Tuesday, October 2, 2012

APP

Back in 1956, Martin Luther King wrote a letter that almost seems as if it were written yesterday.  It's far too long to print the entire thing here, but select parts are critical for us to hear and read in 2012.

Dr. King was amazingly progressive in his attitudes, leanings and thinkings.  He seemed to intuitively understand and realize the importance of the church getting its heart in right alignment with God's heart.

The letter is almost Biblical in its presentation and stature - not quite, but it has that Biblical 'ring' to it.

I don't know if Dr. King's letter has an actual title, but the first line says:

'I would like to share with you an imaginary letter from the pen of the Apostle Paul . . . '  

He says the letter is written from Paul to the American Christian living in 1956 A.D.  More than 55 years later, it applies deeply.

' . . . America, as I look at you from afar, I wonder whether your moral and spiritual progress has been commensurate with your scientific progress.  It seems to me that your moral progress lags behind your scientific progress . . . thru your scientific genius you have made of the world a neighborhood, but thru your moral and spiritual genius you have failed to make of it a brotherhood.'

I don't think there's much argument there.  Whatever you come up with today, science has created an app for it.  But there is not yet an app for genuine authenticity, community and brotherhood.

'There is another thing that disturbs me to no end about the American church.  You have a white church and a Negro church . . . How can such a division exist in the true body of Christ?  You must face the tragic fact that when you stand at 11 a.m. on Sunday morning to sing, "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name" . . . you stand in the most segregated hour of Christian America' . . . how appalling is that?'

I must pause here to say how very proud I am of KFA at the tearing down of socio-economic, racial, ethnic, gender, political, and other walls in our congregation - and to be able to stand onstage week after week to view a sea of faces that accurately mirror the colors, incomes, varieties and diversities of the community in which we live.

' . . . I still believe love is the most durable power in the world . . . This principle stands at the center of the cosmos . . . So American Christians, you may master the intricacies of the English language.  You may possess all eloquence of articulate speech.   But even if you 'speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not love, you are become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.''

Can we just stop saying we love and accept people and just start doing it?

And be blessed.

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