As a student of theology and ethics, MLK Day is a sort of sacred day. I usually do two things, every MLK Day: first, I read through King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” and secondly, I set aside time for deep reflection on what it means to animate our faith in light of current social issues and repent for my own failure to embody Jesus’ vision for the Kingdom of God here-and-now.
It has been said that “many who quote him now would have hated him then”, and I think there is a lot of truth to that critique. Time has a way of dulling our senses to the past. Our familiarity with King’s work breeds a sort of unfamiliarity. We give focus, rightly, on King’s leadership in the civil rights movement, but we forget (or maybe selectively ignore) his sharp prophetic critique of the white Christian moderate. We herald his hope and call for unity, but we forget his radical challenge of economic injustice. We iconize his words of hope from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, but we forget his assessment of the futility of militarism and war. The voice of the Prophets were often silenced and ignored. The demand for change fell of apathetic ears and years later their words were romanticized and consequently rendered impotent. I fear that today, we (and I) have done the same to King’s prophetic work. Have we listened to his critique of our complicity with injustice today? Have we reflected on (and repented of) our own collusion with broken systems of oppression? Today, we must consider - as students of history - how to reflect King’s prophetic work and how to embody his urgency in hastening the arrival of his iconic “Dream.”
Below, in bold, I have 5 quotes from Dr. King’s final Sunday sermon - Staying Awake Through a Great Revolution - that he gave at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. just 5 days before his assassination. Below each quote is the entire paragraph from which the quote is pulled. If you haven’t read this sermon in its’ entirety, you certainly should and can find it by clicking the button below…
“We must learn to live together as brothers. Or we will all perish together as fools.”
“Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet…we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to do this. We must all learn to live together as brothers. Or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured.”
“Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability.”
“Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in one the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be co-workers with God. And without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation. So we must help time and realize that the time is always ripe to do right.”
“Anyone who feels, and there are still a lot of people who feel that way, that war can solve the social problems facing mankind is sleeping through a revolution.”
“I want to say one other challenge that we face is simply that we must find an alternative to war and bloodshed. Anyone who feels, and there are still a lot of people who feel that way, that war can solve the social problems facing mankind is sleeping through a revolution. President Kennedy said on one occasion, ‘Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.’ The world must hear this. I pray to God that America will hear this before it is too late because today we’re fighting a war.”
“There comes a time when one must take the position that it is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right.”
“On some positions, cowardice asks the question, is it expedient? And then expedience comes along and asks the question - is it politic? Vanity asks the question - is it popular? Conscience asks the question - is it right? There comes a time when one must take the position that it is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must do it because conscience tells him it is right. I believe today that there is a need for all people of good will to come with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘We ain’t goin’ study war no more.’ This is the challenge facing modern man. Let me close by saying that we have difficult days ahead in the struggle for justice and peace, but I will not yield to a politic of despair.”
“We shall overcome because the arc of a moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
“We’re going to win our freedom because both the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of the almighty God are embodied in our echoing demands. And so, however dark it is, however deep the angry feelings are, and however violent explosions are, I can still sing “We Shall Overcome.”