Dr. Martin Luther King
Preached at St. Andrew Cathedral, Little Rock, AR (Source: Facebook)
Every child needs heroes and as any of you who have ever heard my vocation story knows, one of my greatest heroes is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. whom I regard as one of the greatest Americans who ever lived. I remember very well the day he was killed—I was 14 years old and in the 8th grade. From him I learned that being a faithful Christian means more than just saying your own prayers and trying to get your own soul into heaven. Rather, it means doing what Jesus did, living for something bigger than yourself, working to build God’s kingdom of truth and justice already in some measure here and now in this world, and this includes defending human rights. I learned this following his assassination from the television coverage of his life and legacy of non-violent resistance to evil…and soon his dream became my dream as well.
The difference between a hero and any other important historical figure is the way that a hero’s courageous self-sacrifice inspires us to live up to the best that is in us, and that ability to inspire can become even more powerful with the passage of time. Dr. King’s ability to articulate his dream of what we could and should be has changed our understanding of what it is to be an American more profoundly than most people realize even today. And not just because we are about to inaugurate our first African-American president, miraculous as that is to those of us who remember what things were like 51 years ago when Dr. King’s life and work seemed to come to an end.
Also amazing is the fact that President-elect Obama’s race was not the main issue in the campaign! A majority of Americans, including a majority of white Americans, were convinced that he was simply the best man for the job! That’s the dream that Dr. King articulated so eloquently at the Lincoln Memorial 45 years ago when he said so famously: “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 join you and a majority of Americans in rejoicing that such dreams really can come true…but we shouldn’t forget that it hasn’t been easy, that a price had to be paid for this dream to come true, a steep price of courage, self-sacrifice and in many instances, blood. And we must not let the joy we feel today blind us to the fact that much of Dr. King’s dream still remains unrealized for far too many people still trapped in lives of poverty and hopelessness—dreaming alone does not make dreams come true! Hard work is required and we still have a long way yet to go and a lot left to do!
Dr. King could never have known how his life and death started two 14 year old boys born 6 weeks apart in neighboring states down a path that would eventually lead them both to the priesthood—one living in Oklahoma who would later be your bishop and the other in Conway, Arkansas who would one day be the first African American ordained for the diocese of Little Rock. Nor would Dr. King ever know how his teaching regarding the defense of human rights of African Americans would inspire reflection on the human rights implications of other unjust situations and lead, for instance, to the publication of my recent pastoral letter on the Human Rights of Immigrants…some of whom, by the way, are immigrants from Africa. There were very few immigrants from Africa during Dr. King’s lifetime because the United States did not become an attractive destination for African immigrants until the human rights of African American were protected. What African in their right mind would want to immigrate to the Jim Crow South…or even the more discretely hateful U.S. North?
But to return to my topic: Why was Dr. King’s dream so on target that it continues to inspire us today, in fact perhaps even more today than it did 50 years ago when there was the distraction of other discordant voices? I think it is because his dream was that of Jesus Christ. Dr. King was not a politician, he was a prophet and more than a prophet. He was a man whose whole life was given over to the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in its entirety. Jesus was HIS greatest hero, along with Mahatma Gandhi. Jesus and Gandhi taught him non-violent resistance to evil and Jesus also taught him to trust in God even when there was a price to pay in order to set us free, even to the point of shedding his blood, just like Jesus whose servant he was.
Dr. King’s attitude was captured very well in the Responsorial Psalm for this Mass: “Here I am Lord, I come to do your will” and especially the last verse: “I announced your justice” (“your justice”, not just Dr. King’s personal agenda. He was so effective because God’s truth was so evident in his words!) “I have announced your justice in the vast assembly; I did not restrain my lips, as you, O Lord, know.”
Bishop Anthony Taylor
And I ask you, what was the greatest obstacle that Dr. King had to overcome? It wasn’t hatefulness, as awful as that was. The greatest obstacle was fear. Racism is rooted in fear, otherwise decent people kept silent out of fear, even some African-Americans held back out of fear. And what was the greatest thing Dr. King had to offer? Hope! Hope is stronger than fear and his dream was an expression of that hope. In today’s world fear still reigns in many quarters. Fear leads to abortions to end inconvenient pregnancies and I have to believe that as proud as Dr. King would be of President-elect Obama, he would not approve of Obama on that one point. Indeed, Dr. King’s niece, Dr. Alveda King said recently, “The election of an African American president sends a powerful and historic message that what was previously unthinkable can become reality. The battle for equal rights has reached a major milestone, but Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream of full equality remains just a dream as long as unborn children continue to be treated no better than property.” And then Dr. King—Dr. Alveda King—added, “We must pray with persistence and love that, in God’s time, what is now deemed unthinkable will become reality—that all our brothers and sisters, from conception to natural death, will be protected in law and welcomed in society. The elections are over. The pro-life battle begins anew.”
Fear also leads to the application of the death penalty, which still today falls more heavily on African Americans and other people of Color who languish in our prisons. Fear leads to almost any evil or injustice you can think of—euthanasia in some states, mistreatment of immigrants, and so on. Out of fear we forget Dr. King’s fundamental message that we are all brothers and sisters, and that life is sacred. If life isn’t sacred, why bother to make sacrifices to do the right thing? Who cares? We care because life is sacred and that’s also why we don’t give up hope. So if we still share the dream and if we want that dream to stay alive, then in the words of today’s Responsorial Psalm, we must not “restrain our lips” either, especially when human rights and human dignity continue to be violated, no matter who the victim and no matter what the source of that threat! And isn’t that Dr. King’s legacy? Of course it is! Just ask Jesus himself, the source of the dream!
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