Second Monday after the Epiphany
Martin Luther King Day
I think Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the greatest American who ever lived. Abraham Lincoln is second place. Many would be tied for third. So much has been said. I don't want to repeat things you have heard a thousand times.
I heard Dr. King speak in October, 1964 at Page Auditorium at Duke. This was just a few months after he had won the Nobel Peace Prize. I almost didn't go. I had way too much studying to do. Although he was certainly famous, Dr. King was not quite the icon then that he is now. I arrived just before the program began. Page was packed. An usher told me I could sit one one of the steps in one of the aisles in the balcony. The concrete was hard but the speech was compelling. His knowledge, his voice, the cadences of his speech kept the crowd at rapt attention for nearly an hour. I left as soon as it was over to get back to studying. I was told that there would be a receiving line on stage. I regret that I didn't wait to shake his hand.
Dr. King was a deeply committed Christian. Before he was anything else he was a preacher. I've studied a lot about preaching. To me Dr. King was both the culmination of 300 years of the African-American preaching tradition and to way forward for preaching ever since.
In 2009 on Martin Luther King Day, while I was pastor in North Wilkesboro, I preached one of his sermons. We had advertised the event. It was a worship service in his honor. A little over half of those who attended were black. The most notable thing about the service was that the quality of the congregational singing was vastly better than our First UMC norm.
I chose a sermon Dr. King had preached in Detroit in 1958. I didn't do it well. I was trying to preach it, but I was ending up reading it. The sermon spoke to some specific issues in Detroit at that time. It needed much more contextualization than I gave it. It was long, about 45 minutes. I found myself reading it more rapidly as time moved along. I was glad I did it and grateful for the people who came. I wish I could have done it better.
In his all too brief a life Dr. King changed America more than anyone else ever has. His life, his courage, his brilliant mind, his Christian faith created a new understanding in America. To be sure, as the events of January 6 have showed us, racism is still very present in our country. But it is not like it was. Not at all like it was when I was growing up in the days of segregated restrooms and water fountains, not to mention schools and businesses. Dr. King more than once quoted a 19th century abolitionist preacher whose name slips me, "The arc of history bends toward justice."
Faithfully,
Christian
1 comment:
Wow. That is so cool that you preached his sermon. I heard The Reverend Jeremiah Wright preach at a UCC conference when I was in college, long before he became famous (infamous) as President Obama's controversial pastor. He was amazing. Another in the fine tradition of African American preachers.
The UCC churches where I went with my mother (for those who don't know, my mom is a United Church of Christ pastor, a very liberal, very radical denomination, leader in civil rights, LGBT rights, gay marriage, you get the idea) were not precisely integrated in the South in the 80s, but our conference was half white and half black. My mom was on the ordination committee, so we went to a lot of black ordinations. We also had amazing annual conferences, where we had what we called "Afro-Saxon" worship. It really was a wonderful way to grow up if you want to hear great preaching. Though I never turned out to be a preacher (Dad, are you still waiting for me to go to Divinity? Well, you never know...), I did learn to speak from that preaching. And speaking is power, the power to lead for what is right and just and as the power to lead people to do terrible things,
I wish that preaching were valued more now. Are we going to get to a time when pastors just tweet instead of preach?
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