(Audio)
Well I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land.
Less than 24 hours after delivering this speech, Martin Luther King was dead. One bullet, through the neck severed his spinal cord. The ironic part was this speech was not planned. King was in Memphis to support the sanitation workers' strike but had been sick that day. Ralph Abernathy, his closest friend, went to the Charles Mason Temple, to speak in King's place. But once Abernathy was at the hall, he knew that the audience would be sorely disappointed if they could not see King. Abernathy called King, who was at his motel, and begged him to please come down for a quick walk-on – just so the crowd could see him. King agreed, and arrived at the hall, still sick, about 20 minutes later.
According to Abernathy and others who were there, something happened to King when he walked on stage. Like all the energy that had been sapped away by being sick was restored – almost by an electric jolt – from the energy in the crowd. King walked to the podium and, like a man in a trance, delivered – extemporaneously – the “I've been to the mountaintop” speech. It's more than a speech: it's a sermon.
It's a sermon rich in Biblical allusions – Moses, the Promised Land, the release of the Israelites from slavery – and it is steeped in the prophets of the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible. It's a little dangerous to group all the prophets together, but if one theme connect them all it is this:
Amos 5.24: “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
King was in Memphis for justice – a simple living wage for the city's sanitation workers. And throughout his short life, he proclaimed the message of righteousness: that the promissory note that the Founding Fathers wrote in the Constitution to the “Negro,” as King said – that all men – ALL – are created equal, all men and women, that promissory note had turned into bad check, a check marked “insufficient funds.”
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Last week, we saw Jesus being baptized in the Jordan . Today we find him, a mere 13 verses later back in Nazareth . Those intervening verses contain the account of the temptation in the wilderness. We all know this story. Jesus is out in the desert, gets tempted but, in the end, bests the devil.
I particularly like the way that Martin Scorcese depicted this in “The Last Temptation of Christ.” He really humanized it, and showed Jesus scared and agonizing in the wilderness, beset by fears and doubts and unseen beings. In many cultures, this is seen as the purification process for one who will become the voice of God. For one who will become a prophet.
In Native American culture, this is called, as I'm sure you know, the Vision Quest. Where the young person of remarkable ability has to go off on his or her own and conquer their inner demons. Then, and only then, will that person be ready to prophecy.
Because as a prophet, there will be all kinds of other demons to contend with. External demons. And one's inner strength will be sorely tested.
You see, prophet is a godawful job.
Oh sure, it sounds glamorous. But every single prophet in the Old Testament, at one time or another, says to God: “What's up with this? I'm just telling people what you told me to tell them, and next thing I know they're throwing rocks at me and running me out of town on a rail!!”
Remember that old Willie Nelson song “Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys”? Same applies to prophets. Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be prophets. Let them be doctors and lawyers and such. And you won't have to worry about them.
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Martin Luther King's wilderness was inside a jail during April, 1963, in Birmingham , Alabama . King had been jailed by Bull Connor, the Police Chief of Birmingham , for participating in voting demonstrations. It is important to remember that this was 1963, because the next part of this story is going to seem a little strange. While King was in jail, the clergy in Birmingham wrote an open letter which asked King to slow down. They implored him to take it easy, lighten up, let things cool down for a while.
This was his temptation: slow down, and you can have our support. Continue and you're on your own.
King's reply was the famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” The first part of the letter was smuggled out of the jail, written on scraps of the very newspaper where the open letter had appeared. King said:
But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I. compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.
King did not succumb to the temptation for safety, for security, or for what certainly could have been a much easier road. His place was with the poor, the disenfranchised. For better or worse, that was the road he was on
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And so Jesus is back in Nazareth , his hometown. We've looked at several different ways of seeing Jesus over the past few months. But here in Luke, there is little question of what tradition Jesus is coming out of. It is the prophetic tradition.
We read today that Jesus enters the synagogue and someone hands him the scroll of Isaiah. No doubt the intention here was that Jesus would read from the scroll, as was custom, and then a discussion would follow. More reading, more discussion.
But Jesus pick up the scroll, and unrolls it until he finds the 61 st Chapter of Isaiah. He reads to the assembled crowd: “The spirit of God is upon me, and I am the anointed one. I have come to bring good news to the poor, and to free the captives.” Then he rolls up the scroll, gives it back, and says: “What you've just heard, that's me. I'm here to do that.”
Well, to say the least, that was a little surprising to those gathered in the synagogue. Imagine if I read something like John the Baptist's remarks that “someone greater than me is coming who shall baptize you with fire and the Holy Spirit.” And then I stopped and said, “Oh, and by the way, that's me. Yea, I'm that guy.” Well, I can imagine the reaction. If you read Luke closely, those gathered in the synagogue are not amused. There is a subtle, yet quite sarcastic insult leveled at Jesus:
“Is this not Joseph's son?”
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“He's an uppity little nigger.”
I can't count the number of times I heard that in my relative's homes.
J. Edgar Hoover sent tapes of extramarital trysts he had recorded to King with notes saying, “I think it's about time you killed yourself.”
The night that King died, I was a 16 year-old cashier working at the First National on top of Gypsy Hill in Roslindale. The buzz – that always-identifiable bad-news buzz – snapped through the store like static electricity. Just after I heard what had happened, a woman came through my register and asked me what had happened.
I said: “Martin Luther King's been shot.”
“Is he dead?” she asked.
I said “I think so.”
“Good,” she replied.
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After Jesus made his remarks in the synagogue in Nazareth , the people ran him out of town. Literally. They chased him to try to drive him off a cliff, but he escaped.
But not before he says that famous line “A prophet is never accepted in his hometown.” Actually, I prefer the King James translation which says, “No prophet is accepted in is own country.”
Preaching justice, preaching the good news to the poor, preaching freedom to the captives is just as unwanted today as it was 35 years ago or 2,000 years ago.
How many people have tomorrow off?
That's sad. Because Martin Luther King Day the best of who we are as Americans and the best of who we are as Christians. It is a day that honors the Constitution and the lightning bolt of liberty that is contained in the phrase “all men – and women – are created equal.” And it continues the prophetic traditions of Jesus to bring good news to the poor and freedom to the captives.
That we don't recognize tomorrow for what it is, truly is our loss.
