We remember.................

A few words from a sermon

The first twenty-four years of my life were years packed with fulfillment. I had no basic problems or burdens. Because of concerned and loving parents who provided for my every need, I sallied through high school, college, theological school, and graduate school without interruption. It was not until I became a part of the leadership of the Montgomery bus protest that I was actually confronted with the trials of life. Almost immediately after the protest had been undertaken, we began to receive threatening telephone calls and letters in our home. Sporadic in the beginning, they increased day after day. At first I took them in my stride, feeling that they were the work of a few hotheads who would become discouraged after they discovered that we would not fight back. But as the weeks passed, I realized that many of the threats were in earnest. I felt myself faltering and growing in fear.

After a particularly strenuous day, I settled in bed at a late hour. My wife had already fallen asleep and I was about to doze off when the telephone rang. An angry voice said, "Listen, nigger, we've taken all we want from you. Before next week you'll be sorry you ever came to Montgomery." I hung up, but I could not sleep. It seemed that all of my fears had come down on me at once. I had reached the saturation point.

I got out of bed and began to walk the floor. Finally, I went to the kitchen and heated a pot of coffee. I was ready to give up. I tried to think of a way to move out of the picture without appearing to be a coward. In this state of exhaustion, when my courage had almost gone, I determined to take my problem to God. My head in my hands, I bowed over the kitchen table and prayed aloud. The words I spoke to God that midnight are still vivid in my memory. "I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But now I am afraid. The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they too will falter. I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I've come to the point where I can't face it alone."

At that moment I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never before experienced him. It seems as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice, saying, "Stand up for righteousness, stand up for truth. God will be at your side forever." Almost at once my fears began to pass from me. My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face anything. The outer situation remained the same, but God had given me inner calm.

Three nights later, our home was bombed. Strangely enough, I accepted the word of the bombing calmly. My experience with God had given me a new strength and trust. I knew now that God is able to give us the interior resources to face the storms and problems of life.

Let this affirmation be our ringing cry. It will give us courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the city of freedom. When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a benign Power in the universe whose name is God, and he is able to make a way out of no way, and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. This is our hope for becoming better men. This is our mandate for seeking to make a better world.

Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love

A Pastoral Prayer of Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Oh, God, our Heavenly Father, we thank thee for this golden privilege to worship thee, the only true God of the universe. We come to thee today, grateful that thou hast kept us through the long night of the past and ushered us into the challenge of the present and the bright hope of the future. We are mindful, O God, that man cannot save himself, for man is not the measure of things and humanity is not God. Bound by our chains of sins and finiteness, we know we need a Savior. We thank thee, O God, for the spiritual nature of man. We are in nature but we live above nature. Help us never to let anybody or any condition pull us so low as to cause us to hate. Give us strength to love our enemies and to do good to those who despitefully use us and persecute us. We thank thee for thy Church, founded upon thy Word, that challenges us to do more than sing and pray, but go out and work as though the very answer to our prayers depended on us and not upon thee. Then, finally, help us to realize that man was created to shine like stars and live on through eternity. Keep us, we pray, in perfect peace, help us to walk together, pray together, sing together, and live together until that day when all God's children, Black, White, Red, and Yellow will rejoice in one common band of humanity in the Kingdom of our Lord and of our God, we pray. Amen."

From Conversations with God: Two Centuries of Prayers by African Americans, by James Melvin Washington.

Faces on the Farm

A gentleman who is hip deep in activism on behalf of the Black farmer mentioned recently that he thought that one of the problems with the Black farmer movement is that there has never been a visible "face" of a farmer with which the cause could be identified. He's probably right. Did not the broken, beaten, and almost unrecognizable face of Emmett Till help to galvanize the Civil Rights Movement? Did not photos of Rosa Parks inspire us to action? Did not the face of Martin Luther King as he rivetingly spoke to us through the television screen move us?

What "face" should be the face of the righteous cause of the African American farmer? They are many. What "face," etched with life experiences will become the "face" with which we identify?

Should it be the face of the gentleman, now deceased, standing beside his mule in Tillery, North Carolina?

Should it be the face of the man in Owensboro, Kentucky who has had his land taken from him because he hasn't paid back a loan he never received?

Should it be the face of the elderly gentleman or his wife or his angry son in central North Carolina, all of whom agonize in different ways over the loss of land and livelihood?

Should it be the face of the elderly woman is south Georgia as she describes her life, husband, family, and the crops she'll work on that day?

Should it be the face of the man in Pavo, Georgia who lives in his single-wide under the oak tree along the sandy road named in honor of his deceased wife?

Should it be the men, father and son, in central Oklahoma who are still grieving the injustices wrought upon them and their family?

Should it be the resilient gentleman in central Kansas who is a activist like no other who believes in his right to his choice of livelihood, the man who refuses to give up?

Should it be the farmer out in west Texas who has faced numerous odds but still owns his land?

Should it be any one of countless thousands of named and unnamed African American farmers, male or female, whose faces will never be seen outside of their feed store, or local church, or street in smalltown USA? The ones whose stories will never be told?

Which "face" will it take to capture the hearts of people with passion and the minds and decision-making abilities of people in power to right these wrongs. Who is taking note of their faces? Who is telling their stories?

Just wondering.