in honor of the legacy of rev. dr. martin luther king jr., here is what i preached. i am deeply aware this week that his dream is far from reached, that we still have much work to do to make God's beloved community real.
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Let us pray.
God, we are grateful for the ancestors of our faith, those who lived by the Spirit, from Moses, to Elijah, to John the Baptist, through the early days of our faith, through the Reformation through today. They all spoke your word to their people. We ask this morning that as we celebrate the life and work of a particular saint- the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., that you continue to speak to us through his words and his work, his life and his ministry. Our hearts are open to your Spirit and our minds are open to your Word. May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to you today. Amen.Corinth was a a mess. It was falling apart at the seams. An infant of a faith community, it's larger society was not friendly to it, but internal struggle was causing more damage to this community than anything else. People fought over who to follow. Some flaunted their wealth, claiming authority because of their class. Others claimed earthly wisdom as spiritual wisdom. Access to worship and to the Lord's supper was not equal. Disputes often erupted over what was the best way to worship God.
Paul had a long relationship with this community. What read in our Bible as two letters was probably three or four letters. We know that he wrote even more than that. In the community at Corinth, he saw the manifestation of the Spirit. He saw deep faith. But, he also knew their dysfunction. And so, over time, he walked with them, as a guide, a shepherd, a leader. He loved them.
His most basic premise was this: your community should reflect what you believe about God and each other. Your community should reflect your relationship with Christ. It is only by the Holy Spirit that we can confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. It is only by the Holy Spirit that we can be united by that confession.
He challenged the community at Corinth to live in a way that reflected their faith, that reflected the presence of the Spirit among them. In this particular passage, he wants to set the record straight. People have been claiming authority based on their spiritual gifts, setting up a hierarchy where they are given importance based on the gifts they have been given. Paul is appalled.
First, the source of anything spiritual is God, not the individual members of the community. Second, the variety of gifts reflects the variety of people given spiritual gifts... and we are all given spiritual gifts. Finally, spiritual gifts are not the basis for award or self-promotion, they are given for the benefit of the whole community.
When we know that we are loved by God, when we are filled with the Spirit of God's love, we are given gifts, spiritual gifts, that we in turn must give to our community.
The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was gifted by the Spirit. He was gifted with intelligence. By 26, he had a PhD. He was gifted with leadership. At 25, he was pastoring his first church. He was gifted with charisma. By 30, he had lead a bus boycott, helped to found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, becoming its first president. He could gather, inspire, and empower crowds of people in a way that few could. In 1964, he became the youngest recipient ever of the Nobel Peace Prize. These are gifts of the Spirit that he used for the common good. He could have made money, established power and authority, used his gifts for himself. But he didn't. He used his gifts for his community, his nation, his world.
First, I want to ask you what memories you have of Dr. King. How did he touch your life, when he was alive, or how has his legacy touched your life since his death? As we share memories of him, think about the spiritual gifts you saw in his life. We will share those as well.
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As gifted as Dr. King was, throughout his sermons and his speeches, he was always acknowledging that he could not do it alone. To be a movement, many people had to put their gifts together, tens, hundreds, thousands of people over days, months and years. This kind of collaboration, this kind of diverse expressions of the Spirit working in concert, this is what reflects the glory of God and works for the common good. this reflects to unity of the one Spirit from whom we receive our gifts. This reflects the heart of Paul's message in this passage he sent to the Corinthians.
Dr. King knew that those able to register voters, those able to walk instead of ride the bus, those able to organize their friends, train the youth, learn from their elders, those able to tell the stories of others, those gifted with bravery, with courage, with pluck, with teaching, with preaching, with healing, with giving, all of those folks, each and every one of the thousands, were needed for the common good, were needed for the Civil rights movement, were needed for the arc of the moral universe to bend towards justice.
Two months before his death he preached this:
"everybody can be great, (Everybody) because everybody can serve. (Amen) You don't have to have a college degree to serve. (All right) You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. (Amen) You only need a heart full of grace, (Yes, sir, Amen) a soul generated by love. (Yes) And you can be that servant."
To this I add, everybody can serve, because everybody is gifted by the Spirit. We are all given gifts by the Spirit. We are all called to use those gifts, bravely and boldly, to serve the good of our community.
I have been touched by the ways that I have seen the gifts of this community used. Gifts of hospitality, of care, of warmth, of music, of laughter, of organization, of critical thinking, of challenge, of comfort, of compassion, of diligence, of patience, of faith. We all have gifts. Discern the gifts of the Spirit in yourself. Discern and encourage the gifts of the Spirit in each other. When you know that you are deeply loved by God, you will be unable to contain those gifts. They will ooze out into the community, touching everyone around you.
As we reflect on the legacy of Dr. King this week, as we reflect on the call of the Spirit this week, as we reflect on our gifts this week, continue to ask where you gifts are called to be used.
Jesus was called upon at a wedding. A bizarre place for a miracle. But, it was there, in celebration of love, that Jesus preformed his first sign of the Spirit, his first miracle. A miracle is a place where God breaks into the world, a moment where we see evidence of the Spirit, a time where we have access to the Divine. Jesus preformed a miracle that day, as he kept the party going, kept everyone laughing, and having fun. His mother was the one who called upon him, who saw his gifts of the Spirit and encouraged him. She contributed to the miracle.
We are called to make miracles everyday. To use our gifts to create space where God breaks into this world, to show the evidence of the Spirit, to ease access to the divine. The Civil Rights movement was a series of miracles, millions of them, facilitated by the likes of everyone from The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to the sanitation workers who went on strike in Memphis. You do not have to have a college degree to make miracles. You certainly do not have to have a degree from seminary to make miracles, or be ordained to make miracles. You do not need to know Aristotle, Einstein or Plato, you do not need to have good grammar, or good manners. You only need, as Dr. King preached with his life and his words, a soul generated by love and a heart full of grace. You only need to recognize the gifts of the Spirit that you have and use them.
This week, we don't just celebrate the life of Dr. King and work towards fulfilling his dreams and his legacy, we also mourn with the people of Haiti. Their tragedy, as their world collapsed around them, could easily have been our own. But the tragedy of their poverty, that long preceded the earthquake, and that will long out live its effects, is unlike any other tragedy in this hemisphere. They have long been the most impoverished nation in this hemisphere and will suffer more from the impact of this earthquake because of it. So this morning, I ask all of us to pray with the people of Haiti, to sing with the people of Haiti, to consider the miracles alive in Haiti, to reflect on the presence of the Spirit in Haiti, and to ask ourselves how our gifts, given by God, our spiritual gifts, can help bring miracles to Haiti, and everywhere else that they are desperately needed.
Let us pray.
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