This is a great day. It’s wonderful to see such a beautiful group of people here today. We have a rainbow of folks from our three congregations, diverse in the way we look and in our religious beliefs. And yet we have something important in common, don’t we. We are a bunch of maladjusted folks.
Today we are here to celebrate a man who was not only maladjusted but he taught many of us to be maladjusted as well. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. told us in one of his sermons:
Everybody passionately seeks to be well-adjusted. ... But there are some things in our world to which ... (those) of goodwill must be maladjusted. I confess that I never intend to become adjusted to the evils of segregation and the crippling effects of discrimination, to the moral degeneracy of religious bigotry and the corroding effects of narrow sectarianism, to economic conditions that deprive (people) of work and food, and to the insanities of militarism and the self- defeating effects of physical violence.
Then Dr. King went on to say:
Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.
... We must make a choice. Will we continue to march to the drumbeat of conformity and respectability, or will we, listening to the beat of a more distant drum, move to its echoing sounds? Will we march only to the music of time, or will we, risking criticism and abuse, march to the soulsaving music of eternity?
The kind of maladjustment Dr. King referred to is a refusal to tolerate the evils of society; it is the refusal to condone, by action or inaction, the persecution and abuse of our fellow human beings; and it is the refusal to accept the dehumanization of racism.
Martin learned to be maladjusted from his father, Daddy King, who was the minister of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Once he was with Daddy when a white policeman stopped the car and said, “Boy, show me your license.” “You see this child here?” Daddy replied, pointing to Martin. “That’s a boy there. I’m a man. I’m Reverend King.”
“When I stand up,” Daddy King once said, “I want everybody to know that a man is standing. No body can make a slave out of you if you don’t think like a slave.”Martin grew up thinking like a man and not a slave, and that wasn’t easy in a segregated society where black people were constantly humiliated and dehumanized. But Martin decided early in his life to be maladjusted to such a society, to reject the presumptions and bigotry of those in power and instead to gravitate to those who have struggled against injustice throughout history.
Martin embraced the Christ of the poor and powerless, not the Christ of the privileged and powerful. He found a mentor in Mohandas Gandhi, the great Hindu prophet who used nonviolence to repel the British from India.
But Martin King did not go out seeking a position of leadership. He was called to the Dexter Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama in 1954 to replace the great prophetic preacher, Vernon Johns, who, ironically, was forced to resign because of his controversial political stands. What an irony.
The congregation saw in Dr. King a minister who would not rock the boat, who would be a pastor, not a prophet. They had no idea they were getting such a maladjusted minister.
Martin might have been satisfied with the role of a pastor, except that one day a little seamstress was going home on a bus after a long, hard day, when the bus driver told her to move to the back of the bus so a white man could sit in her seat. What do you think Rosa Parks said to that bus driver?
Yes, Rosa Parks said that her feet were too tired for her to move to the back of the bus. But she was definitely maladjusted, wasn’t she? And by that simple act of refusal and rebellion, Rosa Parks got a lot of other people maladjusted, including Martin Luther King, Jr. himself.
Dr. King, being the most prominent black minister in town was asked to be the leader of the Montgomery Improvement Association that organized the bus boycott and ignited the torch which became the Civil Rights Movement. King told his followers that, “Unarmed love is the most powerful force in the world,” and they made unarmed love change the world.
In April, 1963, Dr. King was arrested for leading peaceful demonstrations against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. While sitting in jail, King read a letter written to him by eight prominent religious leaders in Birmingham that told him that his movement was untimely and unwise. I guess they thought he was maladjusted. King’s response is one of the most powerful pieces of protest literature in our time. He writes in his Letter From the Birmingham Jail these words:
My dear fellow clergymen:
...I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Moreover I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of ... all communities. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.
...We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor. It must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a ... campaign that was "well-timed" in view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation.
...There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and [people] are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair.
The eight clergymen never replied to Dr. King’s letter because his words were unanswerable.
Then on August 28th, 1963, there was a massive march on our nation’s capital, right over there across the river. A quarter of a million people showed up to tell our leaders to pass the Voting Rights Bill and Civil Rights legislation. I imagine some of you were there. Please raise your hand if you were...
I wish I could been there to hear Dr. King deliver one of the most memorable speeches ever made by an American. There on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, he proclaimed:
I have a dream that one day men and women will rise up and come to see that they are made to live together as brothers and sisters. I still have a dream that everyone will be judged on the basis of the content of their character rather than the color of their skin, and everyone will respect the dignity and worth of human personality...
I remember hearing about Dr. King’s speech as a 16 year old growing up in the racist environment of Jacksonville, Florida. Like all those around me, I too was a racist. But those words of Dr. King’s began to melt my heart.
Then he came to St. Augustine, Florida, in 1964 to protest against segregation in that community. His appearance produced a hateful, enraged response.
At first, I was angry as well. I remember seeing billboards along the highways throughout the South with pictures of Dr. King in a so-called "communist training school." During those turbulent years I constantly heard loathing for the Civil Rights movement and the blacks who refused to accept their subservient role. I was taught to hate Dr. King and all he stood for.
But there was something inside me that was skeptical about the portrayal of Martin Luther King as a demon, that refused to believe a black person was any less human or capable than those of us with white skin. Then, when I heard his words of love and justice, I was able to face my own prejudices and reject my racism. Dr. King taught me to get maladjusted.
But it’s dangerous to be maladjusted, isn’t it? Prophetic visionaries are threats, threats to those who are adjusted to the status quo, who are benefitting from a system that is stacked against the poor, the outcast, the powerless. Dreamers stand on the mountaintop and see a vision of what can be instead of what is. But there are those who only want what is.
How does society deal with the threat of the dreamer? There is a deep down fear on the part of the powerful that the dreamer may give hope to those who have given up hope. They fear that getting maladjusted could be contagious, that an eloquent and ethical prophet could motivate people to actually change our society, to end the privilege of the powerful, and bring justice and jubilation where only oppression and despair existed before.
So throughout history the most common tactic to kill the dream has been to kill the dreamer. Jesus, Gandhi, the Kennedy’s, Malcolm X -- Martin Luther King, Jr -- and so many more. The dreamers have fallen one by one. But has the dream died?
No, it has not, and that has been the mistake of the madmen who murder the dreamers. They are foolish enough to think that when they kill the dreamer, they kill the dream. In reality, when one of our prophets dies, the dream is fueled and the flame burns even brighter.
Martin Luther King struggled against injustice in many forms. And I believe he would tell us today that to keep the dream alive we must get maladjusted about what is going on in our own time. I believe he would tell us to get maladjusted about:
- an intolerant racism that continues to divide our nation and destroy the moral fabric of our nation;
- an economic system that allows a few to gain inordinate wealth at the expense of a growing number of impoverished;
- a society that still does not guarantee every child the right to an adequate diet, housing, education, and health care;
- a government that wants to spend billions of dollars on a defensive missile system instead of defending Americans from the hostility and violence of hate groups;
- a judicial system that solves our social problems by throwing millions of young, black men into prison and that executes a disproportionate number of African Americans;
- a democratic process that robs black people of their votes;
- a president-elect who nominates a man as the chief law enforcement officer of our nation with impeccable credentials for racism, anti-feminism, and homophobia.
There are many other issues Dr. King would challenge us to confront, but most of all he would challenge us to change ourselves. He would tell us that the most terrible enemy we must fight is within us. It is that part of us that hates those who are different, that strikes out in violence, that remains silent in the face of oppression.
Dr. King said that: "Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear, only love can do that. Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illumines it..."
Dr. King’s dream was of a beloved community made up of all of humanity, of all colors, religions, ways of life, and nationalities. It's a dream that all people will be free to participate equally in America. He said that,
Whenever (the dream) is fulfilled, we will emerge from the bleak and desolate midnight of man’s inhumanity to man into the bright and glowing daybreak of freedom and justice for all of God's children.
Dr. King would want all of us to work together to create the beloved community. Our three churches are creating the beloved community here today. My dream, and I know Rev. Smith’s and Father Duaime’s and Rev. Gelbein’s dream is that we will continue working together to fight racism and injustice and violence and to build the beloved community together.
Are you maladjusted enough to do that? I hope so. It’s a lot of hard work, but it is also a joyful and jubilant journey we are on. In the words of Dr. King:
Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter — but beautiful - - struggle for a new world. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell ... (our sisters and brothers) the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full ... (persons), and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the costs? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.
I ask you, in the name of Martin Luther King, to choose to be creatively maladjusted, to struggle against injustice and to manifest your love for the betterment of all humanity.
I say, Amen, Amen, and Amen.
BENEDICTION:
In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.,:
“If a [person] happens to be 36 years old, as I happen to be, and some great truth stands before the door of his life, some great opportunity to stand up for that which is right and that which is just, and he refuses to stand up because he wants to live a little longer and he is afraid his home will get bombed, or he is afraid that he will lose his job, or he is afraid that he will get shot... he may go on and live until he's 80, and the cessation of breathing in his life is merely the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.
“[A person] dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. [A person] dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true. So we are going to stand up right here... letting the world know we are determined to be free.”Let us do just that. Let us stand up right here letting the world know the members of these three churches are determined to be free and to help others be free. Let us carry on the struggle of Martin Luther King, Jr., so that his dream and our dream will become a reality.
Shalom, Salaam, Blessed Be, and Amen.
