Sermon Epiphany 2 - MLK Jr. Day

Sermon:

Text:

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who makes us free to serve in this world.

            Tomorrow is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, which often just becomes another day off for many people, a day when kids don’t have school, and even though the idea is to do something in memory of Dr. King, to be active in our communities as he was, usually it’s just a day that we take off. I usually try to read one of his letters or speeches sometime during the day. I’ll look for one I hadn’t heard or seen before, but I often end up going back to the standard I have a dream speech. It’s a speech that has transcended time and even today stands out as one of the great orations of history.

            It goes through a collection of different areas before it is concluded with the best know section of the speech. I have a dream, I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed - we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, ... in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

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

            I thought about the image of all of God’s children holding hands this week as I was reading our texts for today. Paul is writing to the church in Corinth which suffers from numerous divides among its members. And Paul throughout the book spends time telling them to be at one with each other. The next verse after our lesson ends says, “Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.”

            But, that’s not the first instance of calling for unity. Paul begins his letter by saying, To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This idea of unity is more than just individual churches, but is for all people baptized into Christ. It’s interesting to note that saint is always used in the plural, saints method. The bible doesn’t talk about individual saints, but as the collective saints of God.

            And Paul makes the point in showing that it’s not just the collective saints of Corinth, but the saints of Corinth along with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul is clear that it’s not just an individual thing, but a collective thing to be called to follow Christ.

From our Gospel lessons this week and last week, we of course see a lot of language around baptism. When we look at baptism we often talk about our own baptisms, when I was baptized and who baptized me, but we leave out a part of baptism when we do that. In our baptism we are baptized Child of God, but we are baptized Child of God into the Body of Christ, into a specific church community that is itself part of the larger complete church, the body of Christ. Baptism is about marking someone as beloved Child of God, and uniting them with the rest of God’s Children in the Body of Christ.

And it’s about seeing that we are called as that body of Christ, unified through Christ’s death and resurrection, to go out into the world to make it a better place. Working to make Dr. King’s dream a reality.

            And we do it in the fellowship of Christ, not by our own doing, but called by God.

            It’s that message that allows us to move forward in this world, walking on the path that Christ shows us, with the strength that he gives us.

            It’s how Dr. King walked, not on his own, but with Christ alongside him.

In Dr. King’s speech it’s the last section that closes out the speech that I find most telling, Dr. King finishes his dream, and then goes on talking about how that dream can be realized, and that it’s through freedom, freedom for all.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. 

Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last! Free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

            I give thanks for the memory of Dr. King, hoping that his work has not been in vain and I give thanks for all of you, who go out to spread Christ’s gospel that all are made free in the waters of baptism. But, I especially give thanks for our God, who came to us, walked with us, and died for us, and in so doing freed us to work in this world.