Sermon 01-17-2010

Honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

(Through song, scripture and his writings)

 “On this Martin Luther King Jr. weekend we have the opportunity to celebrate and remember Dr. King for his significant work to end segregation, racism, poverty, and hopefully an opportunity to name publicly the contemporary realities of racial and economic justice among us… We gather to remember a dreamer, a person of great faith and determination, a courageous witness for justice. Dr. King, a Baptist minister who preached, taught, and embodied the philosophy of non-violent direct action in order to mobilize organized resistance to the segregation, systemic racism, and gnawing poverty of the day. So, too, we are here to be inspired and encouraged so we might take on the mantle of justice and peace in our time, the work for which he lived and died.” (

PRAYER

Jeremiah 1:4-8                                                              

“Growing up Negro”

“On January 15, 1929, just three months after the beginning of the worst economic depression in the history of the United States, Alberta and Rev. King Sr. welcome their first child Martin. He was born in a middle class home but in a very segregated Atlanta, Georgia. ‘Growing up a Negro in America, he recalls, is not a comfortable existence. It means being a part of the company of the bruised, the battered, the scarred, and the defeated. Being a Negro in America means trying to smile when you want to cry… It means the pain of watching your children grow up with clouds of inferiority in their mental skies… It means the ache and anguish of living in so many situations where hopes unborn have died.’                                                     

Following his father’s steps and believing in the call that God gave once to Jeremiah and now to him, he prepared himself for ministry. Martin, “graduated from high school, he went on to Morehouse College in Atlanta, then Crozier Seminary in Pennsylvania. There he made straight “A”s and received a scholarship to go on to graduate school. He chose Boston University School of Theology… where he received a Ph.D. in Theology. He met Coretta in Boston… and on June 18, 1953, they were married.”

Choir sings: “We Shall Overcome Some Day”                             NCH#570 v.1

2 Corinthians 4:1, 5, 7-11 & 16a.                                                

“Montgomery”

“King was invited to come to Montgomery, Alabama, to be the pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church… and on April 14, 1954, he accepted the call.

On May 17, 1954, a month later, the Supreme Court in Brown vs. Board of Education ruled that racial segregation of public schools was unconstitutional.

And on December 1 of that year… a black seamstress in Montgomery, named Rosa Parks, after a long day at work, refused to give up her seat to a white man on a bus.

If desegregation was good enough for children, as the Supreme Court ruled, it was good enough for adults.. So she refused to give up her seat. The bus driver called the police, the police came and arrested her, and the town exploded.

Montgomery was one of the most racially divided cities in the south in those days…

Blacks were wanting to riot and whites were wanting to kill blacks… Rev. King was elected by the community to organize them to respond to the crisis. Over two thousand people rallied in front of the church, and he said: “We are here this evening for serious business. We’re here in a general sense because first and foremost, we are American citizens, and we are determined to acquire our citizenship to the fullness of its meaning. We are here also because of our deep-seated belief that democracy transformed from thin paper to thick action is the greatest form of government on earth… We will be guided by the highest principles of law and order… the deepest principles of our Christian faith. Love must be our regulating ideal…” 

What is God telling CSCC today? Do not lose heart, even in this time of transition, when we feel like we are struggling with the changes of our church’s size and budget, with our identity and with our faith. God is saying: “Do not lose heart.” 

Choir sings: “We Shall Overcome Some Day”                             NCH#570 v.2

Galatians 5:13-16a.                                                                         

“Sit-ins”

King and his movement became famous after that. Together with Ralph Albernathy and others, they founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. At that time, most of the states in the South did not allow blacks to register to vote.

In 1960 four black college students in Greensboro, North Carolina sat down at the lunch counter asked to be served even though they were in the “whites only” zone. They were arrested, they took it to court and a nationwide protest movement called “Sit-ins” began. Dr. King was a part of a “sit-in” in Atlanta shortly after that, and he too was arrested with a group of people… He was sentenced to four months of hard labor in the Reidsville State Prison, a maximum –security facility in North Carolina.

While in prison wearing leg irons, eating rancid food, in a room infested with bugs, Martin wrote to his wife: “I have faith to believe that this excessive suffering that is now coming to our family will in some little way serve to make Atlanta a better city, Georgia a better state, and America a better country. Just how, I do not know yet, but I have faith to believe it will.”

Faith, according to Hebrews 11:1 …  “is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

What is our hope for CSCC and what do we want to see happening, can we have faith that even if we feel down, we know that faith is the one thing that can bring us back up!

Choir sings: “We Shall Overcome Some Day”                            NCH#570 v.3

Acts 16:25-28                                                                                 

“Birmingham”

“But King did not spend the four months in prison. As it happened, a young U.S. Senator and presidential candidate named John F. Kennedy personally called the judge who had sentenced him and talked him into reversing his decision…

Through it all King began to increasingly see that the struggle was no longer just for civil rights, but that it had become a movement for human rights. Perhaps, the turning point of Dr. King’s life and the life of the movement took place on April 3, 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama.

The protests began, with boycotts, lunch-counter sit-ins, and daily marches. All were done quietly and calmly, completely non violent, and thousands including Dr. King were arrested. He was arrested one hundred years to the day from when Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. From jail he wrote in response to a newspaper by local Protestant and Jewish white clergy who criticized him for pushing integration too quickly. “Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.” He writes about the injustices, brutality, killings, abuses, fear, rejection and separation suffered by the black people. “When you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of ‘no-bodiness’ – then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.”

Choir sings: “We Shall Overcome Some Day”                             NCH#570 v.4

Joel 2:26-29                                                                              

“I Have a Dream”  On August 28, 1963, he took part in the largest civil rights demonstration in history, in Washington, D.C. in front of the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, his most powerful  message was given, it reads in part:

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal.

I have a dream that one day, on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi… will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

CSCC-UCC What is your dream?

Choir sings: “We Shall Overcome Some Day”                             NCH#570 v.5

Revelation 21:1-2, 5a.                                                            

“Memphis”

Dr. King questioned the conscience of a nation and contributed significantly to dramatic changes in societal attitudes and public policies.           (

The worship resource is from the

The other resource used for this sermon is the work of Rev. Stan G. Duncan.

“Hold Fast To The Dream” (A presentation for two readers and Choir of

the Life and Words, of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.) unpublished.