Have you ever been asked the question, “If you could pick any three people to have dinner with — living or dead — who would they be?” Martin Luther King would definitely be on that list for me. King is one of my spiritual and intellectual heroes. It is an honor that I earned my doctorate from the same program and institution he did. King was a man whose life was shaped by his religious principles. Those principles, drawn from the Scriptures, are about the inherent dignity and worth of all people, regardless of their race, creed, or color.
Many of you know the details of King’s life: how he fought against segregation and the horrific discrimination that blacks suffered, particularly in the South, in the middle of the twentieth century. Movies like Selma capture the brutality blacks suffered, and the resolve that King embodied and inspired in others.
King’s life was cut short by an assassin’s bullet on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. But King’s spirit lives on, as cliché as that may sound, and it lives on within the Church.
Not long ago, when Alex Killian was our student minister, I attended a meeting at the Boston University School of Theology, where King and I studied. Have you ever seen Greek Orthodox iconography? It depicts different saints in the history of the Church. They have several on the second floor at BU. You see this long lineage of saints of yore: Peter, Paul, Augustine, Catherine, and you know when you are in a Protestant seminary when you see one of Martin Luther the Reformer, after whom Martin Luther King was named.
And then you see one of Dr. King. He’s in prison. He’s holding a number in front of him. It is a depiction of his 1963 mugshot in Birmingham, I believe. Yes, the cover of today’s bulletin is a representation of it.
King did not commit a crime. He was arrested as an act of civil disobedience. In fact, there is an entire branch of philosophy that focuses on what has come to be known as the passive resistance movement and it used passive resistance as one of its tools. Much of the movement’s teachings come from King, and much of it predates him.
The name passive resistance is somewhat of a misnomer because it isn’t passive at all. Actually, it is quite active and requires a great deal of commitment, resolve, and what King would call “soul force.” Even the word force is somewhat misleading because no physical violence is used. Never. Ever. King was influenced by some of the thinkers who came before him, such as the great civil rights leader of India, Mahatma Gandhi, and the legendary American naturalist: Concord, Massachusetts native Henry David Thoreau.
But the movement actually stretches back even further than that. Jesus of Nazareth is considered by many to be one of the pioneers (if not one of the founders) of the nonviolence movement. Think of some of his teachings regarding this practice in the Gospels. In his Sermon on the Mount he tells his followers, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also” (Matthew 5:38-39). It is important to understand what Jesus is saying here, and what he isn’t saying. He isn’t encouraging victimhood. He isn’t saying that if someone hits you, let them hit you again! He is saying stand your ground. Do not back down. However, instead of retaliating with violence respond with a steadfast, peaceful presence. This has become the crux of passive resistance theory.
The idea is that if someone uses violence against you and you stand your ground, and they use violence again and you stand your ground, and they use violence yet again and you stand your ground, eventually the aggressor will realize that violence is not going to work, and they will have to meet you on some sort of common ground — the ground that you’ve held all along. They will have to see you as their equal. They will have to use other means to interact with you, such as reason and dialogue.
King lived such a life. He and his followers faced the batons and firehouses of the southern racists who longed to keep racial segregation as law. It takes incredible courage to do that. Violence is easy. It’s an easy response. Leaders like MLK showed us a higher calling.
They also showed us what is at stake. When hatred and bigotry get the stamp of approval by the state, then the liberty of all is in danger. When King was jailed in Alabama he wrote his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Your homework is to read it if you haven’t. Not only is it a literary masterpiece, but, as one critic wrote, if the canon of Scripture was to be reopened, King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is the first piece that should be considered.
There are many lines from this letter that resound in the soul — a host of memorable statements. Among my favorite is “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” It sounds biblical. Jesus constantly told his followers to take up the cause of widows and orphans. In other words, the poor and the oppressed. When we do not we fail to minister to the least of these, furthermore, if you turn a blind eye to the marginalized, then do not be surprised when you become one of them. One thinks of the words of Martin Niemöller, a Pastor in Germany during the Third Reich, who, in his poem “On Involvement,” wrote:
First ,they came for the socialists,
and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.
Lastly, we must remember why King wrote this letter. It was a response to a group of fellow clergymen who said his protest was too radical, too premature — that he had to wait for a more opportune time, particularly when people were ready to hear his message.
King’s response? Now is the time. Now is always the time when injustice rears its head.
And now is the time for us to carry King’s torch. Racism and antisemitism is on the rise. We must stand against it. As King wrote, “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” Whether or not you are an oppressed person, if you do not stand on the side of justice, you stand on the side of oppression. Complacency is a choice — and it is one that ultimately legitimates the oppressor.
Yes, the Rev. Martin Luther King is one of my all-time heroes. His legacy lives on in the hearts of those who see in him a continuation of the biblical prophets who spoke out even if it meant their freedom and, in some cases, their very lives. Did not Jesus do the same thing? He was not crucified for being a good boy who followed all the rules and did not stir things up.
It is always the time to pick up your cross and follow where he leads. In so doing, we will enter God’s Promised Land together where we all be “free at last.” Amen.