Dear People of St. James’,
This week, like many of you, I have been reading and contemplating Martin Luther King, Jr.’s writings and legacy, and I ran across an imaginative sermon of his preached at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, AL, in 1956.* The title of this sermon is “Paul’s Letter to American Christians.” Note here, King does not offer “Jesus’ Letter to American Christians,” but rather Paul’s. It is Paul’s voice that King chooses to speak in: Paul, the concerned and often frustrated pastor; Paul, who eagerly awaits the transformation of the world in the return of Jesus; Paul, who in the meantime has a vision for the unity that the Holy Spirit desires. How appropriate that the pastor Martin Luther King, Jr., would speak in persona as Paul.
Like Paul’s letters, this letter to American Christians begins with the pastor’s longing to be among his people. He has heard amazing things about American achievements. “Through your scientific genius you have dwarfed distance and placed time in chains. You have made it possible to eat breakfast in Paris, France, and lunch in New York City.” However, all is not well: “Through your scientific genius you have made of the world a neighborhood, but you have failed to employ your moral and spiritual genius to make of it a brotherhood.” King poses a question. How is it that we have brought all the world so near, through our human ingenuity, and failed to figure out how to handle this nearness through love?
Writing in Paul’s voice, King details a number of American strategies for handling nearness that are not guided by love. “Paul” states that his addressees have given in to the logic of the rightness of the majority that surrounds them, so morality becomes merely group consensus. They have given in to the way capitalism sorts them, while engaging in loveless philanthropy that fails to address the root causes of the indignities of poverty. They have given in to the compartmentalization of their earthly and spiritual citizenship, in order to be “one people under God”, and yet, this has failed to bring about unity. They have given in to the sorting of segregation, of white supremacy and racial division. How persistent, how durable are these American strategies for handling the riskiness of nearness!
But “Paul” has good news for us. However, durable our American strategies for handling nearness, “Love is the most durable power in the world.” Love was in the beginning. Love triumphs over death and Empire and human violence on Calvary. “Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ, neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation” (Rom 8:38-39). “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it” (Song of Solomon 8:7).
The challenge of King’s sermon is to apply our own genius and creative power to the nonviolent struggle for justice, formed by and for the sake of love for all those neighbors brought near to us. How will you use your genius through the illogical way of love “to make of your neighborhood a brotherhood”? Your answer to this question matters, this day and every day.
Rev. Eileen
* The quotes that follow come from https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/publications/knock-midnight-inspiration-great-sermons-reverend-martin-luther-king-jr-1.
