Martin Luther King, Jr.

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Martin Luther King, Jr.
PROPER: A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: January 17,1999

TEXT: Luke 6:27-36 - But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who treat you spitefully. . . . . . Treat others as you would like them to treat you. If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.

ISSUE: This passage from Luke is probably directed to a more affluent group. Luke stresses the unique teachings of Jesus. They call for a new understanding of treating strangers and neighbors as family. They are to make an all out effort to give and love without expecting return. They are to avoid stereotyping. All of this is a matter of seeing one another as the people of God, brothers and sisters in Christ. This passage is a Christian demand for all of us to be more accepting and understanding of those who are stange or different from ourselve. It is an all out call to end prejudice, hatred, and suspicion. Jesus, and Martin Luther King, Jr. following his lead called for non-violent change and the need for a new justice.
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It is hard for some of us who are now gray-haired to believe that there are many of you gathered here this morning who do not remember the non-violent work of Martin Luther King in his attempt to bring racial justice to this country. The older part of this congregation, like myself, have vivid memories of what were extremely difficult times. Just prior to my coming to St. John's in late1969, Martin Luther King had been leading many marches in a non-violent effort to end racial injustice. Some of us remember well that there were separate bathrooms, water fountains, dressing rooms in department stores, and clearly defined black and white neighborhoods. African Americans, called Negros at the time, often had to ride in the back of busses. I remember the signs on the busses well in the town of Annapolis. After preaching in our National Cathedral in Washington D.C., King went to Memphis, Tenn. in support of garbage men who were on strike, and there he was assassinated. Shortly thereafter riots broke out in cities all around the country. I remember my car being pelted with rocks near Johns Hopkins Hospital. The city was then put under a curfew until things calmed down, and the streets were guarded by armed state militia. These were very painful and difficult times. Some congregational members in my church were outraged at the black community.
I came to St. John's in November of 1969. At the time the church was struggling to bring about healing between the races. The national church was trying to support various black programs. The Black Panther organization along with others were receiving financial support from the National Episcopal Church. Some church members were outraged and cancelled their financial commitments to the church. At the same time we were deeply invested in Prayer Book change and liturgical renewal, all of which were also contributing to get consternation in the church. Not only had some people stopped financial support, but withdrew completely from the church. At the same time the Vietnam War was raging, and there was great opposition to it. Although another group of people considered any opposition to the War to be un-American. These were indeed very difficult days.
Yet by the grace of God, and by the considerable faithfulness of a core of committed people, the church carried on its work of healing, and attempted to bring about deeper understanding of the predicament of Black people, many of whom in those days were the victims of white oppression, power, and lived in poverty. Both the country and the church have come a long way in changing and assisting in bringing an end to violence and oppression. There is still a long way to go. Poverty and ignorance continues, as does lack of understanding and compassion. Even now, I still hear racial slurs and unkind comments about the Black Community from our own. We cannot change a difficult situation until our hearts are changed and we grasp and claim the meaning of our Lord's Gospel. Changing the human heart does not come easy, when many of us learned and were steeped in the prejudices and thinking of our ancestors.
One of the aspects of the Gospel of the Lord is that it was extraordinarily challenging to the people of our Lord's time. It still challenges our own way of thinking today. The passage this morning from Luke talks about loving our enemies and treating others as we would expect to be treated. It is about being compassionate as God is compassionate.
In our Lord's time, it was expected that families would take care of their own. You took care of your children without expecting anything in return. Within the family there was not an expectation of reciprocity. However, beyond the immediate family the situation was quite different. If someone loaned you something, you were expected to make good on the loan, and were at the same time obligated to return the favor if needed. If you were invited to dinner, you were expected to return the favor with a dinner.
On the other hand, if you were insulted, or injured, you were expected, if you were to keep your honor, to pay that person back with an insult. Thus, if slapped on the face, you returned the slap. This was the code of an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.
The situation with strangers was quite different. You might do your best to take advantage of strangers. To travel and to be a stranger in a land was to face tremendous risks. Note how the strangers are treated in Genesis 19:5. when the men of Sodom try to humiliate the two strangers (actually disguised angels. Lot rescues them with his code of hospitality. Out of this terror a code of hospitality developed in which traveling strangers were taken in for protection and given hospitality. These too were difficult times.
In Jesus' time there was also considerable stereotyping. Nothing good was expected to come out of Nazareth. Jesus is only a carpenter's son. According to the Book of Titus, "Cretans are always liars, wicked beasts, and lazy gluttons." John's gospel tells of the prejudices between Samaritans and Judeans, "Jews will not use the same cups and bowls (for drinking) that Samaritans use." (John 4:9)
When Jesus begins teaching and calling for people to dturn the other cheek, so give away their coats, to loan without expecting return, he was calling for a change in the very fabric of the culture itself. How could anything ever change, if this kind of reciprocity continued to be such law of the land. There needed to be a breaking out of the vicious cycle of retribution. What was especially significant was the fact that Jesus was calling for the people of his time to treat everyone as if they were family. For Jesus, all human beings were a part of the family of God.
We still live in a time when in our personal lives, and in the life of the church we are very cozy, if not cliquish, among our own selves. We believe in taking care of our own. We are also comfortable in relationships with other people who are similar to ourselves. We will help those of our own kind, who we know will pay us back or be reciprocal in their relationship with us, because they think like we do. But there are still those who are different, strange, and those who suffer from stereotyping. For example, all blacks are lazy, or poor, or untrustworthy. All Scots are tight. All Jews are money hungry. These kinds of prejudices persist even today. Many people today see people who are different as the enemy. But the Gospel still prevails for us, and calls us to be changed and different, to love our enemies, and to breakdown the barriers that separate us from one another. The gospel demands that we be aware of and alert to the suffering and the oppression of others.
One of the most significant of leaders know to us was Moses in the Old Testament. He was called by God, inspite of his own short comings to participate as an agent in the liberation of people in slavery to the Egyptians. One of the great men of our history was, of course, Abraham Lincoln, who led this country in the midst of great opposition to the freeing of the slaves. A black baptist preacher, Martin Luther King, Jr. continued the effort to bring greater justice to his people who were kept depraved by the powerful white establishment. The demand for justice continues and it is basic to the Gospel of Jesus Christ: "Blessed are the poor; the kingdom of God is yours." Luke 6:20. And "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they shall be satisfied. Blessed are those who are meceiful to others; God will be merciful to them." (Matt 5:6) God continues through the teaching of our Lord to call each of us to respecting the dignity of every human being. It is as we welcome the stranger and develop friendships and work at deeper understanding of different cultures and the backgrounds of those different from us that we come to greater understanding and appreciation of people.
We, of course, have a very emotional understanding of love today. We associate love with all kinds of warm cozy intimate feelings. In the New Testament, love was not so emotional. It was basically a matter of attachment, of bonding, of willing the good of the one loved. Loving your enemies is a matter of willing the best of what God can give to them, respecting their human dignity, as you respect your own. The world is getting smaller all the time. It is an age of great hostility and suspicion. As we have faced the difficulties in the past, may we remain faithful in our affection for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and continue to work for justice and an end to oppression in the world today.