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Midweek Meditation
Earlier this week we observed Martin Luther King Jr. Day. In his sermon this past Sunday, Pastor Drew referred to King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, where King envisioned a day when his children would “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” King also talked about “the Beloved Community,” where all God’s people, of all creeds and colors and conditions, can join hands and work together, can sing and stand and struggle for freedom and justice together.
While I certainly want to believe we have made some strides since King’s day toward making that dream come true, it cannot be denied that it remains a dream that has yet to be fully realized in our own communities. There is still more work to be done together, more life and love to be shared together, more freedom and justice to be sought together.
One of the things I try to think and pray about every year on and around MLK Day is what can I do, me, personally, to help make Dr. King’s dream of the Beloved Community come true in our world today. And it’s not just Dr. King’s dream; it is essentially what Jesus described as “the kingdom of God” and others after him have called “the kin-dom of God,” the family of God, the kinship in Christ. It’s the world that the Apostle Paul described where “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).
That’s what we’re all aiming for, isn’t it? So what can I do to help us get there? What can you do? How can you and I use what influence we have, and what gifts we have been given, what networks we inhabit, to fulfill this vision, this dream today?
Pastor Drew described one opportunity for us to consider this past Sunday—his dream of our church’s expansion of our youth ministry in partnership with our friends and neighbors in the southside of Chattanooga. We can help host and serve the weekly meal we help provide student-athletes at the Howard School on Wednesday evenings. He’s in need of more volunteers to be a part of this ministry; let him know if you can help.
Another thing we can do, in this skeptical, cynical old world, is to believe—to believe in this dream. And this is no small thing.
Several years ago, a newspaper columnist in Knoxville, Ina Hughs, compiled some of King’s words into a kind of creed, a belief statement. I cut that column out of the paper and have kept it to this day. Here are some of King’s words that she shared:
“I refuse to believe that we are unable to influence the events which surround us.”
“I refuse to believe that we are so bound to racism and war, that peace, brotherhood and sisterhood are not possible.”
“I believe there is an urgent need for people to overcome oppression and violence, without resorting to violence and oppression.”
“I believe that we need to discover a way to live together in peace, a way which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of this way is love.”
“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.”
“I believe that right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.”
“I believe that what self-centered people have torn down, other-centered people can build up.”
“By the goodness of God at work within people, I believe that brokenness can be healed, ‘And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together, and everyone will sit under their own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid.’”
