Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday (observed)
"I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits." -acceptance speech for 1964 Nobel Peace Prize
What do you really know about Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.? This past Monday banks were closed and school was out to celebrate his birthday, but why did this one man earn a federal holiday? And why should we, as Christians, care about who he was and what he did?
Well, let's start with the Nobel Peace Price. Dr. King was awarded the peace prize in 1964 in recognition of his work in leading the way in the civil rights movement in the United States. This was a time in which segregation and racism were legal (though never moral) throughout the United States, but especially in the southern states. This work is still ongoing.
The civil rights act made many of the actions and societal norms of the day illegal, but micro-aggressions, the new-new Jim Crow, and passive racism have definitely surged since then. And for those who lived through those times (the 1960s), the accusation that not being racist is not enough often feels like a personal attack. More than once I have heard people share about how they would never treat someone differently based on the color of their skin and like Dr. King suggested, focus on the content of their character. To see them as Christ sees them (though Christ also tells us not to judge so even the content of their character has its limits). New calls for Christians to do the work of becoming an anti-racist often gets labeled as being woke or unnecessary. In some ways, this is why remembering Dr. King matters. He clearly tied our callings in Christ to the work of the civil rights movement and how society should and could change to better reflect the kingdom as Christ saw it could be. One in which those who pick up the hateful messaging of the White Power movement would be able to set it aside and those who have been harmed by racist systems and institutions would find healing all through Christ. But also not limiting the need for transformation to those listed in the previous sentence.
The problems listed by Dr. King in his prize acceptance speech are still very real. Poverty is not limited to those of one race, but food instability is on the rise across the nation. Lack of quality education and access to culture still affects the lives of many, especially when public education is the only affordable option and it can come with limits (this is not a call out of Valley View ISD, but there is a difference in making do with what you've got and being able to throw money at a classroom until its got the latest and greatest). Human dignity can be hard to find when we watch a shop owner hose down a woman sitting near his shop because she is there frequently and experiencing homelessness (and don't even get me started on the number of homeless veterans who lack access to health care and housing!). Equality sometimes forgets to show up when people gather, especially when a mindset of scarcity and need to protect the status quo is present and encouraged by those who do have power and do lead the way. And freedom? Ask the working poor about freedom. Ask the people who consider themselves wage slaves about freedom. Ask the German magazine that asked this very week if Karl Marx was right about how capitalism removes freedom rather than granting it.
Okay, so that's a lot. Racism, broken societal systems, and economics are not light hearted or fun topics. And none have a simple checklist of restoration and healing answers. And its easy to look at all the societal woes we still have going and be very disappointed and disheartened and woeful. But, and it's a very big but, God is still at work throughout all of this. Showing people ways to love their neighbor, to set aside pride, to operate from the same mindset of abundance that Christ had (in feeding the 5000 and offering grace to all peoples). We participate in that work that God is doing. Sometimes in small ways and sometimes in big ways. We look to our community first, but are never afraid to help the whole world when we can. But there's a challenge in that. What are you, yes YOU, doing? Are you using whatever power and privilege you have to help free the oppressed? Are you using your resources to make sure that your neighbor is cared for, be it with money, time, food, or prayer? What do you do on the daily to participate in the righteousness of God's creation? In the kingdom?
Even as a minister, this one can be a struggle. What am I doing? Is serving in the church enough? What am I supposed to be doing with my personal (not professional) life to love and serve God? Where am I meant to do more? What work is meant for me to take on? As we continue into this new year, this not quite blank page, I hope that you'll join me in asking some of these questions. To continually examine where we see injustice and need, to seek how God is helping transform lives despite the failings of human society, and how we can play a role in expanding God's kingdom to all peoples so that peace, grace, mercy, and abundance can be the normal life experience for all God's children.
And not to be reductive, but the lessons we teach our children are core to how we are meant to live as adults. Let us be once again those little children, full of hope and wonder, who see the world with possibility as God can do anything.
