My friend Adam is working on a new sermon series called “The Sacredness of Others.”
While we were chatting by gchat this morning, Adam typed, “I’m doing research today and came across a document that Martin Luther King drafted for ‘The Alabama Christian Movement For Human Rights’… Good, huh?”
This document is reprinted in a book called The Words of Martin Luther King, and I thought I’d share the content of the pledge King wrote…
- MEDITATE daily on the teachings and life of Jesus
- REMEMBER always that the nonviolent movement in Birmingham seeks justice and reconciliation—not victory
- WALK and TALK in the manner of love, for God is love.
- PRAY daily to be used by God in order that all men might be free.
- SACRIFICE personal wishes in order that all men might be free.
- OBSERVE with both friend and foe alike the ordinary rules of courtesy
- SEEK to perform regular service for others and for the world
- REFRAIN from the violence of fist, tongue, or heart
- STRIVE to be in good spiritual and bodily health
Also from The Words of Martin Luther King is this quote…
I’ve seen too much hate to want to hate, myself, and every time I see it, I say to myself, hate is too great a burden to bear. Somehow we must be able to stand up against our most bitter opponents and say:”We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will and we will still love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws and abide by the unjust system, because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good, so throw us in jail and we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and, as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hour and drag us out on some wayside road and leave us half-dead as you beat us, and we will still love you. Send your propaganda agents around the country and make it appear that we are not fit, culturally and otherwise, for integration, but we’ll still love you. But be assured that we’ll wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom for ourselves; we will appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.
“Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and, as difficult as it is, we will still love you…”
That quote hits me in my gut, soul, and below the belt.
I struggle to love the mean-spirited blog commenter…
I struggle to love the impatient driver honking his horn…
I struggle to love the person who does nothing but criticize President Obama…
I struggle to love the homeless man who spends most days sitting in the comfy chair at Starbucks…
I struggle to love the gray-haired lady at Kroger who refuses to smile back at me…
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