Precious Lord Take My Hand: The Spiritual Life of Martin Luther King Jr.
Rev. Tim Temerson
UU Church of Akron
January 20, 2013
Good morning again and welcome to our annual celebration of the life and ministry of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I have to say that this is always one of my favorite services of the year because it provides us with an opportunity to listen, to learn, and to be challenged by Dr. King’s extraordinary voice and vision.
And as you just heard, what a voice it was and still is. Even though Dr. King has been gone for almost 45 years, his words are still so timely, so meaningful, and so reflective of not only the world he lived in but the world we still find ourselves in today. Every time I read or listen to one of Dr. King’s speeches or sermons, I am reminded that the world he dreamed of and worked so hard to build – a world of love and justice and peace for all people – that is the world we still dream of and seek to bring into being.
Sometimes I wonder what Dr. King would say about our world if he were alive today. I imagine that while he would celebrate how much the world has changed and progressed since his day, he would also undoubtedly observe that so much - so much has remained the same.
Think for a moment about the extraordinary events we will witness tomorrow, January 21, 2013. As we celebrate the holiday marking Dr. King’s life and legacy, our nation’s first African American president will take the oath of office for a second term. I have no doubt that Dr. King would be filled with pride and perhaps moved to tears if he was able to witness tomorrow’s inauguration. But at the same time, I imagine that he would take note of the fact that our world, like his, remains broken - broken by poverty and racism, broken by war and violence, broken by despair and hopelessness. How far indeed we have come and yet how far we still have to go.
How I wish we had Dr. King’s voice, his wisdom, and his incredible spirit as we struggle to make sense of our world and to find ways to heal it and make it whole. As I think you heard in those words a few minutes ago, even when the struggle for justice became, as Dr. King said, “dreary with low hovering clouds of despair and darker than a thousand midnights,” he was somehow able to find the strength and the resilience to go on, to keep struggling, and to point the way to hope, to faith, and to love.
How did he do it? Time and again Dr. King and those who struggled alongside him faced anger, hatred, and terrible, terrible violence. Countless activists lost their lives or suffered serious injury, including our own James Reeb, a Unitarian Universalist minister who lost his life in Selma, Alabama when he and two other ministers were brutally attacked.
And yet, in the face of so much violence and hatred, so many angry words and despair-filled moments, the movement carried on and succeeded in ending legalized segregation and in securing voting rights for those who were disenfranchised. And the movement accomplished all this while remaining nonviolent and committed to treating those on the other side as friends rather than as enemies, as fellow human beings rather than as people whose worth and dignity could simply be dismissed or ignored.
I’m not sure we can point to a single factor or cause that enabled such a diverse movement to carry on in the face of so much opposition, so much anger, and so much violence. But one thing that seems clear is that Dr. King and those who struggled alongside him were able to do so because they were part of a movement that was deeply spiritual, a movement that found strength in prayer, in song, and in community – a movement that was grounded in an unshakable faith and confidence in the ultimate goodness and possibilities of life.
Now when I say the Civil Rights movement was spiritual and grounded in faith, I’m not suggesting that the movement owed its success to a particular religion, a particular denomination, or to a particular church. Of course, religions, denominations, and churches played very important roles. But the civil rights movement was bigger and more diverse than any one church or one religious tradition. Christians marched arm and arm with Jews, Catholics with Buddhists and Unitarian Universalists, and evangelicals with atheists and humanists.
But if the movement was not about a particular religion or denomination, it most certainly was infused with spirit, with faith, and with an abiding hopefulness. And if there is one person in whom that spirit and that hopefulness was present, it was Dr. King himself.
And if there is one moment, one single event in Dr. King’s life that exemplified the connection between spirit and justice, between faith and social activism, it was that extraordinary moment, late one night during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, in Dr. King’s kitchen. You’ll recall that after receiving yet another angry and threatening phone call, his spirits sank low and his will grew weak. He soon found himself praying and asking God for help. And in what can only be described as a moment of extraordinary grace, what Dr. King describes as a voice from within urged him to carry on and to stand up for justice. And then Dr. King heard or experienced an overwhelming sense of companionship and connection. He just knew in his heart that no matter how scared or how hopeless he became, he just knew that he would not be alone and that God would never abandon him.
Now I don’t know who or what that voice was or if Dr. King had an actual encounter with God or simply heard the stirrings of his own conscience. And in many ways, I don’t think that really matters. What does matter is that in a moment of deep despair, Dr. King found a path to hope. And how did he do it? He prayed, he breathed, he faced his fears, and he listened. Dr. King understood in that very difficult moment that the struggle for justice requires something more than any one of us can provide on our own. And what the struggle requires is spirit, deep connection, prayer and silence, and perhaps most importantly, humility – the humility to recognize that none of us has all the answers and that we cannot make the journey alone.
And I think it was that basic humility and that openness to spirit and deep connection that enabled Dr. King to lead so effectively and so courageously and to provide the movement with a voice and a presence that gave it strength and vision. That same humility and openness to the spirit carried the civil rights movement through its greatest triumphs and its most heart-breaking setbacks. You can hear it in the songs that gave the movement hope, in the prayers that gave it faith, and in the love and friendship that enabled those who were struggling to know that they too were not struggling alone.
And the essential connection between spirit and justice, between spirituality and social activism, is perhaps best seen in the civil rights movement’s commitment to nonviolence. You see, Dr. King and the leaders of the movement continually reminded those who stood with them that they could never achieve their objectives from a place of anger, vengeance, or hate. As Dr. King so often said, the movement would only achieve peaceful and just ends through peaceful and just means. And as he understood so well, the essential starting point for achieving peace in the world is to have peace in one’s heart. That is why, for example, civil rights protesters were often asked to make a spiritual pledge and commitment in which they promised to engage in self- purification through prayer and meditation, through right conduct and speech, and through service to others. Those of you familiar with Buddhist tradition undoubtedly hear similarities between these requirements and those found in the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path.
And I think it is this bold affirmation of the connection between spirit and justice, between cultivating peace and goodwill in our own lives and creating peace and goodwill in the world – it is that connection that I hope we Unitarian Universalists will continue seeking to embrace and embody. We are a faith that is committed to peace and social justice – committed to building what Dr. King called the Beloved Community. We have been leaders and allies in the struggle to abolish slavery, to end segregation, to secure women’s rights, and to build a society of full and fair participation for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning community.
But sometimes I think in our efforts to heal the world, we don’t take the time needed to heal ourselves and to see the brokenness in our own lives and in our own hearts. As Dr. King learned that night in his kitchen and as so many who stood for justice during the civil rights movement understood, in the struggle for justice it is so very important that we be intentional about our own spirits by taking the time to sing, to pray, to be still, and to listen for the beauty and the holiness that lives in ourselves, in others, and throughout the world.
And if we listen, if we open ourselves to the beauty of deep connection, I think there is something else we will learn and experience in our work for justice. You see, as Dr. King said so well in that excerpt from the speech you heard earlier, when we struggle for justice from a place of inner peace and love we come to realize that we are not struggling alone or in vain. Whether one calls it God, the spirit of life, or simply the beauty and grandeur of the human heart, Dr. King believed that there is a creative presence in this universe whose nature is love – a presence that, as he said so well, “is working to tear down gigantic mountains of evil, a presence that can make a way out of no way and turn dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows.”
And that is perhaps the most important lesson that we can learn from Dr. King’s spiritual life and vision. If we cultivate love and peace in our own lives, we will cultivate the faith and resilience to struggle for justice. We will discover that when we work together to end hunger, to repair our broken immigration system, and to build a more peaceful world, we are living into the fullness of our humanity and living in harmony with the universe. And if we follow Dr. King’s lead and do this work from a place of love, humility, and hope, maybe someday we will sing as Dr. King himself dreamed of singing – “We Have Overcome, deep in our hearts we did believe we would we would overcome.”
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