Debra K. Brazzel - Sermon Untitled (January 17, 1993)

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-	At the eulogy for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.	0:11
	on April 9, 1968,	0:14
	Dr. Benjamin Mays said of Dr. King	0:17
	God is truly no respecter of persons	0:21
	for God called the great grandson of a slave and said to him	0:25
	Martin Luther, speak to America about war and peace,	0:29
	about social justice and racial discrimination,	0:35
	about it's obligation to the poor and about non-violence	0:39
	as a way of perfecting social change	0:44
	in a world of brutality and war.	0:47
	Fredrick Downing in his book To See The Promised Land,	0:51
	describes Martin Luther King Jr.'s spiritual development	0:56
	as a spiritual pilgrimage to become	1:01
	a prophet for our times.	1:03
	Like Isaiah, in today's scripture text	1:07
	Martin Luther King Jr. felt himself to be	1:10
	inescapably called by God.	1:14
	Chosen to be a light to the nations.	1:18
	Does any person start out intending to be a prophet?	1:23
	I doubt it very seriously.	1:28
	The pay isn't all that good	1:30
	and the survival rate is very poor.	1:31
	No, Martin Luther King Jr. did not start out	1:35
	to be a prophet for our nation.	1:38
	In fact, he would have avoided much of his destiny	1:41
	if he could.	1:44
	Who would choose to live in constant danger	1:46
	and to endanger the lives of their loved ones.	1:49
	Martin Luther King Jr. found himself thrust upon	1:53
	the stage of history by circumstances outside his control.	1:56
	He found himself in a situation that demanded	2:02
	a moral response, to an immoral system of oppression.	2:05
	In the Montgomery bus boycott	2:11
	and the civil rights movement it gave birth to,	2:13
	Dr. King became the prophetic voice	2:17
	to call forth the conscience of a nation.	2:20
	Like a sharp sword his clear moral vision	2:25
	cut away society's immoral justifications	2:28
	for dehumanizing systems of oppression and prejudice.	2:32
	He reminded us of God's higher calling.	2:37
	He entreated us to repent as a nation	2:41
	and to embrace God's vision of promise for all humanity	2:44
	that we and our nation might be saved.	2:49
	Martin Luther King Jr. was a prophet for our times.	2:53
	Not because he was a saintly person who knew no sin	2:58
	but because he was a man who had known God's claim	3:02
	upon his life and who had pledged to be faithful	3:06
	to God above all else.	3:10
	Like Isaiah who cried I have spent my strength	3:13
	for nothing and vanity.	3:17
	Dr. King also sometimes felt that his efforts	3:20
	had been in vain, that his words had been fruitless	3:24
	and that nothing had changed.	3:27
	Perhaps his greatest struggle was against the despair	3:30
	that threatened to sap his energy	3:34
	and will to continue the fight for justice.	3:36
	These were the times when Martin was driven to fall back	3:40
	upon God, and to trust God because he had no strength,	3:43
	no personal charisma,	3:48
	no energy left to rely upon of his own.	3:49
	It was in these moments of absolute weakness	3:54
	that Martin Luther King Jr. like Isaiah	3:58
	in our scripture text,	4:01
	experienced God's power and God's strength	4:03
	as the bedrock upon which he could trust his very life.	4:07
	These were the times of deepening commitment	4:12
	and conviction that he must follow God's leading	4:15
	no matter what the personal cost to him.	4:19
	His absolute commitment to God was the driving force	4:23
	behind all that he did.	4:27
	The guiding light that directed his actions	4:29
	and gave him the courage to stand	4:32
	against overwhelming opposition.	4:34
	It was the unshakable sense of integrity and conviction	4:38
	that people saw in Dr. King which made him a symbol of hope	4:42
	to oppressed people everywhere.	4:46
	Because he believed bone deep	4:50
	that all people were made in God's image,	4:53
	he empowered people who had been taught	4:56
	that they were nobody. to see themselves as somebody.	4:58
	Precious in God's eyes.	5:03
	Deserving a fair share of America's promises.	5:05
	His unwavering sense of mission,	5:10
	compelled him to continue his fight	5:13
	against racial and social injustice	5:15
	even after being stabbed with a letter opener	5:18
	within a sneeze of death,	5:21
	even after being jailed countless times.	5:23
	Even after his own home and	5:27
	the home of his brother was bombed.	5:29
	Even after he had twice been knocked out by rocks	5:31
	and bricks thrown at him from the crowd.	5:35
	Even after his life was threatened with more than	5:38
	50 known assassination plots.	5:41
	Dr. King never gave up the fight for justice.	5:46
	And perhaps even more importantly	5:50
	he never returned hate for hate.	5:52
	The night his house was bombed,	5:57
	he returned home to a mob of people	5:59
	who had followed him in his call for non-violence,	6:01
	they were angry justifiably and calling for revenge.	6:04
	He calmed the crowd and reminded them	6:08
	that Jesus said they must love their enemies.	6:11
	He called upon his followers to stand up	6:15
	for righteousness to stand up for truth	6:18
	knowing that God would be at their side forever.	6:21
	Without the leadership, compassion and wisdom	6:26
	of Dr. Martin Luther King	6:29
	the streets of America undoubtedly	6:31
	would have been filled with blood.	6:35
	Toward the end of his life,	6:39
	Dr. King knew that he would be killed because of his work	6:41
	in the civil rights movement, and he reflected	6:45
	upon his death in his last speech in Memphis.	6:48
	And his words, "I'm not fearing any man,	6:51
	for mine eyes have seen the glory	6:56
	of the coming of the Lord."	6:58
	His unwavering faith gave him the assurance that	7:01
	death does not have the final word.	7:05
	Martin Luther King Jr. was a prophet for our day	7:11
	because he found the courage to follow Christ	7:15
	even unto death.	7:18
	But what significance does his life and death	7:21
	continue to have for us?	7:24
	If we remember Martin Luther King Jr.	7:27
	only as a historical leader of the civil rights movement	7:30
	as important as he was in reshaping America	7:34
	I believe that we as people of faith have missed	7:38
	the significance of his life.	7:41
	The lasting legacy of Dr. King's life	7:45
	is not only what he has done although that is great indeed	7:47
	but what he, like all great prophets,	7:52
	call us to do and to be.	7:56
	His enduring legacy to us is to call us	8:01
	to live according to the highest	8:04
	moral principles of our faith.	8:06
	Martin Luther King Jr. like Isaiah before him	8:10
	calls upon us as the people of God	8:15
	to be a light to the nations.	8:18
	This is the mission for which Isaiah was sent to Israel	8:21
	I believe it was the mission that	8:25
	Martin Luther King Jr. was sent to us to accomplish.	8:27
	Because of his faithfulness, the light of Christ	8:32
	shined through him in life and in death.	8:36
	He was a witness to God's power to use the weak	8:40
	to bring down the strong.	8:43
	The powerless to make low the powerful.	8:46
	As the people of God, we too are called	8:50
	to radical faithfulness and obedience to Christ.	8:54
	The salvation we've been given by Christ	8:58
	is not for our private benefit.	9:01
	We have been saved in order that we might become	9:04
	a light to the nations.	9:08
	And God knows ours is a world greatly in need of light.	9:11
	While the most overt forms of racism	9:16
	may have been eliminated in America,	9:19
	the more insidious forms of racial hatred	9:21
	and prejudice seem to be even more entrenched.	9:24
	Witness the more than 5,000 hate crimes annually	9:29
	with three times that number suspected.	9:33
	In the last decade we've seen the increasing influence	9:36
	of such organizations as the Ku Klux Klan,	9:40
	the American Nazi party, the Arian Nations	9:43
	and the political party of David Duke.	9:46
	And our college campuses are not immune from	9:49
	the influences of acts of racial hatred.	9:53
	Civil rights has been constantly eroded	9:57
	and there's a growing spirit of protectionism.	10:00
	As economic conditions worsen we become fearful	10:04
	there won't be enough to go around	10:07
	so the lines are drawn between us and them.	10:09
	Fear breads suspicion, and suspicion breads hatred	10:13
	and hatred breads violence.	10:18
	Ours is the most violent civilized nation in the world.	10:21
	In the decade since Dr. King's death	10:27
	we've seen a dramatic increase	10:30
	in the underclass in America.	10:32
	Those families that are trapped in poverty	10:34
	generation after generation.	10:37
	The number of homeless people on our streets	10:40
	is a national shame.	10:43
	Dr. King's call for our society to meet it's obligation	10:47
	to the poor by providing real economic opportunity	10:51
	must once again be raised.	10:56
	That there is such abysmal	10:59
	poverty in a country as affluent as ours	11:01
	is a moral outrage.	11:05
	America desperately needs	11:09
	the prophetic witness of the faithful.	11:11
	We are in need of people who have the courage to stand up	11:15
	for what is right in whatever small or great ways	11:19
	that you may find the opportunity to do that.	11:23
	We're in need of people with the courage	11:27
	to take a stand against injustices.	11:29
	To act lovingly toward those different from us	11:32
	because Christ loves them as much as us.	11:36
	To commit to follow Christ no matter what the personal cost.	11:41
	Our world desperately needs such a prophetic witness.	11:47
	In the past year, a year we started	11:52
	with such high hopes with the end of the cold war	11:55
	and the demise of communism	11:59
	has seen unthinkable atrocities.	12:02
	The ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Herzegovina,	12:06
	the starvation of millions in a political war	12:10
	of hunger in Somalia, the rioting between Hindus and Muslims	12:13
	in India, the continued struggle between	12:17
	Palestinians and Jews,	12:20
	the Neo-Nazi terrorism of immigrants in Germany.	12:23
	So much of the suffering is needless.	12:27
	If we could learn to see the Divine	12:31
	in every human being as Dr. King did.	12:33
	To judge a person solely on the content	12:37
	of their character, not their race or ethnicity	12:40
	or religion.	12:44
	If we could learn to share the world's resources	12:46
	most of the conflicts around the world would end.	12:50
	The world needs such a witness of the faithful.	12:54
	On our choir tour through Poland and Czech,	13:01
	we had many, many memorable experiences.	13:04
	In Warsaw we saw a film that shows the outcome	13:08
	of racial and ethnic hatred.	13:12
	84% of Warsaw was leveled to the ground	13:14
	during World War II.	13:18
	It was Hitler's intention to totally destroy	13:20
	the Polish people through the destruction	13:23
	of their cultural heritage.	13:26
	His order read, Warsaw must be totally obliterated.	13:28
	It was an amazing tribute to the resilience and courage	13:34
	and faith of the Polish people.	13:38
	To realize that the city of one and a half million	13:41
	had literally been resurrected from the ashes.	13:45
	At Auschwitz we witnessed the evil that can be done	13:50
	by human beings through insane racism	13:54
	and the will to dominate.	13:57
	None of us will ever forget the piles of human hair,	14:00
	suitcases and children's shoes that we saw in that camp.	14:04
	The only remains of the hundreds of thousands	14:10
	of Jews.	14:13
	Pols,	14:15
	Gypsys	14:16
	and Russians who died	14:17
	in this factory of death.	14:18
	Given the suffering that the Polish people had endured,	14:21
	one might have expected bitterness, hatred,	14:25
	anger, but that is not what we found.	14:29
	I think perhaps the enduring symbol of Poland for us	14:33
	is frozen holy water.	14:37
	To walk into a frigid cathedral, any time of the day,	14:40
	any day of the week and find it full, whether for a mass	14:44
	or with individuals in prayers.	14:50
	Everyone bundled in coats and hats and scarves,	14:52
	breath visible in the cold.	14:56
	It was an amazing testimony to the faithfulness	14:59
	and the hope of the Polish people.	15:02
	In one service New Year's day,	15:06
	5,000 people stood in the bitter cold	15:08
	for nearly two hours during the mass and choir concert.	15:12
	Tears of joy on their face.	15:16
	Never before had any of us encountered such devotion,	15:20
	such warmth, such love of Christ.	15:25
	There's was a faith that had been undimmed	15:29
	by years of destruction under the Nazis	15:32
	and oppression under a communist regime.	15:35
	It made us ashamed of our religion of convenience.	15:39
	In spite of the oppression, the economic difficulties,	15:43
	the uncertainties of their future,	15:47
	the faith of the Polish people was a bright witness to us.	15:49
	Like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,	15:55
	they had discovered that through suffering	15:58
	when all else fails,	16:01
	God is trustworthy.	16:04
	Their faith was a bright light	16:06
	shinning in the darkness.	16:08
	Each of us	16:12
	is also called	16:13
	to be a bright light to the nations.	16:15
	We must ask ourselves does the light of Christ	16:19
	shine in and through us, or are we part of the darkness?	16:23
	Jesus calls us to come into the light.	16:29

Item Info

Title:

Debra K. Brazzel - Sermon Untitled (January 17, 1993)

Description:

Sermon start time: 00:11. Sermon end time: 16:33.
Martin Luther King Jr. did not choose to become a prophet in our times, but became one nonetheless because he felt called to by God and chose to heed the call. But people of faith have missed the legacy of MLK’s life if they relegate him and his work to history, and racial hatred and prejudice are even more entrenched now, so people of faith must work. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Key quotation: “That there is such abysmal poverty in a country as affluent as ours is a moral outrage. America desperately needs the prophetic witness of the faithful. We are in need of people who have the courage to stand up for what is right, in whatever small or great ways that you may find the opportunity to do that.”

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4gb1xx6d

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January 17, 1993

Speaker:

Brazzel, Debra K.

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Duke University. Chapel

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UA.17.01.0003 CS-0628
ref9207_yqb
uachapelsermaud
duke:321064
dcrau001426
ark:/87924/r4gb1xx6d
cd017537-c378-4ae1-b332-7809a142636c

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Debra K. Brazzel - Sermon Untitled (January 17, 1993)

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