James 2:14-26

Let Your Light Shine!

As we all know, this weekend, Monday specifically, celebrates the life and witness of a true American hero, The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. 

His persona is a familiar one to us—he is the most remembered champion of civil rights here in the United States, and I believe a prophetic voice for peace and equality; a man who pushed, prodded, provoked, and prayed his way to progress. 

But how many of us know the makings of the man?  Reverend King was born in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia.  He came from a long line of preachers. His daddy was a preacher as was his granddaddy. They were hellfire and brimstone Baptist preachers at Ebenezer Baptist Church.

But, Martin was a rebel.  He was bright, very bright, and he didn’t like what he was hearing.  He graduated from high school at age 15, and completed his doctoral studies in Systematic Theology at the tender age of 26! 

Amazingly, he was ordained at the age of nineteen at Ebenezer Baptist Church, in Atlanta, where he became the Assistant Pastor, later accepting the call to pastor Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. 

It was there that he was elected President of the Montgomery Improvement Association, the organization that was responsible for the successful 381 day Montgomery Bus Boycott which started in 1955 and ended in 1956. A boycott that Rosa Parks had triggered by refusing to go to the back of the bus. 

Later, King moved back to Atlanta to direct the activities of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which he had founded.

 Dr. King was arrested thirty times for his participation in non-violent civil rights activities, he was a practitioner of non-violent direct action who was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize. 

Then as we all know, just before his fortieth birthday, he was killed, in Memphis Tennessee.

While all of these achievements tell us a bit about him, they of course, don't add up to who he really was: a person of extraordinary drive, unwavering commitment to racial and economic justice, and remarkable theological depth in which this drive and commitment were rooted. 

King was a remarkable man with an even more remarkable voice. His voice was never aggressive, nor belligerent.  He was fired up but never with rage. 

He never amused his audience with jokes or distracted them with unnecessary details. He didn’t use focus groups, flow charts, analytical data, but he was entirely convincing nonetheless.

He spoke straight from the truth of his own heart to the goodness in other’s hearts, which he believed in.  He was never boring.  And he never excluded anyone.

 Since King’s death, people all over the country have worked hard to remember him. 

One of the things that has always struck me when I listened to or read one of King’s speeches is that when he talked about his faith, and even when he mentioned Jesus, it was in a way that included everyone.  

There were no litmus tests hidden in his speeches, no things you had to believe before you could enter his faith story, no way you had to be judged before these promises and hopes belonged to you. 

King talked about himself as just a man trying to do things, with God’s help, and he invited all of us to try, too.

As I prepared this sermon, I wondered where Martin Luther King would stand such issues as same gender marriage, the war in Iraq, the growing gap between the haves and the have nots, the role of religion in government, and maybe even global warming?

I wondered what a difference King would make if he were here today to offer his prophetic voice to our struggles to live and do right.

 I wondered what a difference it would make if his example of non-violent protest and his unequivocal commitment to peace were on our television sets every night.

And I wondered what a difference it might make if his wisdom, his courage, his inspirational leadership and his words from the sixties could be translated for the 21^st century.

You see, I believe his words are just as relevant today as they were then.  In the sermon he delivered at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta Georgia, King said the American dream is based on the equality of all human beings regardless of age, gender, social standing or race.

King said this nation was called by God to live and embody a dream of justice and equality. And even when the U.S. is not living its call and embodying God's dream it needs to be reminded, it needs to repent and begin to live the dream again.

The last paragraphs of King's sermon end with these words:

So yes, the dream has been shattered, and I have had my nightmarish experiences, but I tell you this morning once more that I haven't lost the faith.

 I still have a dream that one day all of God's children will have food and clothing and material well-being for their bodies, culture and education for their minds, and freedom for their spirits.

I still have a dream this morning that one day the lion and the lamb will lie down together, and every man will sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid.

I still have a dream this morning that one day all men everywhere will recognize that out of one blood God made all men to dwell upon the face of the earth.

I still have a dream this morning that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill will be made low; the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places straight; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

Unfortunately, King’s dream is not yet a reality. We aren’t there yet – we’re not even close. Folks, we have a lot of work to do.  One of the ways to do that is wrapped up in a core element in King’s theology: Love.  To love one another, as God loves us.

See, the principal activity of King’s faith was to strive to love all people. Not just “nice” love, but Jesus’ radical love: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

King knew that to love our enemies was not only the “right” thing--according to Jesus’ commandments.  He saw that love is transformational, that love has power.

Out of his ethic of love emerged the principal strategic tool for his work of justice-making and civil rights--namely, nonviolent resistance.

He did not seek to overcome the evil and violence of racism with more evil and violence; he sought to overcome it with love.

Time and again he returned to the mantra that “the end is preexistent in the means. (I didn’t understand that when I first heard it … but it’s true … kind of like “what you sow, so shall you reap). Destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends. Through violence you may murder a murderer but you can’t murder murder. Darkness cannot put out darkness. Only light can do that.”

Differentiating between just and unjust laws, King sought through pressure, protests and other means to apply creative tension to upset the racist status quo.

Most of us here today are not experiencing oppression most of the time. (let me speak for myself: I am not experiencing oppression at all). So the prerequisite to action is compassion. The prerequisite to compassion is our proximity to and alliance with those who are oppressed by our society.

I can feel sorry for a woman in prison, I can feel sorry for refugees fleeing the guns of ethnic cleansing, I can feel sorry for a youth in this city whose family circumstances, lack of education or lack of support have prevented him from having hope.

I can even feel sorry for many people who are far away from me, and I may even be prompted to act with charity. But it is not the same as standing with them demanding justice.

Compassion is not “feeling sorry for”; compassion is “feeling with,” “being with.” The forces in society are great that tell us to look out for ourselves, to protect our own interest. Yet doing so isolates us from the suffering of others; it leaves compassion as a pleasant sentimentality and makes Christ’s ethic of justice-with-love a distant dream.

I must, we must, resist the attraction of insularity and security, and put ourselves in direct relationship with the oppressed of our communities.

During his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus stood on holy ground and in the midst of holy people. He told the crowd — and he tells us today — that we are the “light of the world”

“No one after lighting a lamp puts it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to God in heaven.”

W cannot hide our light — that light which God has given us — that light which shines for all the world to see the glory of God’s presence in our lives. We cannot hide that light — there is no reason to hide it, there is no excuse for hiding it, there is ever though reason to let it shine.

Is it any wonder that “This Little Light of Mine” was one of the rallying songs of the racial civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s?

We have a job — not just a job, a mission. God calls us to let our light shine. It is what Martin Luther King did. It is what his memory is about. It is what this weekend’s holiday is about. We have a mission to carry out — that to which God has called us. We must let our light shine today and tomorrow and forever. 

Martin let his light shine so that we could all be a little closer to equality and freedom and tolerance and inclusion.

He let his light shine so that we could all see a little better that one day our children “will live in a world where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

He had a dream that we can bring to reality, a dream that freedom will ring throughout the world. He had a dream that the light would lead  others to the mountaintop.

Are we there yet? Do we let our light shine so that never again will any of us try to hold others down by shackles or words?

Whenever there is the sound of a decision being made based  on race or gender or social status — then we know we’re not there.

When we read of a gay man being beaten to death in a Midwestern town simply because of his sexual orientation, or a young girl with mental retardation being gang raped simply because of her disability, or an African-American man being dragged behind the bumper of a pickup truck — then we know we’re not there yet.

Preaching at the Ebenezer Baptist Church shortly before his assassination, King said:

If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long.

Every now and then I wonder what I want them to say. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize, that isn’t important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards, that’s not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school.

I’d like somebody to mention that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to live his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody. I want you to say that day, that I tried to be right on the war question.

 I want you to be able to say that day, that I did try to feed the hungry. And I want you to be able to say that day, that I did try, in my life, to clothe those who were naked.

I want you to say, on that day, that I did try, in my life, to visit those who were in prison. I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.

All I want to say … if I can help somebody as I pass along, if I can cheer somebody with a word or song, if I can show somebody he's traveling wrong, then my living will not be in vain.

If I can do my duty as a Christian ought, if I can bring salvation to a world once wrought, if I can spread the message as the master taught, then my living will not be in vain. 

I couldn’t have said it better myself…

Amen!