January 15, 2023

Isaiah 49:1-7; John 1:29-42

He made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me away. And he said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”

This weekend we turn our minds toward a servant of God, one whose mouth was sharp like a sword. One determined like a polished arrow, though one who was not hidden away by any definition. That servant is the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And this weekend we consider what he accomplished in his tragically short life.

Using his full name, we get some of the history of his life. He was a reverend in the Baptist tradition. He was a Doctor of Philosophy, training at nearby Boston University. He was a junior, meaning that he was named after his father, connecting two men in identity as well as by blood. And there is the additional link between those two generations of Baptist preachers and another historic figure, Martin Luther, one of the founding figures of the Protestant Reformation.

I was chatting with a colleague this week about my proposed sermon, placing Martin Luther and MLK side by side. And he pointed out that neither Martin Luther King, Senior or Junior was really named Martin. Their given names were Michael, not Martin. It is unclear how the change came about, whether the senior King made the change or if his own father decided to do so. In more intimate circles, they were known as Big Mike and Little Mike. But to the world, and to history itself, they were known as Martin.

Was there any connection between Martin Luther the sixteenth century religious reformer and Martin Luther King the 20^th century civil rights martyr? Was there any through-line from what one did long ago and what the other accomplished within living memory?

Martin Luther was a Catholic monk who became an academic. Apparently, the abbot of his monastery thought Martin Luther was far too introspective and needed something else to occupy his time. He eventually would become a member of the faculty at the University of Wittenberg, teaching theology.

Luther would also in time have run-in with the Catholic Church over its practice of selling indulgences. By obtaining an indulgence, a sinner would be able to overcome their shortcomings in the eyes of the church and therefore in the eyes of God. The church was said to draw upon the so-called treasury of merit, which was filled with the good works of Jesus and the saints and therefore could be used to blot out the sins of others.

Luther had a problem with essentially buying your way into heaven. He was not a radical in the more common sense of that term, but he disagreed with the efforts of the church’s representatives to basically gin up large sums of money for the rebuilding of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Luther then posted his 95 Theses on the cathedral door in Wittenberg, which he hoped would serve to gather a crowd to his proposed debate on these questions. The Catholic higher ups were a bit more than put off by the proposition. Luther quickly became a heretic in the eyes of the church, leading to a life on the run under the protection of various German princes.

Over time, Luther developed what would be called his two kingdoms theory, much like Augustine’s notion of the City of Man and the City of God. The spiritual kingdom is made up of Christians and as such did not need to concern itself with worldly matters. The temporal and therefore worldly kingdom is made up of rulers and subjects. Christians are members of both kingdoms, saints in the spiritual kingdom and sinners in the temporal kingdom.

And significantly, according to Luther, the temporal kingdom had no authority over the spiritual kingdom. Therefore, secular rulers could not dictate how religious matters would be decided or how the church should be run. This was a formidable stance, on the one hand pushing aside the authority of the Catholic Church and on the other standing apart from the control of the princes and kings of Europe.

But as Luther was drawing up these two different spheres of authority, this also resulted in the spiritual kingdom not having influence over the temporal kingdom. To use a modern notion, the separation of church and state was stark and wide. Which helps when you are trying to avoid the king meddling in the church. But what does it mean when the king is acting against the expectations of the spiritual kingdom? The church stands independently but in many ways it stands silently.

And to stand by silently has consequences. The government can act in amoral or immoral ways and the church can have nothing to say about it. This in part hinges upon the distinction between the City of Man and the City of God described by Augustine. These are two theoretical places, the City of God focused on matters of the spirit and the eternal truths of God. The City of Man is focused on the fleeting pleasures of the world. Obviously, as a religious person, one should be concerned with eternal truth over fleeting pleasures, but that is not the same as saying one should be concerned about heaven at the complete expense of the world. Jesus also spoke of the Kingdom of God, but a close reading of his teachings does not lead to abandoning the world or ignoring the concerns of those in the world.

Martin Luther to some extent was striking a bargain. He was rebelling against the Catholic Church and thought his cause was righteous. To survive long enough to build a church as righteous as his convictions, however, he needed the German princes to shield him and his followers from harm. Luther freed his new church from the influence of princes but, one might observe, he traded away concerns for the world he or his new church might have had. It does not take a historian to see those concessions leading to tragic events in early 20^th century Germany.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was quite different in this way. He was not a Lutheran but this stark balance between church and the world was a feature of the American religious landscape. The United States had fought a civil war to abolish slavery but that sadly did not mean that the legacies of slavery were abolished. Racial discrimination was maintained by a system of laws and traditions that kept freed slaves from ever becoming truly free.

Segregation of whites and blacks became the norm for a century after the Civil War under the fiction of our nation being separate but equal. Separate yes, but never truly equal. And that inequality was enforced by laws. Laws about voting. Laws about schooling. Laws about where Blacks could sit or eat or do anything. And those laws were themselves enforced by violence. The threat of institutional violence that is inherent to any form of government, but also less formal forms of violence, making Blacks fear acting out or speaking up about what was happening.

Even the churches became complicit in this silence. Some white churches were active participants, standing as guardians of a racist system. Some, not all. But many, perhaps most, of the rest went along with that system. It was seen as normal and all for the best—why make a fuss when you aren’t the one suffering?

And besides, there should be a separation between church and state, right? Church should not dirty its higher concerns with worldly matters. This ideal of keeping church nice and tidy had seeped into the woodwork of society. Don’t talk about money, church, or politics. Because if you do, you might not like how the conversation goes.

This was not unique to the white churches. Black churches and Black churchgoers had a very practical reason for not speaking out—if they did so, their risked violence. They risked become an example. The pragmatic response was to stay quiet, to focus on higher causes and higher places. This world was a place of suffering but the next would be a place of rest and repose.

Then came Martin Luther King Jr. He was concerned about the Kingdom of God, of course, but he was far less willing to divorce the City of God from the City of Man. This might be described as holy impatience. Impatience because King was unwilling to wait, unwilling to wait for the world to come when the world right now needed attention.

That sense of impatience grows over the course of King’s ministry. In 1955, he was a polite sounding liberal who thought that making sure Blacks could vote would solve the problem. But that polite tone and liberal content change. This is no longer a scholarly debate. It is a fight for lives.

Notice that this tracks what happened with Martin Luther centuries before. Luther thought he could talk with fellow Catholic priests and professors. If only the bishops heard his tightly woven arguments every one would say, “Of course,” and they could sit down to a nice meal. No such luck.

Dr. King was opposed by his own Baptist denomination that did not support his push for civil rights. Racial discrimination was a social issue, not a religious one. And, by the way, this was truly pretty dangerous territory.

Notice that the walls between church and state are firmly in place. Race is social. Inequality is social. Unjust laws are social. As this logic flows, they have nothing to do with the church. And they have nothing to do with the Bible. Which, to be honest, is utter nonsense.

It may be uncomfortable to think about the Bible in these terms, but the book was frequently at odds with the government of the moment. The Hebrew scriptures are endlessly invoking the judgment of God against the corrupt and unjust ways of the leaders of the time. The prophets call again and again for a return to God’s ways which are just and righteous. This is not what automatically happens through God’s will, however, but what people do in the world.

And the teachings of Jesus are no less radical. He was rejecting the ways of the priests. He was rejecting the lowly social roles of people like the Samaritans. He was having women sit with men, serving as disciples even though women would eventually be excluded once Jesus was gone. And yet Jesus’ lessons are no less radical because centuries of church leaders have chosen to ignore or to distort them.

Martin Luther King, Jr. is picking up those ancient and radical lessons. People are equal as brothers and sisters in the eyes of God. There is no distinction to be drawn between those who are Jewish or Gentile, slave or free. The mention of slaves in the Bible had been used to justify slavery, because the free part is edited out to serve the interests of those more powerful, those more traditional, those more firmly in charge.

Martin Luther broke away from one form of oppression, that of the church. But the cost of that freedom was significant. Giving up any objections to the ways of princes and kings. You stay out of our business, and we will stay out of yours. These leads to massive inequality and social repression. Luther himself would call for the destruction of peasants rebelling against the German rulers. And he would infamously spread anti-Semitic teachings that lead to the horrors of the Holocaust. The twin mistakes of Martin Luther were that the princes should not be beyond the criticism of the church and the church should not be beyond the criticism of the people.

Dr. King was righting those two wrongs, though not explicitly because they resulted from his namesake’s efforts. The so-called social concerns of racism and inequality are not outside the outlook of the church. How can you care about the needs of the poor but not strive to make them not poor?

This is the point when someone might start name-dropping portions of the Sermon on the Mount. Doesn’t it say blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth? Doesn’t it say blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the children of God? Doesn’t it say blessed are the poor for yours is the Kingdom of God? That one is in the Sermon on the Plain, but you get the idea.

Jesus was not singling out the meek because he wanted his followers to be doormats. He was not calling them to be peacemakers so they could ignore every other lesson he had taught about being concerned with the poor. And he did not bless the poor because he wanted them to starve or to suffer.

To be meek is to live with humility. To be a peacemaker is to help bridge the differences and points of discord in society. And to be poor is to be cared about, not ignored, not told to wait for some far often heavenly reward.

Dr. King started off concerned about Black voting rights. But he moved on to the freedom to move about and to exist in this country as equal citizens. The Kingdom of God that the poor were to inherit was not off in heaven but right here on earth. And those who call themselves followers of Jesus would need to concern themselves with making that Kingdom of God on earth.

The reason we call Dr. King “doctor” is that he had a doctorate in philosophy from Boston University. I have read his dissertation which deals with the work of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Weiman. Weiman in particular wrote that God is that which can transform us in this life, to bring about real change in us and thereby in the world. However, King had problems with both Tillich and Weiman because their views of God were in many ways remote and impersonal. King adhered to a theology of personalism, that we engage directly with God and that God in this way has not only a persona but a personality. We engage with God in our lives.

I have my struggles with this image of God, but it illustrates King’s fervent desire to change the world. What would that be like? To encounter God? To engage with God? If we can engage with God, how then do we face God in light of our responses to the world? Are we concerned with others as called for in the call to love our neighbors?

Are we meek, meaning humble, meaning in control of our prideful impulses in lives filled with shortcomings? And are we peacemakers, meaning those who stand ready to make peace? Remember King was a pacifist, a radical who was dedicated to nonviolent change even in the face of violent opposition. Because, I imagine, he would be standing before God. Standing before God explaining what he did and did not do.

Did I fight injustice? Yes. Did I harm my neighbors? No. To have a personal relationship with God is to be aware that our lives are not only ours to live but God’s to see, God’s to know, God’s to celebrate or to lament.

One of the significant changes in Christian theology during the Protestant Reformation was that salvation is through the intervention of God by and through the atonement for human sin through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon the cross. And therefore, human beings cannot be saved by their deeds, or by indulgences from the church, but through God’s grace alone.

Personally, I think that tidy Protestant formula leaves out a lot. And I must confess that I find the idea of eternal damnation for one human lifetime worth of sin to be rather unbalanced. And perhaps my most radical observation on the question of salvation is that human beings are at best throwing darts when it comes to answering such questions. We do not know the answers and we can never truly find out if we guessed right, at least until it is too late to send back word of what we have discovered on the other side.

But a question does occur to me: what would it be like to stand before God? To consider all I did during my life and all that I did not. To consider all that I said and all that I did not. All that I ought to have done and all that I ought not to have done.

And, I will let you in on a secret. I do not believe in hell. I find the idea to be utterly inconsistent with my notion of a loving God. Instead, I think we all return to God. And the story of our lives is what we have to offer God in thanks for our time upon this earth. And whether that is a story to celebrate or to lament remains to be seen.

Seen by God.

So, what might my story be? Will it be filled with action and excitement? Probably not. Will it be filled with great feats and noble achievements? I need to get working on those. Will it be filled with shortcomings and mistakes? Sadly, more than a few. And will it be filled with love for my neighbors, for my family, for my children and now my grandchild? I hope so.

When I think about the life of Martin Luther, I find little appealing in that story. To me at least, he made a bad bargain with the princes of Europe and turned away from the poor and the meek.

When I think about the life and teachings of Jesus, that is a story I choose to tell and retell, a story I try to remember and follow. A story about how to live and a story about what it means to die. A story for the ages and a story for right now.

And when I think about the life and teachings of Martin Luther King, Jr., I find the story compelling. He tried to make this country a better place. A more peaceful, more loving, more just place. He had his struggles and his failings, like all of us, but he told a story with his life that is worth telling again and again.

Not because it was noble. Not because it was even memorable. But because it was a life about caring. Caring that he left the world a better place. The scope of his concerns is larger than most. But we should not concern ourselves with that sort of scorecard.

If I can make a person’s life better in a moment, I should do so. And if I do that more often than not, that will be a good life. A good life and a good story.

And when our time upon this world is done and we all return into the presence of God, may we have a good story to tell. It might have its ups and downs. But if it is a story filled with love for others, even just a few others, that will be a pretty good one. So, my friends, please go out into the world this day and write another page in what I hope will be a very good story. Amen.