Last Wednesday, I spoke on the theme, “Extraordinary Results from Ordinary People.” In so doing, I touched briefly on Martin Luther King, Jr., but devoted most of my message on two women in our times, namely Marian Anderson and Eleanor Roosevelt. Today, I want to go back and focus my thoughts on Martin Luther King, Jr.
The events of this 20th Century prophet’s life have shown me that miracles can take place today like those of previous generations. Like those recorded in the Bible, God gave Dr. King something specific and tangible to carry out in his ordinary life…in his instance, events that gave him a closeness to God, a companionship you and I can also attain. He was not Superman. He was an ordinary person like you and me.
January 15th is the birthday of this civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. The third Monday in January has been set aside as a national holiday in his memory which fell on this past Monday. Last Sunday, our worship service was centered on his life and its impact on our nation’s history. Parades and interfaith activities were held in his honor throughout our nation and not merely on the three day weekend.
This national holiday did not come by easily. It took fifteen years following his assassination in 1968 for Congress to enact this proclamation. President Reagan signed it into law in 1983. Even then, many states refused to honor the holiday. Arizona approved the holiday in 1992 only after a tourist boycott, which included the relocation of the Super Bowl football game to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. It wasn’t until 1999 that New Hampshire changed the name Civil Rights Day to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
Most of us are familiar with the words he spoke on August 28, 1963, to the multitude gathered in our nation’s capital, “I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Dr. King was a man of vision! But he was also human, like you and me, with moments of weakness. There were times when inwardly he doubted his ability to carry out his dream, when it seemed simpler and safer, to just quit. At other times he encountered worldly temptations, which took all the strength he could muster to resist. It is alleged that he yielded to some temptations of the flesh. Nevertheless, through constant prayer, he rose above his frailties to march for justice under God’s banner, and in so doing he changed the course of American history. He said, “To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.”
His life, as have the lives of other men and women of faith, has been an inspiration to me, knowing that a person can sometimes falter and still be used powerfully by the Lord for good. His speeches have inspired our nation to move forward in its civil rights movement.
Instead of worrying, as I have oftentimes, about whether or not I’m worthy to do God’s work, I try to acknowledge my faults, turn them over to Him and then just do the best I can. I may not accomplish history changing deeds, as did Dr. King, but I can extend God’s love to those around me, even if I reach only down Catalina Street where I live.
Inside the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center in Atlanta are many exhibits. One is a travel bag Dr. King used on his fatal trip to Memphis almost forty years ago. Inside the bag are two books. The one on top is entitled “Strength to Love.” I feel sure that he believed that loving one’s enemies, not violence, held the power to transform society. Was he right? Could simply acting in love in the face of hostility really make a difference?
His widow, Coretta Scott King tells this story. I quote her words.
“One January night in 1956 while Martin was away, I sat home with our baby. Suddenly there was a thunderous blast. A bomb had been tossed onto the front porch. The baby and I were unharmed, but an angry crowd of our friends, wanting revenge, had gathered around the house when Martin got home.
“It was the first test of his theory. Martin hushed the crowd and said, ‘I want you to go home and put down your weapons. We must meet violence with nonviolence. We must meet hate with love.’”
Mrs. King continued her story.
“The anger melted and the crowd faded into the night. You see, the power of love is a mighty force.”
Though not as familiar as the “I have a dream” words, I want to share some excerpts from his book, “Strength to Love.”
“We are not makers of history. We are made by history.”The title of the other book in Dr. King’s bag is “Where Do We Go From Here?” Do we have the strength to love with all the hostility in our world, yes, hostility in the name of God, Shiite- Sunni insurgencies throughout the Middle East, women and girls killed in the name of family honor, Latinos against Negroes throughout our City of the Angels, Crips and Bloods gang banging each other, the conflicts between neighbors, even the angry situations in our own homes?
“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
“Success, recognition, and conformity are the bywords of the modern world where everyone seems to crave the anesthetizing security of being identified with the majority.”
“Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man’s sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.”
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
These words from this book serve to remind us the true meaning of life:
“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”On learning of threats on his life, June 5, 1964, Dr. King made this statement of faith, “If physical death is the price I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive.”
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
“The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. The scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”
Four years later, from an address in Memphis, Tennessee the night before his assassination, April 3, 1968, he spoke these words, “I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go to the mountain. And I’ve looked over and I’ve seen the promised land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promise land.”
The great musician, Pablo Casals once said, “The capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest meaning and significance.”
St. Augustine tells us, “Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special attention to those who, by accidents of time, or circumstance, are brought into closer connection with you.”
There is a mural on the wall at the corner of Pico and Normandie, about a mile south of us, which catches my eye every time I visit St. Sophia’s Cathedral. It depicts two angels flying with this caption, “We are each of us angels with one wing. We can only fly embracing each other.”
These words from Edmund Burke (1729-1797), “No one could make a greater mistake than he who does nothing because he could do only a little.” And from Thomas Guthrie, “Do it now. It is not safe to leave a generous feeling to the cooling influences of the world.”
Where do we go from here? That is the question for us to answer, “Quo Vadis?” Where are you going? It is ours to look out the window of Dr. King’s dream and become actors in carrying it out. Yes, ordinary people, like you and me, can produce extraordinary results when we march together for justice under the banner of God.
For those of us in our golden years, these words by the great American suffragist, Susan B. Anthony, should move us out of our easy chair, “The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world; I am like a snowball – the further I am rolled the more I gain.”
Might we say “Amen!”
