Letter to a Birmingham Jail

Here is the end of my sermon yesterday:

Martin Luther King Jr once wrote from jail a scathing letter to his fellow pastors, whose behavior was not being regulated by their love for God but rather by their fear of going against society. In his letter, he says this:

There was a time when the church was very powerful--in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators."' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than [people]. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests.

Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent--and often even vocal--sanction of things as they are.

... If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.

These words were written almost 50 years ago, but they still have resonance today. Whether its the battle against racism, poverty, or greed, whether its speaking out about how God wants us to use our minds, our money or our bodies, we as Christians and as the church, are made to obey God and not people, to speak with power and conviction about who we are, who we belong to, and what we are made for. Are we silently sanctioning the abuse of the freedom we are granted in Christ? Are we a weak, ineffectual voice, a social club, intimidated, not wanting to ruffle feathers or make waves or be different? Instead, let us be God- intoxicated, proclaiming with strong voices that we are God's people, saved and redeemed and freed by Christ's work on the cross, living a different and more abundant kind of life out of that freedom, for the good of our neighbor and for the glory of God.