to dream big, paint a vision vividly with words, AND think like a master chess player about how to move forward step-by-step. He also had dreams that were more difficult for people to embrace than the ones we heard from the steps of the Washington memorial. If you’ve read some of his other writings, you know that he was quite radical. He advocated for billions of dollars to be used in a federal program for slavery reparations, he believed that creating a guaranteed annual income would solve many of our problems with poverty, he spoke out vocally and vehemently against the war in Vietnam, and – though he, himself advocated for nonviolence – he reminded people that riots are the language of the unheard. So much of what he said was bold, radical, difficult to hear.

Throughout his life and ministry, Dr. King stayed intently focused on what he called the great “triplets” of racism, materialism, and militarism. Incidentally, those three areas are also what guide the work of our friends at Kansas Interfaith Action. KIFA has also added environmental sustainability into the mix and I think Dr. King would wholeheartedly approve.      

Despite Dr. King’s steady leadership, we still struggle with these awful triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism today. People of color in our nation continue to live with the pain and terror of centuries of white supremacy in action. There are the small, relentless acts of erasure like reading in a book that a European explorer “discovered” the Grand Canyon in the 16th century. They Ancestral Puebloans who lived there as long ago as the 12th century B.C.E would disagree. As would the Cohonina, Hopi, Havasupai, and Navajo or Dine people who all lived near the canyon long before European settlers arrived.

We continue to live with the sin of racism as we look to our southern border and see atrocities being committed against people from Central and South America as they seek safety and asylum. If Dr. King were alive today he would have no shortage of work in confronting white supremacy.

Materialism is still with us, too, of course. The latest hit TV show in 2019 is yet another home improvement show focusing on how to help U.S. Americans manage the piles and piles of stuff we accumulate in our oversized homes. Meanwhile, many federal employees are working without pay and I have several friends who are legitimately worried that they and their children may soon have no food to eat or may be homeless due to uncertainties about SNAP payments, federal lunch subsidies in public schools, and HUD funding.

Dr. King had an expansive understanding of militarism as not only nation-on-nation warfare, but violence of any kind. If he were alive today, I feel certain he would be working hand-in-hand with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense. He would be concerned about the ways we fail to honor and care for our veterans. He would be nodding his head in agreement at the recent Gillette Ad encouraging us all to support healthier models of masculinity. He would be offering an encouraging word to Omaha elder Nathan Phillips who stood firmly in the redemptive power of nonviolence at the Lincoln Memorial earlier this week. He would giving thanks for the way Mr. Phillips embodied God’s spirit of defiant peace in the face of violent hate.

I have to admit. When I look at the world in 2019, I often wish Dr. King were still here to guide and challenge us. He would have turned 90 last week. But Dr. King was taken from us at the age of 39. And so we are left to wonder…what can we do today to continue to live into his radical, hopeful, Jesus-oriented legacy? What can we learn from the way he lived his life?

First, I think we can learn from King’s conviction that God is involved in human history. King did not envision God as an old white guy watching us from a distance. No, King’s vision of God was much more immanent – more present in the here and now. King maintained that God cares deeply about what happens to creation and that God is intimately involved with the day-to-day happenings on Planet Earth.

King did not, however, think that God’s involvement happened in some sort of magical, lightning-bolt kind of way. Instead, he believed that God needs humans to get the work done. King’s vision of God relied on humanity to make the Beloved Community real – to change consciousness, to change laws, to change culture.

A second thing I think we can learn is that people of faith can play a critical role in the wider world. King understood that the issues of evil at play in our world must be addressed in a systemic way, not just by individuals with generous hearts. King said, "Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial." [3] He never feared being “too political” because he was walking in the ways of Jesus, who probably would be crucified again if he were with us today.

Third, King would tell us that we should not be distracted from working on behalf of what is right just because it seems impractical or unpopular. This can easily be seen in his devotion to bringing the troops home from Vietnam. No one in his closest circle of advisors supported him when he decided to speak out against the war. They told him it was unpopular and would have a negative impact on their public image. King chose to speak out, even though it cost him credibility.

Finally, King understood that – when the going gets tough – you need something larger than yourself to sustain your work. King is a model for us not only because he was an amazing leader, but because he found the strength, courage, and ideas for his work from his Christian faith. He was just a person – he got tired, he got frustrated, he had days of despair when he thought nothing would ever change. And when he felt that way, he relied on his faith to sustain him.

Let us remember his wise counsel as we go forth to do what sometimes seems to be an impossible task: "When our days become dreary with low hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice." [4]

Notes:

[1] https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/MLK-Worked-Two-Summers-on-Simsbury-Tobacco-Farm-289024601.html

[2] King, Autobiography, 298.

[3] Pilgrimage to Nonviolence, Washington 38.

[4] ("Where do we go from here?" August 16, 1967)