For many years I've pondered preaching something different
the Sunday before Martin Luther King day. Even before I began preaching I'd
admired MLK as a master preacher. As a youth I would get up on Sunday morning
at 7am and listen to his sermons that were played on 88.1 fm, WZIP. Having
listened to and read dozens of his sermons since then I've been inspired and
challenged even to this day by the way he would bring the Word of God.
That said, after testing this idea with our Worship comm.
and Elder team I’m ready to preach what I believe to be one of MLK's most
powerful sermons: “Love your enemies”. This message is as fresh as it was when
it was preached at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church on Nov. 17, 1957 and will
challenge SMC on Jan. 20, 2025.
I will take some liberties to edit it for length and relevance
to our context but most of the message remains as it was. The illustrations and
applications are vivid. His language is both eloquent and down to earth. It
should never be forgotten that King was first and foremost a preacher. His
identity as preacher was essential to his mission. King himself said as much
when he said:
“[In] the quiet recesses of my heart, I am
fundamentally a clergyman, a Baptist preacher. This is my being and my
heritage, for I am also the son of a Baptist preacher, the grandson of a
Baptist preacher and the great-grandson of a Baptist preacher.”
Before preaching “The
Man Who Was a Fool” at a Chicago church in 1967, he clarifies his calling like
this:
I did not come to
Mount Pisgah to give a civil rights address; I have to do a lot of that ... But
before I was a civil rights leader, I was a preacher of the gospel. This was
my first calling and it still remains my greatest commitment. You know,
actually all that I do in civil rights I do because I consider it a part of my
ministry. I have no other ambitions in life but to achieve excellence in the
Christian ministry. I don’t plan to run for any political office. I don’t
plan to do anything but remain a preacher. 1
Martin was a trained and ordained pastor who served 2
different churches. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from
Morehouse College, a Bachelor of Divinity from Crozer Theological Seminary, and
a Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD) in Systematic Theology from Boston University.
At 7 years old Martin was baptized May 3, 1936 at Ebenezer
Baptist Church where his dad pastored and was ordained as a minister there at
age 19. After completing his education he pastored Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
in Montgomery, Alabama from 1954 to 1959. Then he returned to his home church
again and served as co-pastor with his dad, Martin Luther King, Sr.*, from 1960
until his death in 1968.
This message I’ll share completes our mini series on
spiritual gifts. The key chapter we find many of the gifts is 1 Corinthians 12.
But do you know what the next chapter is? THE LOVE CHAPTER. All these gifts we
get are useless without love. Love must be the driving force of our lives. Here
is where MLK’s message drops in: who makes loving all but impossible? ENEMIES!
What are we to do with them? What did Jesus say? Ok how do we do that?
Come and hear this message for the answer to those questions, that will be in my voice, from the pen of MLK**, but ultimately inspired, as all Gospel messages are, by the Holy Spirit.
*To my utter amazement I learned that before his death in
1984, at age 84 MLK Sr. not only endured the 1968 assassination of MLK Jr-his oldest
son, but also his next son’s death in a mysterious drowning accident in 1969. Then
in 1974 his wife was shot and killed while playing the organ in the worship
service at their church. He pastored the Ebenezer Baptist Church from 1931 to
1975. That is faithfulness.
** original manuscript available on request
1 https://www.beaconbroadside.com/broadside/2021/01/martin-luther-king-jrs-gift-of-love-points-the-way-to-love-in-action.html
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