“Build, baby, build.”

Matthew 5:1-6

January 14, 2024

Martin Luther King, Jr. Sunday

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

On October 26, 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr. stopped at Barratt Junior High School in Philadelphia and  delivered his speech "What Is Your Life's Blueprint?" 

(play first minute of this video).

He began by sharing a little “commercial” with the students. It seems there was a special event happening that night at the newly-built Spectrum arena in Philly: a fundraiser for the civil rights movement featuring Harry Belafonte, Jr., Aretha Franklin, Sidney Poitier and more. He invited the young students to come out and support the event. 

Then he promised, (with a bit of a twinkle in his eye) to keep his remarks “very brief” because he had many other engagements to attend to on this particular day. He explained, “I don’t have a tradition of being brief all the time. You know I’m a Baptist preacher, and we can talk a long time, but I’m going to be really brief today.” 

In the spirit of brevity, he got right into it: “I want to ask you a question, and that is: WHAT IS IN YOUR LIFE’S BLUEPRINT?”

King reminded these young teens that they were in a formative time in their lives. A crucial moment in their development:

And whenever a building is constructed, you usually have an architect who draws a blueprint. And that blueprint serves as the pattern, as the guide, as the model, for those who are to build the building. And a building is not well erected without a good, sound, and solid blueprint.

Now each of you is in the process of building the structure of your lives, and the question is: whether you have a proper, a solid, and a sound blueprint.

And I want to suggest some of the things that should be in your life’s blueprint.

First, he told the students, “Number one in your life’s blueprint should be a deep belief in your own dignity, your own worth and your own somebodiness. Don’t allow anybody to make you feel that you are nobody….Always feel that you have worth, and always feel that your life has ultimate significance.”

Secondly, he named, “In your life’s blueprint, you must have as the basic principle the determination to achieve excellence in your various fields of endeavor.”

This section delights me because it reminds me of something my Sunday School teachers, Miss Emilie and Mr. Don, taught us as teenagers. They always told us, “Whatever you do, do it for the glory of God. Take that algebra test for the glory of God! Take out the garbage for the glory of God!”

Dr. King said it a little more eloquently:

Set out to do a good job…If it falls to your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures. Sweep streets like Beethoven composed music. Sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera, and sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. 

These two pieces of advice are solid reminders for anyone - not just young teens living in Philadelphia in the 1960s. Know your worth. Strive for excellence in all you do. 

Like any good public speaker, King waited until he’s established rapport with the audience before he got into the real nitty-gritty. As the students applauded his recitation of a poem, he rounded the corner to third. “Finally,” he says, pausing for the applause to run its course. “Finally,” (and at this point, you could hear a pin drop in this auditorium full of teenagers) “in your life’s blueprint must be a commitment to the eternal principles of beauty, love, and justice.”

And then, while he still has them in the palm of his hand: 

Don’t allow anybody to pull you so low as to make you hate them.

Don’t allow anybody to cause you to lose your self-respect to the point that you do not struggle for justice. However young you are, you have a responsibility to seek to make your nation a better nation in which to live.

You have a responsibility to seek to make life better for everybody. And so you must be involved in the struggle for freedom and justice.

Here, I hear an echo of the words of Jesus, giving his own brief remarks all those centuries ago on a mountain on the other side of the world:

“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, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

Let your light shine before others. Don’t lose your saltiness, the essence of who God created you to be. 

King went on to counsel them about the necessity for using nonviolent methods in seeking liberation for all people. And this is where I want you all - including those of you who were teenagers a long, long time ago and those who are not yet teenagers - to lean in close. For the struggle for freedom is not yet over. The arc of the universe is bending towards justice but it hasn’t come all the way ‘round yet. We still need his advice today as much as these teenagers did 60 years ago. 

This man, who was so intent on following the ways of Jesus that he took seriously his command to “Love your neighbor as yourself,” — 

This man, who seldom spent a night at home with his wife and children, and, when he did, once awoke to bomb exploding under his front porch, — 

This man, who was arrested 29 times as he let his own light shine, stayed true to his God-given saltiness, — 

This man, who suffered indignities far beyond what any of us here have seen and, consequently, was often frustrated, indigent, outraged at the dirty tricks and outright deceit of his political enemies, — 

This man, who was murdered just six months after talking to these teens - when he was not yet 40 years old, — 

This man speaks to us from beyond the veil, reminding us that the way forward is never through violent words or deeds. The way forward is always and only through strategic, faithful, impassioned, nonviolent words and action. 

King told us that he had decided to “stick with love, because hate is too great a burden to bear,” but don’t ever believe for a moment that his love was anemic or simple. He loved like Jesus loved - by speaking difficult truths to power, by loving harder and louder and more ferociously because he trusted that, held in the circle of God’s fierce love, he could do all things. 

King told the teens, “our slogan must not be ‘Burn, baby, burn,; it must be ‘Build, baby, build.’ Organize, baby, organize.”

And then he closed with a poem of hope. A poem that reminds us of the wisdom shared across generations. A poem that speaks to the strength and will to go on striving, climbing, working for justice. And so I’ll close as King did, by sharing Mother to Son by Langston Hughes (video).

NOTES: 

Watch King’s speech here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmtOGXreTOU&t=520s

Read King’s speech here: https://cabiojinia.com/what-is-your-lifes-blueprint-speech-by-dr-martin-luther-king-jr/ 

Listen to Hughes’ poem here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L-kKxePGqA

Read Hughes’ poem here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47559/mother-to-son