Meditation for Martin Luther King Jr. Day
On January 17th we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Dr. King was a man of God, a man of peace, a man of courage, and a prophet in his time. It is particularly poignant this year to reflect on his sermons and speeches about nonviolence and love when violence and hatred have mushroomed against Black, Latinx, and Asian peoples. It is particularly poignant to remember that Dr. King was part of a movement for Black people to gain dignity and freedom through winning the right to vote when White Americans have struck down the voting rights act, and many states have passed laws to suppress the votes of the very people who were part of that freedom movement. If he were with us today, Dr. King might weep as to where we have come as a nation.
Dr. King’s work was to “redeem the soul of America” because America’s soul had been polluted by decades of violence and systemic oppression of Black people by White leaders and their allies. This was particularly true in the South where state-sanctioned, and vigilante violence was prevalent. On January 6, 2021, nine days before Dr. King’s birthday we experienced an explosion of violence, an extension of this history. This violence was antithetical to everything Dr. King believed, preached, and taught. His struggle was not just an individual struggle. It was a struggle of ordinary people who stood up and suffered the violence and backlash from White people who were determined to crush the movement. As an adult, I have come to know many people who were a part of that movement. I have heard their stories of beatings, water hoses, attack dogs, and terrorism in squalid jail cells all for the purpose of White people trying to stop a nonviolent movement for equality, dignity, justice, and the right of Black people to vote. Today the struggle of these ordinary people and the gains that they won have been chiseled away and torn apart to the point where Black people once again are disenfranchised. Unfortunately, again it is White people leading this charge.
Dr. King’s cry for redemption not only provided liberation for Black people from years of segregation, Jim Crow, and lynching but it also liberated White people if we chose to listen to him and embrace his teachings. As a very young person what I remember most about Dr. King is that he not only wanted freedom and dignity for African Americans, but he wanted the same for White people. He encouraged us to live into the best we could be – to become our higher selves. His words were inspiring and gave me hope at a young age that a new world could come into being. Dr. King knew that his people’s freedom was entwined with the freedom of all. He said, “In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. 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...” Dr. King’s words remind us of what it means to be a Christian. Can you imagine where we would be today if we all embraced these words?
Dr. King often spoke of the need for White churches to stand up for what is just, to not be silent or complacent in the face of injustice. His Letter from Birmingham City Jail spoke directly to this. He urged White churches to be a headlight leading people to higher levels of justice and not a taillight reflecting the status quo. For the church, Dr. King’s question is still on the table today. Will we be a headlight or a taillight? Will we throw our lot in with the teachings of Jesus or will we throw our lot in the teachings of the empire? In the face of all the bad news today, the good news is that our churches have the opportunity to be a headlight. We can stand up and stand out as we speak against injustices and work toward justice in all its forms.
Following Dr. King is not easy. It requires significant soul searching. It requires each of us to examine the ways that we are co-participants in the system of oppression that continues today. As Christians, we have to struggle with the source of the violence and oftentimes the tendency to think less of others in order to feel better about ourselves. It is God’s grace that we are not entrapped in our history but can change today who and how we are in the world.
“The moral arc of the universe bends towards justice, no lie lives forever, truth crushed to the ground shall rise again.” May we all be a part of the great rising. Amen
Rev. Nancy Talbot