A bit of history and a meditation on the provocation of his witness
(on the anniversary of his assassination)
Ken Sehested
Invocation. “Early morning, April four / Shot rings out in the Memphis sky. / Free at last, they took your life / They could not take your pride. / In the name of love / What more in the name of love.” —“Pride (In the Name of Love),” U2, celebrating the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.
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If I had the authority, I would institute a new liturgical season in the US—beginning with Dr. King’s 15 January birth anniversary, extending to Ash Wednesday—in preparation devoted to the gift of discomfort in spiritual formation.
It also provides a more visceral connection to the Lenten drama: the breathtaking breakthrough of hope, seemingly out of nowhere, for the prospect of a major advance of justice and human dignity (not unlike the disciples’ and other followers of Jesus experienced), followed by a cruel backlash and crackdown against the same (like the narrative of Jesus’ final days). Then prepping our attention to Jesus’ resurrection stories by attending Dr. King’s parting exhortation: “I’ve been to the mountaintop. I may not get to the promised land with you; but we as a people will get there!”
Dr. King hadn’t planned to speak that night in Memphis. He knew the threats to his life were getting closer by the day. The initial march in Memphis, in support of the striking sanitation workers, had turned violent. The international acclaim he received as a Nobel Peace Prize recipient two years previously had faded; his monumental “I Have a Dream” speech five years earlier seemed to have morphed into a nightmare, given the racial violence spreading across the country. President Johnson, who had granted King’s access to the White House, was enraged by King’s attacks of the war.
By now many of his white liberal friends in the press had abandoned him (as did some in the Black press and other civil rights organizations), all of whom feared he was strategically compromising the civil rights struggle with his condemnation of the war in Vietnam.
The Southern Christian Leadership staff and his close advisers all begged him not to go to Memphis because there was so much work to do preparing for the upcoming Poor People’s March on Washington (“A National Call for a Moral Revival”), scheduled to begin in three weeks, to demand a $12 billion Economic Bill of Rights; fuller employment; income for the disabled; and an end to housing discrimination.
All of this weighed on him so heavily that he decided not to attend the rally at Mason Temple that evening. He asked Ralph Abernathy to speak instead. The weather itself compounded his weariness, for there were serious thunder storms rolling through Memphis, and he wondered if anybody would show up.
As it turned out, despite the weather threat, Mason Temple’s massive sanctuary was packed, and the people wanted to hear from King. Abernathy called him and begged him to come and at least say a few words of encouragement.
So he did, and spoke extemporaneously for over 40 minutes. He confessed his weariness to the crowd, hinting at his sense of mortality, saying “I may not get there with you.” No doubt he knew well the story of Moses who, having led the Israelites out of slavery and wandered in wasteless tracts for 40 years before reaching the edge of the promised land, but could not go there with his people.
But as if a light in his mind spread like a fire in his heart, and with an animated face his voice began to rise, culminating in a vivid image: “But I’ve been to the mountain top, and seen the promised land.” Then came the throb of rising crescendo he shouted out, with tears in his eyes, “I may not get there with you. But we as a people will get there!” Then he nearly fainted and had to be led back to his seat on the podium. Pandemonium had broken out in the congregation.
I believe King was imagining his own demise. You could see the foreboding on his face, in his voice, even in his watering eyes as he spoke. Yet his imagination stretched beyond the shiver of mortal brink. The spiritual contour of his vision was fully aligned with Scripture’s insistence that death lacks final authority. His hope inhabited the great Apostle’s jubilant provocation: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”
Some insist this speech was the greatest of his life—fuller, more comprehensive even than his famous “Dream” speech. We forget that less than three weeks after his soaring oratory at the Lincoln Memorial—with a quarter million attending—he was summoned back to Alabama for the grisly task of burying four children violently murdered by a terrorist’s bomb at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.
Now in Memphis, he was soberly aware that for too many the dream was still a nightmare.
Sure enough, the next day, on 4 April, an assassin’s bullet found his throat. His misgivings of the night before were well founded.
But his was a constellating light, one that transcended his own dire anxiety. He was telling his listeners—he is instructing us now, even from that distance—that the road to peace, rooted in justice, tempered with mercy, difficult and dangerous as it would yet be, would direct and sustain the people after his breathly life faded.
You could hear the echo of Dr. King’s speech in the recent record-setting 25-hour speech in the US Senate chamber, where Cory Booker valiantly predicted that “the power of the people” is greater than the power of racist extremists.
This, for people of faith in the Manner of Jesus, is Resurrection’s imprint on the content and character of our lives.
As preparation for Holy Week, I urge you to listen again to that speech. You can hear it (audio only, 43:14) in its entirety here; or you can listen to about half (22:14) of the speech along with photos, video clips and commentary from some of his colleagues at this link; or an abbreviated 2+ minute portion.
We are in great need of recovering this disconcerting history as an antidote to the way Dr. King’s legacy been homogenized and domesticated and usurped by consumer and patriotic forces wanting to forget that this subversive struggle continues, as does the resistance it engenders. As my mentor and friend Walker Knight insisted, “Peace, like war, is waged.”
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Penitential hymn. “Come Ye Disconsolate.” —Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway
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Ignite in us again the Word that stirs insurrection
against every imperial reign
Dr. King’s 4 April 1968 assassination contemporizes the trials of Lent and the context of Holy Week. His provocation remains.
Admiring Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream is not the same as being captured by it. Too many find it possible to respect the man but relinquish the mission. It has become too easy to revere the dreamer but renege on the dream. So let us now recall the deep roots of that vision as spoken in ages past:
We remember when Hannah praised God by saying: The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength.
We dream of the day when the wolf shall dwell with the lamb. For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord.
We long for the day when all shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord.
We eagerly await the day when the lame shall be restored, the outcast gathered, and the Blessed One will change their shame into praise.
On that coming day, says Mother Mary, God will pull down the mighty from their thrones and exalt those of low degree.
Our hearts ache for the time when the People of God will again be anointed with the power to preach good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
We confess, O God, that the dream once unfurled with unmatched eloquence on our nation’s lawn has been tamed by pious sentiment and framed for commercial interests. The oratory that once sent shivers through the White House and big house and church house alike has been reduced to polite platitude, “race relations” Sundays and gushy, mushy reverie.
Hear this, O People of the Dream: It is good and right that you recall the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. and the movement which mobilized him. The journey to the Beloved Community is sometimes dark and desperate and dangerous, and we need constellating light to orient our hearts, a light that fires resolve, strengthening and directing our feet.
We still have a dream: of a new heaven and a new earth, when the Beloved will dry every tear and death itself will come undone.
For we know that creation itself, now groaning in travail, will be set free from its bondage to decay.
Ignite in us again the Word that stirs insurrection against every imperial reign, against every forecloser’s claim, against every slaver’s chain, until the Faith which death could not contain, the Hope which doubt could not constrain, and the Love which fear could not arraign lifts every voice to sing ’til earth and heaven ring!
“Let our rejoicing rise / High as the list’ning skies / Let it resound loud as the rolling sea!”
Ken Sehested, inspired by 1 Samuel 2:1–8; Isaiah 11:3–9; Joel 2:19–26; Zephaniah 3:19; Luke 1:51-53; Luke 4:18–19; Revelation 21:1-4; Romans 8:19-24. Final line from “Life Every Voice and Sing” (aka “The Negro National Anthem”) by James Weldon Johnson.
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Benediction. “Now the war is not over, victory isn’t won / And we’ll fight on to the finish, then when it’s all done / We’ll cry glory, oh glory (Glory, glory).” —John Legend and Common, “Glory,” theme song for the 2014 film “Selma” which portrays the historic 1965 Selma to Montgomery civil rights march
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