Gwen and I just returned from visiting the MLKjr Historic Site. The MLK museum is rigt beside the church he used to preach at and a block away from the home he was raised in. I was very impressed by his fortitude in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. I was depressed by lack of any reference to his faith or his relationship with Christ save for the one station that records his “dark night of the soul” when he prayed for courage to go on. The Lord spoke to MLK that that and his courage to continue was re-energized. A few days later his home was bombed. MLK was convinced that that path to freedom was through aggressive nonresistance. In fact he said, “the choice is not between nonresistance and violence but between nonresistance and nonexistence.” MLK understood that the path to social transformation was the way of Christ.
MLK’s faith demanded a response to socio-political realities of his day. People were oppressed because of their skin color which helped to reinforce an economic system. The Jesus of their southern white church reinforced the vales, economics, politics and laws of the oppressors. Jesus was interpreted in light of our image rather the other way around. MLK, faults aside, did understand that the gospel must make a difference if it is as it claims to be. The preoccupation of our faith cannot be with ourselves but with Christ and with others. As MLK said, “The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But… the good Samaritan reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”
The primary preoccupation of Christ-followers is not the questions, “what can Jesus do for me” but rather, “what has jesus called me to do for others?” Too many Christ-followers, me included are preoccupied with a form of spiritual narcissism. We think or at least behave as if Jesus died to make our lives easier. He didn’t. He died so that we can live without any fear of death. Throughout this world there are people who live without any sense of justice or hope because those who could/should speak for them don’t. As MLK said, “We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
I have to ask myself, “where have I been silent to the determent of others?” Where have you been silent? Where do we need we need to speak up, show up, “do” up to bring the reality of the good news of Jesus Christto their realities? What is mine to do? What is yours to do? MLK understood what God had given him to do and he followed through with his mission; are you?
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