The point of this weekend is not to celebrate all that MLK was. You need not belabor [h]is sins. The point is to lift up some magnificent things he stood for and some necessary and amazing achievements of the civil rights era in which he was a key leader. We are Christians and can see these things in the light of providence and the gospel. Let everything point to Christ and him crucified. Consider Revelation 5:9 if you wonder whether ethnic diversity and ethnic harmony are Jesus-blood issues.Well, I will not be preaching or teach a class today, but I do have this forum. And, I think I understand his argument. I've often avoided talk of Martin Luther King, Jr, not because of his race, but because of theological position and his known sins. What I think Piper is asking me to consider is not King's sin, but our society's sin, even my sin. That is the sin of racism.
Much of the discussions about racism and ethnic disharmony are very frustrating to me because 1) people tend to talk past each other, and 2) people tend to point a finger at everyone but themselves. As far as I see it, racism currently is a multi-sided problem. No one race is the owner of racist tendencies. I believe that people of every race have to deal with this sin. And further, I believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ has the only adequate answer for racism.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)____________________
Martin Luther King, Jr. was called to pastor the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama in 1954. The church had recently asked their previous pastor to step down due to rising tensions over some of his heated sermons, and they were looking for a calmer, more peaceful leader in King. In his second year at the church King was drawn into the mix of the Montgomery bus boycott which had been sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks. Being young and an able speaker, King was the leader of choice for the emerging civil rights movement.King continued to lead the black community and quickly became a national figure. His leadership was marked by a plea for love and justice. He argued that the struggle for civil rights ought to remain "on the high plane of dignity and discipline."
The Supreme Court ruled against segregation in 1954 and 1955, and Congress passed civil rights acts in 1957, 1960, 1964 and 1965.
In a sermon preached on June 5, 1910, Francis J. Grimke asks,
The church ought to begin to do something. What can it do? In what way or ways may it help overthrow this giant evil? It can help to do it in the same way as Jesus sought to meet race antipathy and an adverse and unrighteous public sentiment in His day.... In the midst of the society in which Jesus lived and moved there was the strongest possible feeling of aversion to certain classes known as publicans and sinners.... [reference Luke 19:5 and 7:39]... In the midst of such conditions Jesus began his great life's work. Did He fall in with the prejudices of his time? Did he allow Himself to be controlled by the unrighteous public sentiment about Him? No. He did the very opposite of that. He showed clearly, unmistakably where He stood, what His principles were. And this He did in two ways--by what He taught and by the life He lived.This sermon, in my opinion, is an awkward one because it is a message for white Christians addressed to black Christians. Hardly an edifying way to preach. However, he never would have had the opportunity to preach it to a white audience, but they needed to hear it. Many of his statements are still worth considering and we are grateful that it has been preserved for us. May we truly live the gospel in word and deed as did our Savior!
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Source Referenced:
- Larry Witham, A City Upon a Hill: How Sermons Changed the Course of American History. (HarperOne, 2007).
- Thabiti M. Anyabwile. The Faithful Preacher: Recapturing the Vision of Three Pioneering African-American Pastors. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007).
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