January 4, 2004
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On July 4, 1977, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The citation says:“Martin
Luther King, Jr., was the conscience of his generation. A southerner, a black
man, he gazed on the great wall of segregation and saw that the power of love
could bring it down. From the pain and exhaustion of his fight to free all
people from the bondage of separation and injustice, he wrung his eloquent
statement of his dream of what America could be. He helped us overcome our
ignorance of one another. He spoke out against a war he felt was unjust, as he
had spoken out against laws that were unfair. He made our nation stronger
because he made it better. Honored by kings, he continued to his last days to
strive for a world where the poorest and humblest among us could enjoy the
fulfillment of the promises of our founding fathers. His life informed us, his
dreams sustain us yet”
(Let
The Trumpet Sound. The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr.).
Edited by James M. Washington. San Francisco. Harper and Row, 1986). Every
year at this time, our country remembers a dreamer and his dreams. Let his dream
live on, and may our dreams live too. When
we sleep, dreams play with our minds, they dance through our brains and leave
certain images. We love the pleasant ones. Have you ever been awakened just at
the moment a dream was particularly good? Didn’t you try to go back to sleep
quickly so that the dream might continue? Some dreams we want to let go as
quickly as we can. Did you ever wake up heart pounding, mouth dried from an
unpleasant dream – the one in which you were trapped or being chased, or that
thing that scares you most was surrounding you and there was nothing you could
do? That is a nightmare. Psychologists
and others who study such things have some theories about dreams. One theory is
that we are all of the characters in our dreams, so our dreams are all about
various aspects of our identity. That soothing presence in last night’s dream,
even if the face was different, was you. That scary monster, that foreboding
presence, that was you too. I do not care very much for that theory. Another
theory says that all of our dreams are about what we desire most and fear most
– so when we dream we are trying in our dream state to find ways to work
things out when we are awake. Whether
remembered vividly or only vaguely recalled our dreams have an effect on us. Let
the dream live! What
shall we dream? We can dream as Paul urged the Corinthians to dream. We can
dream a dream of the Spirit of God freeing us to use our gifts to do all the
growing that God is calling us to do. Dream of a community of faith that is like
a healthy family. Healthy families, care for each other, want what is best for
each other, forgive one another and love each other without condition. Let the
dream of church as family live. Dream
a dream of a place where the gifts of each of us, no matter how big or how small
are honored. Dream of how your gifts can be used to enhance this church in every
way we are already strong: in hospitality, in worship, in our love of children
and our respect for seniors in this church. And dream of all of the ways your
gifts can help us in every way we need to become stronger.
It will take prayers for strength and the best thinking of all of us to
see and state clearly our vision, that is our purpose as followers of Christ.
That same prayerful thinking will be necessary for us to share our purpose and
to draw others to us, that is evangelism. And it will take the same prayerful
thinking to help us support our vision, that is what stewardship education is
about, and those are the areas of work and ministry the EZEKIEL Project will
focus on this year. All
that we do will be for the common good, it will help to serve the spiritual
needs of all of us. As we work, we will grow closer to God, and we will grow
closer to one another. God has given us gifts, and the spirit to use them. Let
the gifts and the dream live. Dreamers
of justice, mercy and reconciliation know that those who believe separation is
the right way to go are wrong. We are all in this life together. King dreamed a
dream of respect for all and that dream causes great anger in people. The
dream lives when we understand that we can make some dreams come alive by our
actions, not in an arrogant way, but in a way that speaks to a vision of the
world for which we pray and toward which we work. Our dreams may anger and
confuse people whose stake is in alienation among people. They want our dreams
of a nation, a city, a church where all are welcomed to die. But when we let our
dreams live, we please the heart of God and God in turn creates in us a desire
to work toward peace and hope for all people. Paul
urged the Corinthians and he urges us to let the spirit of God guide our dreams
for the church. Peter urges us to give our dreams power by acting on the best of
them. That
desire is made clear when Peter dreams and comes to understand inclusion to be a
sign of faithfulness and obedience to God. Through a dream he heard the voice of
God tell him that all that God has made is clean, that no food is unclean and no
people are without the opportunity to know God. The
verses we heard this morning find Peter in Jerusalem explaining to the church
elders why he shared a meal and the gospel and the rites of baptism with
Cornelius, a Gentile. “He is not one of us, those people are different. Why
did you go there? Why did you tell him our good news? Why did you break bread
and baptize those people”? Peter’s response to the elders was simple and
straightforward. “I went there because I had a rooftop dream, and I learned as
I slept that dreams invite us to see the fullness of God’s creation”. “You
know me, I am a passionate man, strong in my belief that my way is the only real
and right way. But I had a dream and now I realize that God who made us all,
loves us all, cares for us all. Any separation is our problem, not God’s.
Peter said, “who was I to hinder God?” Indeed, who are we to hinder God?
Peter may have discovered that the song we learned in so many Sunday School
classrooms is true: “red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in
God’s sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world”.
But not only the children, but their parents and all the adults of the
world as well. The dream lives when we learn along with Peter to invite and
welcome others to the table. Martin
Luther King, Jr. was about making room at God’s welcome table for people
regardless of race, income, age, and I would hope in these days orientation and
political ideology. Dr. King was not about political correctness, or special
rights. He was about civil and human rights for all people because he understood
that God is not respecter of persons. Dream
dreams that are alive with good risks, add to the community’s table; lift one
another up, speak truth to power and speak truth to the powerless. King dreamed
of tables of brotherhood and sisterhood; of oases of freedom and justice, of
judgment based on character instead of color. Dream
a dream of inclusiveness and justice. Martin
Luther King, Jr., prophet, preacher, scholar, husband, father, son, and brother
was a dreamer who helped us to know that each individual in our society and each
segment of our society has a stake, either negative or positive in the racial
and economic health of America. He
was a dreamer who left us an eloquent legacy of prayer, preaching, sacrifice,
confrontation, negotiation, and persistence. If we listen carefully, if we read
his words thoroughly, we can hear him encourage us to dream some dreams with
him. Hear
him as he encourages us to dream positively, pleasantly, patiently, passionately
about how a nation whose founding documents embody a foundation of equality, a
belief in a supreme being, freedom as an antidote to tyranny can make those
dreams live. It
is not always easy for the dream to find life. Especially in these days of
despair about money, concerns about the wellbeing of our families, concerns
about our own personal safety, and a nation at war. We ask, what will happen to
our dreams? In a time when there are more partisan politicians than there are
statesmen and stateswomen, when we are surrounded by too many loud voices and
too few leaders, how shall the dream of justice and equality, of peace and
opportunity live? Thank
God some dreams are so powerful and so much a part of us that they live in our
very souls. Thank God for dreamers. Thank God for Martin Luther King, Jr. The
Presidential Medal of Freedom citation says his dream sustains us yet. We are
sustained by Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dreams because they were and are dreams
filled with the hope and faith born in one who was born into the church, which
is at its best when it dreams good dreams and sees with clear vision. King’s
dreams were good and godly and his vision was crystal clear. He knew that we
would overcome so many of the obstacles before us, and though there is a way to
go before we get there altogether, he never doubted our success. He said: “We
shall overcome because the arc of a moral universe is long, but it bends toward
justice. We shall overcome because Carlyle is right – no lie can live forever.
We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant is right – truth crushed to
earth will rise again. We shall overcome because James Russell Lowell is right
– “truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne, yet that
scaffold sways the future, and beyond the great unknown, stands a God within the
shadow, keeping watch above his own” (Washington,
p. 277). Overcoming
racism, and poverty, and what Harry Emerson Fosdick calls “warring madness”
was Martin Luther King’s dream and I believe our congregation looks like it
does because it is testimony to the fact that it is our dream too. And so we
dream. Some of us shared our pride in this congregation’s inclusiveness with
Felix Hoover at the Columbus Dispatch this past Friday. You may have seen the
Faith and Values article about the various services of Racial Unity occurring
this weekend. We wrote to let Felix Hoover know that we have been about the
ministries of reconciliation and unity for a long, long time. I
want our dreams to live. Our dreams help us to put our ultimate trust in the
source of our dreams and in the power of God to help our dreams find life that
speaks to deepest desires. Can we let our dreams live? Yes we can if we dream
and act with bold confidence. When your dreams infuriate others who do not or
will not understand, keep your eyes on the prize and never cease to dream and
reach high. When your dreams invite you into new awareness, invite others to
journey with you. When your dreams invigorate, use your renewed energy for the
good of every community you can influence. That’s what Martin Luther King, Jr.
did, and it is what we are called to do. We
are the ones to whom and in whom God has entrusted the future of this
congregation. We are here in this place in this moment to fulfill our dreams of
a reinvigorated congregation. We
are the beginning of the resurrected Broad Street Christian Church that builds
on our past, understands this present moment of rebuilding and moves with faith
and confidence into our future. Let the dream live and as it does, may it
reflect the vision King described in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. Dr. King said: “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. I believe that what self-centered people have torn down, other centered people can build up. I still believe that one day humanity will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive goodwill will proclaim the rule of the land. ‘And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every one shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid.’ I still believe that we shall overcome. “This
faith can give us courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give
our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the city of
freedom. When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and our nights
become darker than a thousand midnights, we will know that we are living in the
creative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born” (Washington,
p. 226) For
King’s dream, in his honor and memory, by the grace of Jesus Christ, who gives
us the strength to act on our dreams, and for the glory of God almighty, we say,
let it be so. May God give us vision to dream and may our dreams find life in
abundance. Thanks
be to God. Amen. Dr.
LaTaunya M. Bynum |
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Broad
Street Christian Church
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