Instead of a regular sermon, today we had a reading in three voices, honoring the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., and the work God has done through him. The readings were adapted from "A Presentation for Two Readers and Choir of the Life and Words, of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by Rev. Stan G. Duncan" FOCUS SCRIPTURES Isaiah 62:1 For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her vindication shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like a burning torch. 1 Corinthians 12:4-11 4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. John 13:34-35 34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” On January 15, 1929, Alberta Williams King and her husband, the Rev. Martin Luther King Sr., gave birth to their first child. They named him Martin, after his father. He could not buy a Coke or a hamburger at any of the downtown stores. He could not sit at a lunch counter. He could not drink water at the “whites only” water fountains, use the “whites only” restrooms, or ride on the “whites only” elevators. He would have to use the “colored” entrance for the theater, sit in the ‘colored’ seats in the back of the bus. And if he wanted to go swimming, golfing, or play tennis, he simply couldn’t because all of the pools, courses, or courts had “whites only” signs in front of them. We shall overcome, we shall overcome, we shall overcome some day. Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall overcome some day. Because of his high score on the college entrance examinations in his junior year of high school, Martin advanced to Morehouse College at the age of 15, without formal graduation from High School. He had skipped both the ninth and twelfth grades.He graduated in 1948 from Morehouse College with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Sociology and in 1951 from Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, with a Bachelor of Divinity Degree. Boston University awarded him a Ph.D in Theology on June 5, 1955. While enrolled in Boston, he met a young woman named Coretta Christine Scott. They were married on June 18, 1953 and six months later, in January of 1954, King was invited to come to Montgomery, Alabama, to interview for pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, his first full-time pastorate. He accepted the call to that church On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court in Brown vs. Board of Education ruled that racial segregation of public schools was unconstitutional. On December 1, 1954, a black seamstress in Montgomery, named Rosa Parks, after a long day at work, refused to give up her seat to a white man on a bus. She sat in the “colored” section of the back of the bus, but the bus filled up, and by law whites could demand that any black person give up their seat at any time. She had done so before, but today she was tired. She refused to give up her seat. The bus driver called the police, the police came and arrested her, and the town exploded. Blacks were wanting to riot, and whites were wanting to kill blacks who were wanting to riot. The black community elected the young father and preacher Martin Luther King Jr. as their leader. Over two thousand people rallied in front of a church that night to decide what they would do. Rev. Martin Luther King stood up to speak to them that night. KING: We are here this evening for serious business… …we are here in a specific sense because of the bus situation in Montgomery....And we are not wrong in what we are doing. If we are wrong, then the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong. If we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong. If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a Utopian dreamer who never came down to earth. If we are wrong, justice is a lie... …But in our protests, there will be no cross burnings…There will be no threats and intimidation. We will be guided by the highest principles of law and order...the deepest principles of our Christian faith. Love must be our regulating ideal....If we fail to do this our protest will end up as a meaningless drama on the stage of history, and its memory will be shrouded with the ugly garments of shame. In spite of the mistreatment that we have confronted, we must not become bitter and end up by hating our white brothers. Let no people pull you down so low as to make you hate them.[1] Instead of a riot, they organized a boycott of the Montgomery buses, with car pools taking people to work…The city took them to court arguing for segregation all the way to the Supreme Court. Finally, after over a year of attacks, threats, hate letters, and after King’s home was bombed and he had been jailed twice – after all this and more, the Supreme Court declared that segregation of public transportation facilities was unconstitutional. We’ll go hand in hand, We’ll go hand in hand, We’ll go hand in hand, some day. Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall overcome some day. In 1960 four black college students in Greensboro North Carolina went into a “Whites only” department store and tried to sit down at the lunch counter and be served. They were arrested, but they took it to court and a nation-wide protest movement called “Sit ins” began. In October of that year, Rev. Dr. King and several others joined a “sit-in” in Atlanta, Georgia and demanded to be served food just like white people. They too were arrested. Later all were freed but King, who was found to be on “parole” for a traffic violation, and he was sentenced to four months of hard labor…While in prison, Martin wrote to his wife, Coretta: KING: October 26, 1960 ...I know this whole experience is very difficult for you to adjust to, especially in your condition of pregnancy, but as I said to you yesterday this is the cross that we must bear for the freedom of our people.... I have the faith to believe that this excessive suffering that is now coming to our family will in some little way serve to make Atlanta a better city, Georgia a better state, and America a better country. Just how, I do not know yet, but I have faith to believe it will. If I am correct, then our suffering is not in vain.[2] A young U.S. Senator and presidential candidate named John F. Kennedy personally called the judge who had sentenced King and talked him into reversing his decision and King was released. The word spread of Kennedy’s help, and a few days later he received hundreds of thousands of votes from black voters who had never voted in an election in their entire lives. The Presidential election of 1960 was one of the closest in American history. John F. Kennedy won the popular vote by a slim margin of approximately 100,000 votes. We are not afraid We are not afraid We are not afraid, some day. Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall overcome some day. During the next years, King increasingly saw that the struggle was no longer just for civil rights, but for human rights. For when one part of humanity is held down and repressed, then all of humanity is harmed and made less because of it. But perhaps the turning point in his life, and the life of the movement, took place in 1963. On April 3, 1963, the protest of Birmingham, Alabama, began, with boycotts, lunch-counter sit-ins, and daily marches, all done quietly and calmly, completely non-violently. Eugene “Bull” Connor, police commissioner of Birmingham and an angry and openly racist man, began arresting protesters but hundreds more came. King himself was arrested early in the marches and he spent the next ten days running the campaign from the Birmingham Jail. While there, he had been given a newspaper in which a number of white clergy, Christian and Jewish, had written a public letter criticizing him for pushing integration too quickly. King wrote a public response on any piece of paper he could find. KING: …You are right when you note that we are outsiders coming in to your community, but we have come to Birmingham because there is terrible injustice here and we must respond like the Apostle Paul did to the Macedonian call for help… … I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere…Whatever affects one directly, affects us all indirectly....Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.” …You told us that our protests were “untimely” and that we should trust you and “wait.” … …We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights...Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “wait.” But…when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”—then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.[3] Meanwhile “Bull” Connor had firemen turn fire hoses on the marchers, sending columns of water crashing into children and adults, knocking them down…Then he let loose … dogs trained to attack and bite and tear at running people. Day after day television cameras showed a shocked world the horrors, … day after day the marchers continued marching for freedom. Until Sunday, May 5, 1963, when three thousand children went on a prayer vigil to the Birmingham jail, where King and others were being held. Police threatened them and screamed at them, but all they did was kneel in prayer. Finally, one of the protesters stood up from his prayer and said to them, “We’re not turning back. We haven’t done anything wrong. All we want is our freedom....How do you feel doing these things?” “Bull” Connor yelled at his men to turn on the hoses, but nobody moved. The children continued praying. Nobody got hurt. Soon after that, the businesses of Birmingham finally agreed to integrate. Our God will see us through, Our God will see us through, Our God will see us through, some day. Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall over come some day. The next few years were a whirlwind. In the space of just one year the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in Birmingham was unconstitutional. Martin Luther King was invited to have an audience with Pope Paul VI at the Vatican, and he led a successful 125,000 person “Walk for Freedom” in Detroit. He received the Nobel Prize for Peace and was named Time Magazine’s “Man of the Year.” Congress passed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. And on August 28, 1963, he took part in the largest civil rights demonstration in history, in Washington DC. At that march, King was the major speaker and gave one of the most powerful and lasting statements in his life on his philosophy and hopes and his dreams for all of America. KING: ...I say to you today, my friends...even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. 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, 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 one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. 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. I have a dream that one day “every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plains, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.” This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. And this will be the day. This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning “My country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.” …And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black…and white…, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of that old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, we’re free at last!”[4] The truth shall make us free, The truth shall make us free, The truth shall make us free, some day. Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall overcome some day. For Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. his dream came to an end on April 4, 1968 at 6:05 PM. The night before, at what would be his last speech, he told a congregation: KING:...I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountain top. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life; longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And God’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. And I’m happy tonight, I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing anyone. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.[5] A proclamation read by the President on the first Martin Luther King Jr. Day observed in 1986 stated: “Let all Americans continue to carry forward the banner that...fell from Dr. King’s hands…Today we honor him with speeches and monuments. But let us do more. Let all Americans of every race and creed and color work together to build in this blessed land a shining city of...justice and harmony. This is the monument Dr. King would have wanted most of all.” [6] We shall live in peace, We shall live in peace, We shall live in peace, some day. Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall over come some day. Martin Luther King Junior used his gifts and talents tirelessly in his pursuit of a just world for all. “A Just World For All” is also what the United Church of Christ calls all of its members to strive for. On this Martin Luther King Junior Weekend and during this week of Prayer and Unity, may we renew our commitment to creating a world where all are free. May we be committed to using our God-given gifts, to create the world that God envisions for us and that Jesus Christ was born for, died for, and is risen for. Let us create a world of justice and peace. A world of love. We shall overcome, we shall overcome, we shall overcome some day. Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall overcome some day. [1] Stephen B. Oates, Let the Trumpet Sound: the Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Harper & Row, 1994), pp. 70, 71; and David Garrow, “The Intellectual Development of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Influences and Commentaries,” Union Seminary Quarterly Review, (Vol. XL, No. 4, 1986), p. 15.
[2] Alex Ayres, ed., The Wisdom of Martin Luther King (New York: Meridian Books, 1993), pp. 183, 194” [3] Let the Trumpet Sound, pp. 223-230. [4] Words of Martin Luther King, pp. 95-97. [5] Words of Martin Luther King, pp. 93-94. [6] Wisdom of Martin Luther King, pp. 226, 227. Comments are closed.
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Worship BulletinAuthorPastor Suzanne Schwarz-Green is the pastor of Trinity Reformed Church, UCC, in Collegeville, PA. Archives
October 2022
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