This past Monday, we celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the United States. As I searched for inspiration, a short statement by Dr. King caught my eye and stirred my heart. Here's my reflection on Dr. King's call, as well as our own, from the Global Sisters Report.
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Every Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I am bombarded by quotes from the late civil rights icon. On that day, I can't scroll farther than a few posts on social media without encountering the warm sepia tones of photographs showing Dr. King in the middle of an impassioned speech, looking out over a sea of people on the Washington Mall, or linked arm-in-arm with public, civil and religious figures marching in protest for justice.
Every year I am amazed by the pieces of speeches and
writings that organizations and individuals share to commemorate Dr. King's
life and legacy. There are those that are to be expected — sanitized snippets
of King's "I Have a Dream" speech, variations of love lifted up over
the burdensome weight of hate, and the moral arc of the universe bending toward
justice. These are quotes that make me feel good, that warm the heart and stir
the soul in comforting challenge.
Then there are the deeper cuts, the more unexpected or
unfamiliar offerings. There was the labor union that pointed that Dr. King, who
was assassinated in Memphis, went to the city specifically to help sanitation
workers on strike. There were quotes from King's 1967 "The Other
America" speech pointing out the racial disparities in the United States,
the racism at the root of poverty and economic injustice, and the struggle
faced by people of color then and now.
This is the side of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that is
perhaps easier to forget or harder to sum up in simple phrases. These quotes
and facts confront popular, rose-colored remembrances of Dr. King and give
living color to the nonviolent, Gospel-based pleas (and actions) for justice
for which he lived and, ultimately, died.
Reflecting this past week on that disturbing reality, I came
across a quote from Dr. King that I had never before encountered. "My call
to the ministry was neither dramatic nor spectacular," the brief statement
written in 1959 for an American Baptist Convention pamphlet begins. What
follows is witness to and reminder of how one's call is cultivated and what the
challenge of ministry truly entails.
Befitting the brevity of a leaflet, King's "My Call to
the Ministry" is all of 11 sentences and yet in that space, King speaks
volumes. His call, like many of ours, was not miraculous. He did not encounter
"some blinding light" or have "some miraculous vision." It
wasn't sudden, spectacular, or even dramatic. It was, as he writes, "a
response to an inner urge that gradually came upon me." This urge, at its
core, was "a desire to serve God and humanity." Beyond any mystical
experience or prophetic consecration, Dr. King — like any and all believers —
experienced the baptismal call to service.
As remarkably unremarkable as it would seem, this was a call
that, in King's response, would echo throughout the generations to come.
This call to serve God and others was an urge that wouldn't
leave him. It remained as an undying demand on his being, an urge that offered
an invitation both of challenge and pilgrimage. That invitation is what lies at
the heart of each of our calls to discipleship. We are called to the gradual
engagement and witness to God's grace … to the pilgrimage of life. Walking the
Way, we discover that some steps are more challenging than others; some
realizations and truths demand deeper engagement than we might be comfortable
with. These challenges may be to our own views of the world, our own egos, or
to the culture that surrounds us.
For King, "the feeling that my talent and my commitment
could best be expressed through the ministry" was what prompted the full
investment of his being. Committed to faith, he couldn't help but call forth
justice. Thus, what organically emerged in the urges of his soul resulted in
the prophetic responsibility to cry for God's transformative justice in this
land of the free and the home of the brave.
With such courage of conviction, Martin Luther King Jr.
followed the urging of the Spirit into ministry and the pages of history. His
clarion call for justice and equity is still ringing out if we unclog the ears
of our hearts to hear it. It is in the impassioned speeches made for voting
rights in and outside of the halls of government. It is in the questions we
raise about just wages, safe working conditions, and adequate and equitable
housing for all. It is in the commitment we make to create in our church
synodal space so that all people's voices are heard and all people are treated
as the beloved children of God that they are.
Our call then today is to be attentive to the action the
Gospel calls forth in our world and ourselves. We have been called, not by some
miracle or accident, but by the grace of God. That call requires action not
just remembrance. Just as Dr. King answered the call in his own way and time,
now is our moment to respond in-kind, to remember the fervor of our call and to
embody the Gospel message in our very lives.
