The sun shines brightly in Berkeley, California, but perhaps not as intense as it does in southern California. I stood outside of the chapel at the Episcopalian Seminary with the sun gently warming my face. Professor Carol and doctoral candidate Kyle set forth to explain to me what made Luther a theologian unlike many others. They explained that Luther was an “occasional theologian.” This does not mean that he was only occasionally theological! No. It means that occasions would arise that demanded Luther to write, teach, and explain what was the appropriate Christian response. For example, the practices of indulgences, was an occasion that elicited Luther to write the 95 theses. Luther was not a systematic theologian. He wasn’t like Calvin, or Barth, or Aquinas, who set out to explain in systematic harmony all the components of Christian faith with scripture and philosophy. Luther wrote with such commanding theological brilliance that systematic theologians all around him chased after his line of thinking attempting to make order out of it.
Four hundred and fifty years later another occasional theologian rose to the occasion. Ironically, or perhaps serendipitously he was named Martin Luther King Junior. His father named him after the German theologian. True to his namesake Dr. King set about articulating faithful Christian responses to the challenging situations of his day most notably Jim Crow segregation, but also questions of war, poverty, and more. MLK did not write a systematic theology either, but the depth and power of his writings, speeches, and sermons were so potent that indeed theologians have chased after his words too, attempting to systematize his thinking.
These two Christian pastors and theologians are linked through history not merely by the fact that they are both occasional theologians, or what many simply call “prophets” but the heart of their message resonates together with the sound of God’s saving Word. On this seventeenth day of January, the eve of MLK day, two thousand and twenty one let us consider the indelible connections these men share in the prophetic tradition of faith.
“The word of the LORD was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.” 1 Samuel 3:1.
There are times in history in which corruption and injustice appear to be widespread. During such times a powerful word from God or a vision seems to be lacking. This was the situation in which young Samuel found himself as a child. His mentor, Eli the priest, had failed to live out his faith ethically nor apply it to his own children. Eli’s children took advantage of their status and exploited the temple for their personal gain. God spoke to the boy Samuel, giving him words and vision to address the injustice of that time in history.
Martin Luther in the 1500’s was also moved by the Spirit of God with a word about the injustice of indulgences. An indulgence was a religious artifact a person could earn or purchase to give them additional time in heaven. An entire system was put in place between the church and state that kept people oppressed. No matter how hard a person worked they could not get ahead. If any material wealth was accumulated by a person, rather than save it, the church gobbled it up with the promise of more time in heaven. At the heart of this injustice is what Luther called, “works righteousness.” Working and doing something constructive is a gift of God. But it was turned into an idol to be worshiped. People became more focused on doing “good deeds” rather than focusing on God from whom all good things flow. Luther identified this problem and dared to lift his head and voice to address. Of course he was aided by the recent technological advancement of the moveable type printing press, so that his message could be spread with rapidit unlike previous times in history.
Four hundred and fifty years later Martin Luther King Junior also found himself in a time where the word of God was rare. Throughout the United States African American women and men were being exploited in a ruthless system of segregation called Jim Crow. Even though black people had won freedom from slavery after the Civil War; within a generation new laws were created that forced black people into a new kind of oppression. They were exploited at every turn. Public lynchings happened with terrible frequency and practically zero consequences to those who organized them and carried them out. This was works righteousness in another form. Again, the exploitation of people was rationalized in the form of work. Some said that black folks needed to work harder to overcome their poverty, while their hard earned money was exploited at every turn. Dr. King looked at this situation and saw the corruption as plainly as Dr. Luther saw it some 450 years earlier. He dared to raise his voice like Luther did before him.
The Montgomery Bus boycott began as a way of peacefully protesting an unjust system. It was called non-violent resistance and civil disobedience. Representative John Lewis called it, “good trouble.” Martin Luther also disobeyed civil authority when he openly taught against the pope! Luther made good trouble too! Luther claimed that the most important thing a Christian can do even more than their good works is to have faith. All a person needs to do in order to benefit from God’s salvation and grace is to believe it! He discouraged people from thinking that they had work in order to be saved. Luther wasn’t lazy. Luther wasn’t encouraging people to be idle. He called people to an active faith that put trust in God’s ability to save and shape society above any ecclesiastical rule. He saw the Word of God transcending the laws of human beings.
Dr. King also called people to have faith over and above works-righteousness. Dr. King wasn’t lazy either. But the activity he called people to was to protest unjust civil laws. There were boycotts, sit-ins, marches, and teach-ins. While some members of the Black community tried to get their followers to take up arms and fight for reform Dr. King urged non-violence. He urged non-violence because he believed that salvation would come only with God’s help. Faith was absolutely essential, the most essential thing to empower his followers to take nonviolent action. So Dr. King and Dr. Luther both placed creative faith over and above work as the center activity of human liberation and salvation.
The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” John 1:43 Jesus prefigures and inspires both Luther and King. Jesus called his disciples to abandon the work of fishing, collecting taxes, and other ventures to follow him in faith. God was up to something big, and the most powerful work a person can do is to have faith in God’s saving work.
If asked you what were the most memorable and widely known words of Dr. Martin Luther King, what would you say they would be? I suppose you would quote the final section of his speech that occurred on the march on Washington when he said, “I have a dream” I have a dream that one day children will not judged by color of the skin, but by the content of their character! When little black boys and girls will hold hands little white girls and boys. Dr. King almost always concluding his rousing sermons and speeches with a prophetic vision of a reality that he fully expected to come to be, but that had not yet fully come into existence. He told us that he had been to the mountaintop and seen the promised land. He said that, by the way, the night before he was assassinated. The point is that the most powerful and memorable aspects of his thought is the graceful action of God. It was only by God’s grace that justice would flow like water and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. Dr. King proclaimed good news. He proclaimed the gospel. This was the high point that everything was aimed toward: God’s salvation for all people and creation. This is a faithful development of Lutheran theology.
Dr. Martin Luther in the 1500’s insisted that the core of any sermon or Bible study, or liturgy should not be instructions for how to live your life, but rather a proclamation of God’s grace. Luther focused on the cross, and the sacrifice Jesus made for us to save us from our sin. Luther lifted up Holy Communion and Holy Baptism as sacraments which powerfully communicate the saving power of the Word of God. You are saved by God’s grace, God’s love, God’s unmerited favor! Proclaiming salvation is the most powerful and essential task of the church, the preacher, and the follower of Christ. That’s what Dr. King did!
So here we are almost 100 years since the birth of Dr. King and over 500 years since the birth of Dr. Luther. We still hold in our hand the sacred gift of the Word of God. We read and remember the call of Samuel. We reflect on Jesus calling of the disciples. We ponder the admonition of Paul to the Corinthians to repent from their own fixation on work to the saving power of God’s love. We hold in our hands today children who need to know the Word of God. We look out onto a nation teetering on the edge of violence and social unrest. We are situated in a globe that is reeling from the worst pandemic in a hundred years. And we ask ourselves the question: Is the word of God rare today? Are visions of God not widespread, again? What is the vision, the hope, the word of God that is good news and gives us hope and direction today? We ask ourselves these questions and while we do so we pick up the Bible and read. Take it up and read, like Augustine said! Today we read Psalm 139, perhaps penned by King David who the prophet Samuel himself annointed, and we read this:
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18
139:1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me.
139:2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.
139:3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.
139:4 Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely.
139:5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
139:6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.
139:13 For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
139:14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.
139:15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
139:16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.
139:17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
139:18 I try to count them — they are more than the sand; I come to the end — I am still with you.
“I am still with you,” says God.
I am still with you, Amen!
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