The Rev. Al Murray
St. Margaret's Episcopal Church & School
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Good Morning! Today we celebrate the life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and I want to say what a wonderful thing we have today at this time for a formal observance, and contributions to Dr. King and the world in general and to America in particular. I want to thank the St. Margaret’s family at this time, Fr. Certain for this opportunity to share on the Feast of the Civil Rights Leader, the slain Civil Right Leader, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Thank you.
I had never met Dr. King but I’ve had the pleasure of seeing him on television while growing up, his many speeches, his marches, people being attacked, police and police dogs, hearing the freedom song and I can remember my mom and dad and my family at times gathering around the television set and holding hands and praying, praying for Dr. King and movement and who would think that years later I would get to attend, if you will, the school of non-violence and social change, to be a part of the first graduating class of Dr. King’s school in Atlanta, and meeting Loretta Scott King and learning how to do sit-ins and boycotts and the list goes on, studying the theology of liberation, and non-violence as well as social change. Who would have thought that after that experience I would attend seminary and sit side by side or in the same class room as Dr. King’s daughter, Bernice King, studying theology together, sitting on committees and boards together. Who would have thought that in a million years, St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church would celebrate Black History Month, The Feast of Dr. King, it’s good to be home. It’s good to be back at to St. Margaret’s and I want to thank you.
Dr. King was born in Atlanta, Georgia, January 15, 1929. Graduate of Morehouse College, he also attended Proser Theological Seminary, it is at that time Dr. King formed his belief that peaceful, non-violet protest against laws, he believed unjust, peaceful non-violent protest against the laws, was a way to bring about change. After attending Boston University, Dr. King moved to Montgomery, Alabama, where he became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and it was here at a meeting of civic leaders he was called to consider the arrest of Rosa Parks. Mrs. Parks had been arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white person on a public bus. The leaders formed the Montgomery Improvement Association and elected Dr. King as their president and from that movement, from that vote, they decided to form a public bus boycott which lasted for over 380 days and the strategy worked so in 1956 as a result of that bus boycott, the Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was unconstitutional. In 1957, Dr. King was found as President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and later in 1964, Dr. King was awarded the Nobel Peace prize, so here we are, here we are today, April 4th.
April 4, 1968, some 38 years ago, Dr. met with an assassins bullet, assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee at the Larraine Hotel, so we honor him today, we honor this man who had a vision, this man who had a dream, a vision, a dream, that someday his four children would live in a nation where they would not be judged by the color of their skin, but judged by the content of their character. And as an African-American this morning, I don’t apologize, I’m not ashamed to celebrate the life history and culture of my people and I want to say this country, I love America, no doubt for some of us America may not be a very good place but it’s the best place on earth.
America may not be a perfect place but after serving as a Navy Chaplain and traveling around the world there is no better place than the United States. Now there are some things I would like to say about my country, and about our country - you see, I don’t like this racism I don’t like its pictures, its injustice, the way it throws away old people and idolizes youth. I disdain the polarization of human groups around issues that ultimately have no value because we have more in common that indifference. And the question which arises therefore, is we live in a country, we live in America which is so diverse and one has to ask, what other country on earth can boast of giving so many experiences to so many people, so many different lineages, and ethnic background – America.
Think of the great Howard Thurman, who said that the American experiment is the very mind of God doing the new thing in human history, so do we see this in our first lesson this morning, the lessons from Exodus the central truth about the scripture lesson from Exodus and Moses in leading the Hebrew people out of Africa. Moses had to prepare them to develop spiritually so that they could remain and sustain through the wilderness, they could be sustained through hard times. It’s a faith that allows the Hebrews to overcome the challenges of their daily encounters and just as Moses encouraged the Hebrews, Dr. King encouraged black folk and challenged us and challenged this nation to re-define themselves and the potential for self-worth.
Oh, the thing , I think, that touches me so deeply about the Civil Rights Movement, are the Freedom Songs, Songs like “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around, I’m gonna keep on walkin, I’m gonna keep on talkin, I’m gonna keep on marchin, to the Promise Land, ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around.” Then there’s the famous, “We shall overcome, we shall overcome, we shall overcome. Someday - ohohohoh deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall overcome someday.” So you see, the freedom songs, the marches, the speeches, the Civil Rights Movement conferred on us as a people, a positive identity - a larger community and culture and society tried to desperately reduce and redefine us as persons of no value — and you see this problem continuing today.
Many of the images of black persons in the large media are negative images - we seem virtually always defined as a problem rather than as a problem solver. The negative images disseminated in the media, all helped to define us from a deficit prospective as being a people in need, rather than a people of great resources. And the rest of the society define Blacks as second class citizens, the church, our church, our spirituality, lifted us up as Children of God - worthy of God’s greatest gift and worthy of God’s greatest blessing - that’s why because of God’s grace and because of God’s blessing and because of God’s gift, we as African-Americans have built pyramids and originated the mathematical medical and physical sciences. We invented the first alphabet and gave to humanity it’s first language and systems of civil and political government. We have made our mark in literature and letters, our writers range from Socrates to Aesop to William Shakespeare, Alexandra Dumas and Alexander Pushkin from Ralph Elliston from Tony Morrison, from W. E. V. Dubois and Carter G. Woodstonk.
We are a people of music - AMEN. We are people of culture, Halleluiah. A people of industry among us Ludwig Van Beethoven , Franz Josef Hayden as well as John Coltrane, Winton Marcellus, Marian Anderson, Kathleen Battle, Louise Barringer, and Paul Robinson.
We have built some of the greatest monuments in the world and have made some of the greatest discoveries and inventions in the world - ranging from the fountain pen to the ironing board - from the electric lamp to the lubricators of steam engines and intricate systems of refrigeration, we have built highways and bi-ways, and bridges on American soil and fought in American wars and earned her medals, her sweat, blood and brawn, lay the economic foundation of America’s capitalistic system - and our mothers and our grandmothers nursed white babies while our men bore the brunt of the overseers latch, while working from sun-up to sun-down.
I’m glad Dr. King had a vision, I’m glad that Dr. King had a dream that one day his children, and my children and your children will live in a land where they won’t be judged by color of their skin but by the contents of their character. And as I’ve told you this morning, as we move through this Lenten Season, and as Easter approaches us readily, let us remember, let us be reminded that our success in this nation will not only be based on how well we continue to practice our faith but how well we instill our American history, my history is your history. How well we instill that history, in our children, and in our children’s children in those same values, however, as this world becomes more complex, we still need some church, we need a faith that will sustain us through difficult times and troublesome times. When levees cave in and when we are faced on voting on new immigration laws, I need you to place an AMEN there - we need a power, and a power to hold on to, and a God to keep trust in, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as lifeblood of our health and as the lifeblood of our vitality.
We must keep the faith, we must remain strong, we must get stronger and I’m thankful today that Dr. King had a dream because I would not be able to stand in St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church today to share with you Dr. King and those in the Civil Rights Movement - when our proud people and a gifted people telling us that this land is our land.
I would like to close with a closing that Dr. King delivered in his speech at Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C. on August 28, 1963, and I think it says it all and I quote “This will be the day, this will be the day when all God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning, ‘My country tis of thee sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing, land where my father’s died, land of Pilgrim’s pride, from every mountain side, let freedom ring’ and if America is going to be a great nation this must become true and so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Allegheny’s of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California but not only that, let freedom ring from Stone Mountain, Georgia, let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain, of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and mole hill of Mississippi from every mountainside, let freedom ring and when this happens we allow freedom to ring. We let freedom ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews, and gentiles, protestants and Catholics will be able to join hands and sing the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we’re free at last’”.
Amen.
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