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