Sunday Sermon with Dr. King #4
Love in Action
“Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
~Luke 23:34
This sermon was believed to have been written on April 3, 1960 from within a jail in Georgia**. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I were in jail, I would be very upset and NOT be writing a sermon about forgiving my oppressors for what they have done. This blog series is not only to highlight a historical giant, but for me to reflect on my purpose and by extension, the purpose of Education Mosaic, thus allowing my readers and followers to learn what this is all about. But back to the general message of the sermon*, which is two-fold: match words with action and don’t stay ignorant. Now, that’s the oversimplified version because the genius that I am attempting to discuss delves much more deeply into each of these messages, ending with an overall theme that love in action reflecting on Jesus’ crucifixion means that his forgiveness was a part of his being and his oppressors acted upon human blindness. Let’s break these two down. First, matching words to action. Then, recognizing and rejecting intellectual and spiritual blindness.
“We proudly profess certain sublime and noble principles, but on the other hand, we sadly practice the very antithesis of those principles” (p. 32). Dr. King is referring to matching words with actions, practice and profession, doing and saying. I like to call this integrity. Dr. King lists several examples of how humans do not practice this regularly. One in particular is talking about peace, while preparing for war. I pray the attacks on Ukraine end soon. It’s highly troubling and saddening to just hear about the tragedies. I can’t imagine living through it as they are. This is directly opposite to what most of the world would want to see: peace instead of war. This is an illustration of the dichotomy of “the agonizing gulf between the ought and the is...the tragic theme of man’s earthly pilgrimage” (p. 33). There ought to be a way to find peace in this situation, sparing so many lives, yet the violence continues. Dr. King cites how Jesus was the epitome of bridging this chasm, this human separation between words and actions. He spent his life and ministry practicing forgiveness, so when it came to the brutal way his life ended, forgiveness was already a part of his being, a permanent attitude. In his own agony and pain, he pleads with his father to forgive his oppressors. Dr. King also discusses how an eye for an eye, or the “law of revenge solves no social problems…history is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path” (p. 35). And today, history continues to repeat itself with tragedy, war, refugee situations happening all over the world.
Jesus also said, “They know not what they do.” He saw his oppressors as being intellectually and spiritually blind. Dr. King discusses how the people who nailed Jesus to the cross were not bad, but blind. He provides several examples where oppressors thought they were doing right. However, Dr. King also states, “This tragic blindness expresses itself in many ominous ways on our own day” (p. 36). Specifically, those who choose war are not evil people but people who are “robed in the garments of patriotism” (p. 36). They believe that acting out in war is better than the alternative. Dr. King believed that “wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete” (p. 36), that based on the destructive power of modern weapons and the caliber of machinery that exists that can even get us into space, there should be the sense that the calamitous result of war would be tragic levels of “human suffering, political turmoil, and spiritual disillusionment” (p. 36-37). This was 61 years ago. Dr. King continues this sentiment of “knowing better” during slavery and segregation. White oppressors were so brainwashed, where they believed all the fake religion, science, and philosophy of the time, which taught how Black people were inferior. This sanctioned the doctrine of white supremacy, embedding it everywhere from textbooks to pulpits, and the Supreme Court with the Dred Scott decision*** (1857) which affirmed that “the Negro had no rights that the white man was bound to respect” (p. 38). Dr. King believed that: “The justices who rendered this decision were not wicked men. But they were victims of spiritual and intellectual blindness. They knew not what they did. The whole system of slavery was largely perpetuated by sincere though spiritually ignorant persons'' (p. 38). Agree or disagree with Dr. King on this point? I think it’s up for debate. Were White oppressors during slavery evil or just ignorant? Please comment with your thoughts on this topic.
Dr. King ends the sermon with the idea that if we are Christians, we are charged to not remain intellectually and morally blind. I will extend this notion that, as humans wanting a peaceful society, we are responsible to be kindhearted and conscientious. Dr. King says that staying in a state of not being kindhearted and lacking conscience is dangerous. He also says that the call for becoming more intelligent involves having “open mindedness, sound judgment, and love for truth” (p. 40). I think that in the state of the perils of the world, it truly is up to us, one by one, to build a strength to love others so much that we have difficult conversations to reverse ignorance and become the peaceful world that many of us idealize.
*King, M. L. (1963). Strength to love. New York: Harper & Row.
**https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/love-action-i
***https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/dred-scott-case