Vision, Service, Prophet, Togetherness: A Reflection on Rev. Dr. King

Thank you very much for the invitation to celebrate the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day with you all. It is truly an honor to be invited to this space to pray, reflect, and commemorate such a profound figure.

When I began to think about Dr. King’s influence in my life, a few words came to mind: vision, service, prophet, and togetherness. These ideas are the focus of my remarks as I share a bit of my journey with Dr. King. I hope they will resonate with you especially in light of the liturgical theme this year at St. Katharine Drexel – Pilgrims Journeying Together in Love and Care. This theme reveals that you are a community of faith that is thoughtful and committed to growing together in faith and love of God and one another.

Like many, my earliest memory of Dr. King is the “I Have a Dream” speech. As a child, my classmates and I watched portions of the speech, we would draw or color in pictures of Dr. King, and we would reflect on a few excerpts from the speech as a way to celebrate the day. The ideas that were emphasized were King’s call for equality, justice, and nonviolence. In addition, we were taught to imagine, to dream, to speak aloud our hopes for our own futures and for the world. Dr. King’s speech became a model not only for its content but for its boldness in proclaiming a world we wanted to see. I think the hope and the idea of having a vision for the future are important aspects of King’s work. Obviously, it so important to be committed to equality, justice, and nonviolence, yet Dr. King also shows us that we must have a vision for what we want to see. Not only identify what is wrong in our society, but identify what we long for in our society.

As I grew up, my thinking on Dr. King was deepened by understanding the importance of service. In my community, we called the day “Martin Luther King Day of Service” as if it were the official name. My high school memories of this day center on serving communities in need. Since many places are closed today, I often did service outdoors, cleaning up area parks or schools and creating and beautifying spaces. The service was coupled with time for volunteers to reflect together on how serving others, even and perhaps especially serving people we might never meet, people whose names we would never know and who would never know us, how that was a fitting way to honor Dr. King whose impact was so far reaching.

As I continue to think about Dr. King, the word prophet comes to mind. Not only in the ways that Dr. King has been thought of as a prophet, but also in his allusions to biblical prophets. As I began to study the Bible in college and graduate school, I had opportunities to revisit Dr. King’s writings and the inspiration of the Bible was apparent. Looking back on the “I Have a Dream” speech, for instance, biblical references stand out to me in ways that they didn’t in my younger years.

One of the well-known statements in the speech is, “[W]e are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”[1] In this powerful statement, Dr. King echoes loudly the prophet Amos as Amos 5:24 says: “But let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Dr. King was a minister and a theologian, and his use of this text is certainly well thought out and intentional.

In the biblical context, Amos critiques people who engage in religious practices without addressing injustice in society. Amos insists that God is not interested in false religious posturing—festivals, offerings, songs – God rejects them all. God rejects them not because festivals, offerings, and songs are bad. Rather, they are incomplete and insincere without justice. Incomplete with love and care for one another. God calls for what your theme highlights: a communal journey of love and care as evidence of devotion to God and one another.

In the following chapter, Amos 6, the prophet offers more detailed critiques of how people are living and how that is evidence of their lack of devotion. People are living at ease, unphased or unconcerned while others suffer, living in poverty, marginalized and disenfranchised. Amos is critical of nonchalance, complacency, and disregard, calling for social and economic justice instead. Dr. King draws inspiration from the biblical prophet Amos to proclaim his own prophetic vision of justice, a vision that is informed by faith. A vision that addresses racial and economic concerns. In using Scripture to make these powerful statements, Dr. King helps us to see the direct link between faith and action. Or perhaps faith in action – a faith that is not at ease but rather a faith that is engaged and aware of what is happening in the world. A faith that is motivated to work tirelessly until justice does roll down like waters.

Another biblical prophet whom Dr. King alludes to is Isaiah. Dr. King says, “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.” Dr. King pulls this dream from Isaiah 40:4-5. These verses are in a chapter that includes images of consolation, and forgiveness for the people and the land of Judah. The prophet is proclaiming comfort in knowing that God’s glory would be seen by all. Dr. King draws on the image of the valley in Isaiah, thought he uses it in slightly different ways.

In the speech, Dr. King refers to valleys symbolically. For instance, he says, “Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.” He also calls on his community not to “wallow in the valley of despair.” For King, the valley is a metaphor for injustice, a place where people are separated, disregarded, and violated. The valley is a low place in society filled with discrimination, violence, and inequality, and that place, that societal state, can be exalted and made high like a mountain, through the glory of God that all are invited to witness and to participate in together.

When Dr. King draws on Isaiah to speak of the valley being exalted, he does so in the context of having faith and hope in a society where people can live in harmony. King offers a vision of a community that, as Isaiah says, could see together. A community, grounded in faith, that must be created together. Dr. King articulates the relationship between his faith and his hope for society. He proclaims, “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 freedom is the valley exalted. This is how Dr. King interprets Isaiah for his own time and context. King reimagines Isaiah as a call to action. The valley is not going to exalt itself. It’s the community who will exalt the valley to create a just society. To create, what King elsewhere calls, the beloved community. The community without the evils of racism, poverty, and violence. We are called to create that community, as King stresses working, praying, struggling, and standing together so that justice rolls down like waters.

So, as we think about Dr. King’s vision and the inspiration of his life’s work, we should be inspired to dream, and we should be inspired to act. Like King, our faith grounds us and unites us as a community. It is an active faith. A faith not at ease. A faith that is engaged in the work of creating a just society. And if any of this feels overwhelming, like a challenge that we just cannot overcome, we must recognize our progress and remember that we are not alone but are journeying together.

[1] Quotes from “I Have a Dream” are from https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety.