The Hebrew Bible text in this week's lectionary is Jonah 3:1-5, 10, in which God directs the book's namesake to go forth and warn the city of Nineveh to repent before they are sorry for their sinning ways.
"4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, 'Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!' 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. 10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it."
Jonah is only one of the celebrated prophets of the Bible, of course. Other major prophets that quickly come to mind include Aaron, Daniel, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Nathan. But there is a whole host of other prophets littered throughout the texts.
Let's be honest: The prophets of our Bible often weren't considered the life of the party because they generally brought with them news that we didn't want to hear. "Repent, you sinners, before God gets angry." ... Maybe a bit of a generalization, but I think that's a fairly accurate representation, I think.
So today's text demonstrates to us the important role that prophets historically have played in our faith. If it were not for Jonah's dire message, Nineveh might have been reduced to ashes. But because God loves us, he sends the prophets to warn of us of our sinning ways and that we are breaking the relationship covenant we have with him. And then we either listen in this case of Jonah warning Nineveh, or we don't in so many other stories of the prophets.
As faithful people today, some 2,000 years after the biblical story arc ends, our temptation might be to see the prophetic tradition as antiquated, something relegated to the dust bins of biblical history.
But I would contend that if we actually think about it carefully, God continues to send us prophets who warn us of our sinful ways. And just like our biblical ancestors of old, we often continue ignore God's prophets at our own peril.
Case in point: Today we celebrate the life of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whom I think checks all the boxes of being a biblical prophet. The good reverend may be remembered best as a civil rights pioneer, but his work was most definitely based in his faithful calling as a man of God, not a secular civil engineer.
We've certainly progressed as a society since the 1950s and 60s when Dr. King provoked a postwar America into facing it's racist and segregationist ways. But we also certainly have not realized Dr. King's dream "that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood."
If we are honest with ourselves, we do not live in a society of parity and brotherhood, and so as faithful people we are called continue the work that was begun by Dr. King and so many other civil rights pioneers who remain obscured to history.
Much like what Jonah did for the people of Nineveh, Dr. King took the message he received from God and told America that we had to repent, that we needed to change our ways and care for all of God's people, regardless of the color of their skin. From God's lips to Dr. King's ears, and then to ours!
The jury still is out as to well we heard Dr. King, as we still have so much work to do in terms of ensuring that every member of the Body of Christ is cared for, Faith Family. And we can't be lulled to believe that somehow there is a level playing field for every beloved child of God because of a little progress. It's time we remove the blinders that keep us from seeing the vast needs in this world. Just as Dr. King the prophet warned us about some 60-plus years ago.
If you haven't ever listened to Dr. King's "I Have a Dream Speech," I would encourage you to do so today. Consider it a good substitute for your daily devotional today, because it's as important as any scripture you'll read and study today.
Additionally, here is the text of the speech as well. It also is worth a read, as the words are powerful, and a good example that God through the Holy Spirit is not done talking to us. We just have to be more in tune with listening for when God is speaking through today's prophets.
Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day to you all, Faith Family! May you live faithfully today in accordance with Dr. King's divinely inspired dream! ... Amen.
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.: Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But 100 years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check.
When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men — yes, Black men as well as white men — would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds.
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.
We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to his hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.
Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. 1963 is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual.
There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny.
And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, when will you be satisfied? We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.
We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: for whites only.
We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.
No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations.
Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our Northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. 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, the sons of former slaves and the 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, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression 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.
I have a dream that one day down in Alabama with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right down in Alabama little Black boys and Black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.
With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning: My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims' pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that, let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, Black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.
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