Called to Act

This is the Martin Luther King, Jr., Day meditation I gave at First Congregational Church of Maltby on January 15, 2017.

Called to Act

A Martin Luther King Day Meditation

Rev. Dr. Tom Sorenson, Pastor

January 15, 2017 

Scripture: Isaiah 49:1-7; Psalm 40:1-11 

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen. 

Let me ask you a question: Why is it so hard for people of faith to speak up? I mean, we have trust in what we understand to be the most profound truth there is or ever was, the truth of God. Yet in my experience and in the experience of so many others we people of faith mostly keep quiet. Oh sure, some aggressive evangelicalistic types talk loudly and incessantly about how everyone has to believe like they do and think like they do to avoid spending eternity in hell; but that’s not the kind of speaking up I mean. I mean speaking up about the things that God really cares about. Things like social and economic justice. The things the eighth century prophets lifted up and proclaimed to the people of their time. The things Jesus mostly spoke about, about caring for people in need, about loving God and our neighbor as ourselves, with absolutely everyone, especially the ones we think we hate and the ones we condemn, being our neighbor. We know what God wants in all those areas of human life, and we know that God wants us to speak up about them; but mostly we don’t do it. Especially in less conservative, less evangelical churches we don’t do it. And I wonder why not? We say it’s because we believe in individual freedom of conscience, and everyone has a right to her or his own opinions. We say because the Gospel isn’t political, never mind that it really is. I think mostly because we’re timid. We’re uncomfortable with public speaking of any kind and really uncomfortable with public proclamation of prophetic truths. Whatever the reason, we mostly clam up and don’t publicly address public issues about which our faith really has a great deal to say.

It has always been that way with people of faith. We see ancient Hebrew writers wrestling with it in our scripture readings this morning. The prophet who speaks to us across the millennia in our passage from Isaiah knows that God has formed him to be God’s servant in the world, formed him like a sharpened sword and a polished arrow. He knows that God wants him to proclaim God’s truth to the world, as he puts it do it as one in whom God will display God’s splendor. But he doesn’t want to do it. He says “I have labored to no purpose; I have spent my strength in vain.” He doesn’t want to do it because he thinks nothing will come of it. But God isn’t about to let him off easy like that. God says that this prophet will go not only to Israel but to all people to proclaim the faithfulness of the Lord God. True prophets are always reluctant prophets, and this prophet just wants to keep quiet. God says: Nope. That’s not what I created you to do.

Then we have Psalmist of Psalm 40. He too knows that God doesn’t want him to keep quiet. He says God has put a new song in his mouth to praise God. He says he wants to do God’s will because God’s law is within his heart. So he says: “I did not hide your righteousness in my heart; I speak of your faithfulness and salvation. I do not conceal your love and your truth from the great assembly.” He has God’s truth. He has God’s law, and he doesn’t keep quiet about it.

Folks, God doesn’t want us to keep quiet about God’s truth today either. In fact, I am convinced that today as much as ever, or maybe more so, God calls us to speak. Indeed, God calls us to do more than that. God calls us to act. God is always calling God’s people to speak and to act. Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Day. Dr. King was one who heard God’s call to speak and to act. He heard God’s cry against the brutal injustice of racial segregation and racial discrimination. He spoke against those evils with the words of prophets, with Jesus’ words, with the great words of the Jewish and Christian traditions about justice and peace. He spoke against hatred and discrimination with an eloquence few have ever matched. We all know some of his words:

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood….

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!...

And all the people say Amen! Magnificent words. Powerful words. Words of God’s truth for all people in all times and places. King spoke them far better than I can, but we are all called to speak them. God does not call us to be silent. God calls us to speak.

But Martin Luther King knew that God calls us to do more than speak. He knew that God calls us to act. In April 1963, King and many others were arrested in Birmingham, Alabama, for violating a state court injunction that prohibited demonstrations in that most segregated of all American cities. While he was in jail he read a letter from eight clergymen, mostly Christian but also one Jewish rabbi, calling on him and his people to stop acting. To stop demonstrating. To carry on their struggle for justice only in the thoroughly racist courts of 1960s Alabama. King replied with a long essay that we know as A Letter From a Birmingham Jail. It’s not in the form of a speech, but it is one of the most powerful prophetic statements of God’s call to us to act for justice in all of American history. People told King just use the courts. They told him give it time, you’re moving too fast. They told him don’t do things that provoke the authorities to acts of violence against you. They said quiet down. Wait. Don’t be so pushy. Don’t be so public. And Dr. King replied to all that with the wisdom of the ages, the wisdom of God. He quoted Amos: “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.” He said we are not violent, but the guardians of racism and segregation are. So be it. It is always the right time to act for the good, the right, the just. It is always the right time to act to end the suffering caused by injustice. It is never the right time to sit idly by while wrong rules the earth and oppresses God’s people. For King’s courage in speaking and even more for King’s courage in acting I say Thank you God. Thank you for your prophets of justice. Thank you for your prophets of nonviolent resistance to evil. Thank you for your nonviolent prophets of peace.

Dr. King was murdered almost fifty years ago. He spoke to the people of his time and place. He spoke of the ills of his time and place. But folks, it’s not all that different today. Yes, our country has made significant progress in race relations. We will soon mark the end of the presidency of our country’s first Black President, and that is significant. But as President Obama said last week American racism is far from a thing of the past. Institutional racism puts enormous numbers of young Black men in prison, numbers grossly disproportionate to their percentage of our population. Popular racism elects public officials who are themselves racist. The Senate will soon confirm as Attorney General of the United States a Senator from Alabama who was once denied a federal judgeship because he was too racist. The NAACP and Black Senators and Congressmen say he is still too racist to be Attorney General. Many overt racists love our President-elect Donald Trump whether he is really a racist himself or not. Racism is very much alive among us, and God calls us to speak and act against it just as God called Martin Luther King to speak and act against it all those decades ago.

There are other issues we are called to speak and act about too. Climate change and environmental degradation. Income inequality. Questions of war and peace. Immigrants’ rights. So many others. And maybe you don’t think those are proper issues to discuss in a Christian sermon. Well, they are. They are because the Gospel of Jesus Christ is about all of them. It is about social justice as much as it is about anything else. It is about care for the poor as much as it is about anything else. It is about nonviolent resistance to evil imposed by governments as much it is about anything else. Most of all it calls us to claim our voice on these issues and to act to bring about justice for the poor, the marginalized, the excluded, the unheard. That’s what Martin Luther King did fifty years ago. That’s what Jesus did two thousand years ago. King was a Christian pastor, and he said “We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.” He condemned white church people like most of us for remaining “silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained glass windows.” Those powerful words from his Letter From a Birmingham Jail pierce my soul today. They convict me today. They convict us today. They convict us because they speak the truth. They speak the truth about our remaining silent, staying safe, doing nothing in the face of racism and other evils.

The Gospel’s call is different. It is loud, it is clear, it is strong. We are called to act. I don’t know yet exactly how we are called to act, although people all around us are already organizing, holding demonstrations and marches, mobilizing for justice in a time when justice is very much on trial among us. I don’t know how much courage I have to act, though I’m sure it is not as much as I’d like. But I do know that the Gospel of Jesus that I proclaim and preach calls me to act. It calls us to act. I don’t know if I will. I don’t know if we will. Perhaps with God’s help we will find the courage we need to do it. May it be so.