By the time I was born, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had already been dead for twenty-one years; his birthday had been a federal holiday for six. By the time I learned his name, he was already a national saint, his flaws forgotten in martyrdom, his controversial opinions papered over by his more benign quotes. In the American pantheon, perhaps only Abraham Lincoln is as universally respected, admired, and beloved.
But we all remember Dr.
King for something different. A preacher, activist, civil rights leader, first
class orator...he contained multitudes. Some like the sepia-toned Dr. King of
the Montgomery Bus Boycott best, the young civil rights leader able to organize
an entire community to stand up for their rights. Others prefer him at his most
Christ-like, enduring his beating on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma with
grace, refusing to fight back. Your more politically-minded friends may be partial to the Dr. King who spoke out against the Vietnam War at great cost to his
reputation and popularity. But more than likely, when you think of Martin
Luther King, Jr., you think of the day when he stood before a crowd on the
National Mall and told them about his dream, a vision of equality that then
became their dream too and that, in our best moments, remains our dream today.
When
I think about Dr. King, I think of all those angles, but there is another that
affects me more. Every MLK Day since college, I've read my copy of the Letter
from Birmingham Jail, Dr. King's epistle to white moderate preachers who were
declaring his methods and indeed his movement to be too much too soon. And
every time I read this letter, I feel its wisdom, its sting, but most of all
its grace.
Martin
Luther King, Jr. was a modern prophet, not in the sense of predicting the
future (although he had his moments), but in the sense of declaring the Word of
the Lord boldly to the powers of this world. So on this MLK Day, some look to
his example and declare that our obligation to his memory is to be equally prophetic. Especially during the Age of Trump (it always seems to come back to the
president these days, doesn't it?), when the most powerful man in the world
publicly defends neo-Nazis in Charlottesville and calls African nations
shitholes unworthy of our compassion, some say we must honor Dr. King's legacy
by loudly standing up to bigotry and refusing to shy away from controversy. We
must use our public platforms to speak truth to power, standing up for the most
vulnerable in society even when it costs us. There must be no fear of calling
evil by its name and opposing unjust words, actions, laws, and people. That,
some say, is the essence of Dr. King's prophetic witness.
But
there is another element to Dr. King's legacy that sets him apart from the
other activists in American history, from Susan B. Anthony to Malcolm X to
Ta-Nehisi Coates. Dr. King was a prophet, but he was also a pastor. He stood up
for justice, but he also preached love and brotherhood. He loved the Old
Testament prophets, but he loved the gospel of Jesus Christ even more.
Everything
about his movement and his ministry, from the bus boycott to the March on
Washington to his opposition of the Vietnam War, was done with one eye on
justice and the other on grace. When a race war was feasible, Dr. King opted
for nonviolent protest; when jailed and beaten, Dr. King called for forgiveness
and perseverance; when anger was easier, Dr. King preached love. He had the
vision and the courage to evoke and adopt not only Christ's mission, but his means.
Turning the other cheek means getting hit twice, but Dr. King decided that, in
the spirit of Christ, he would rather suffer in the name of love than fight
back in the name of self-defense.
The
Letter from Birmingham Jail reminds me that preachers have an obligation to be
both prophets and pastors. We must point out injustice where we see it and we must call
it out; we must be the voice in the wilderness crying out for repentance even
when those words fall on deaf ears. But pointing at the bad is not enough; we
must also point toward the good, toward the dream, toward the cross. When evil
rears its ugly head, whether as prejudice or sexual assault or systemic
injustice, preachers have an obligation to speak out, but also to offer an
alternative vision. We must speak out against the excesses of the emperor's
kingdom, but then we must point to the kingdom of God.
Your
Facebook news feed, like mine, probably has a lot more political and social
commentary on it (or, for the lazy, political and social memes) than you care to
read. There is so much injustice in the world and so much access to information
and so many means of disseminating opinions that this should come as no
surprise. As best I can tell, you have three options in the face of this influx of activist energy. One, you can ignore it
all, hoping it goes away soon, disguising cowardice as peacekeeping. That's
what the white moderates of Dr. King's day did, and history does not remember
them fondly. Two, you can pick a side, dig in, and shrilly attempt to shout
down your opponents. That was the way of both the Southern racist and the leftist radical in the 1950s and 1960s, and history ultimately remembers both as little more than faceless bodies in a mob.
But
this Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I am inspired to choose a third way. I am inspired to do my best to be prophet and
pastor, to point away from the worst of the earth toward the best of heaven, to
boldly declare that if God is with us then we must be with God. I am inspired
not only to recoil from the emperor's kingdom, but to march toward the Lord's.
I am inspired not only to decry the nightmare, but to extol the dream.
The church of Jesus Christ serves the same Lord that Dr. King did. My prayer this Martin Luther King Jr. Day is that
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“The early
Christians rejoiced when they were deemed worthy to suffer for what they
believed. In those days the Church was not merely a thermometer that recorded
the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that
transformed the mores of society.”
- Rev. Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
- Luke
4:18-19
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