A Knock at
Midnight:
Inspiration from the Great Sermons of
Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.
http://www.stanford.edu/
Paul's Letter to American
Christians
I would like to share with
you an imaginary letter from the pen of the Apostle Paul. The
postmark reveals that it comes from the city of Ephesus. After
opening the letter I discovered that it was written in Greek
rather than English. At the top of the first page was this
request: "Please read to your congregation as soon as possible,
and then pass on to the other churches."
For several weeks I have
worked assiduously with the translation. At times it has been
difficult, but now I think I have deciphered its true meaning.
May I hasten to say that if in presenting this letter the
contents sound strangely Kingian instead of Paulinian, attribute
it to my lack of complete objectivity rather than Paul's lack of
clarity.
It is miraculous, indeed,
that the Apostle Paul should be writing a letter to you and to
me nearly 1900 years after his last letter appeared in the New
Testament. How this is possible is something of an enigma
wrapped in mystery. The important thing, however, is that I can
imagine the Apostle Paul writing a letter to American Christians
in 1956 A.D. And here is the letter as it stands before me.
I, an apostle of Jesus Christ
by the will of God, to you who are in America, Grace be unto
you, and peace from God our Father, through our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ.
For many years I have longed
to be able to come to see you. I have heard so much of you and
of what you are doing. I have heard of the fascinating and
astounding advances that you have made in the scientific realm.
I have heard of your dashing subways and flashing airplanes.
Through your scientific genius you have been able to dwarf
distance and place time in chains. You have been able to carve
highways through the stratosphere. So in your world you have
made it possible to eat breakfast in New York City and dinner in
Paris, France. I have also heard of your skyscraping buildings
with their prodigious towers steeping heavenward. I have heard
of your great medical advances, which have resulted in the
curing of many dread plagues and diseases, and thereby prolonged
your lives and made for greater security and physical
well-being. All of that is marvelous. You can do so many things
in your day that I could not do in the Greco-Roman world of my
day. In your age you can travel distances in one day that took
me three months to travel. That is wonderful. You have made
tremendous strides in the area of scientific and technological
development.
But America, as I look at you
from afar, I wonder whether your moral and spiritual progress
has been commensurate with your scientific progress. It seems to
me that your moral progress lags behind your scientific
progress. Your poet Thoreau used to talk about "improved means
to an unimproved end." How often this is true. You have allowed
the material means by which you live to outdistance the
spiritual ends for which you live. You have allowed your
mentality to outrun your morality. You have allowed your
civilization to outdistance your culture. Through your
scientific genius you have made of the world a neighborhood, but
through your moral and spiritual genius you have failed to make
of it a brotherhood. So America, I would urge you to keep your
moral advances abreast with your scientific advances.
I am impelled to write you
concerning the responsibilities laid upon you to live as
Christians in the midst of an unChristian world. That is what I
had to do. That is what every Christian has to do. But I
understand that there are many Christians in America who give
their ultimate allegiance to man-made systems and customs. They
are afraid to be different. Their great concern is to be
accepted socially. They live by some such principle as this:
"everybody is doing it, so it must be alright." For so many of
you Morality is merely group consensus. In your modern
sociological lingo, the mores are accepted as the right ways.
You have unconsciously come to believe that right is discovered
by taking a sort of Gallup poll of the majority opinion. How
many are giving their ultimate allegiance to this way.
But American Christians, I
must say to you as I said to the Roman Christians years ago, "Be
not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the
renewing of your mind." Or, as I said to the Phillipian
Christians, "Ye are a colony of heaven." This means that
although you live in the colony of time, your ultimate
allegiance is to the empire of eternity. You have a dual
citizenry. You live both in time and eternity; both in heaven
and earth. Therefore, your ultimate allegiance is not to the
government, not to the state, not to nation, not to any man-made
institution. The Christian owes his ultimate allegiance to God,
and if any earthly institution conflicts with God's will it is
your Christian duty to take a stand against it. You must never
allow the transitory evanescent demands of man-made institutions
to take precedence over the eternal demands of the Almighty God.
I understand that you have an
economic system in America known as Capitalism. Through this
economic system you have been able to do wonders. You have
become the richest nation in the world, and you have built up
the greatest system of production that history has ever known.
All of this is marvelous. But Americans, there is the danger
that you will misuse your Capitalism. I still contend that money
can be the root of all evil. It can cause one to live a life of
gross materialism. I am afraid that many among you are more
concerned about making a living than making a life. You are
prone to judge the success of your profession by the index of
your salary and the size of the wheel base on your automobile,
rather than the quality of your service to humanity.
The misuse of Capitalism can
also lead to tragic exploitation. This has so often happened in
your nation. They tell me that one tenth of one percent of the
population controls more than forty percent of the wealth. Oh
America, how often have you taken necessities from the masses to
give luxuries to the classes. If you are to be a truly Christian
nation you must solve this problem. You cannot solve the problem
by turning to communism, for communism is based on an ethical
relativism and a metaphysical materialism that no Christian can
accept. You can work within the framework of democracy to bring
about a better distribution of wealth. You can use your powerful
economic resources to wipe poverty from the face of the earth.
God never intended for one group of people to live in
superfluous inordinate wealth, while others live in abject
deadening poverty. God intends for all of his children to have
the basic necessities of life, and he has left in this universe
"enough and to spare" for that purpose. So I call upon you to
bridge the gulf between abject poverty and superfluous wealth.
I would that I could be with
you in person, so that I could say to you face to face what I am
forced to say to you in writing. Oh, how I long to share your
fellowship.
Let me rush on to say
something about the church. Americans, I must remind you, as I
have said to so many others, that the church is the Body of
Christ. So when the church is true to its nature it knows
neither division nor disunity. But I am disturbed about what you
are doing to the Body of Christ. They tell me that in America
you have within Protestantism more than two hundred and fifty
six denominations. The tragedy is not so much that you have such
a multiplicity of denominations, but that most of them are
warring against each other with a claim to absolute truth. This
narrow sectarianism is destroying the unity of the Body of
Christ. You must come to see that God is neither a Baptist nor a
Methodist; He is neither a Presbyterian nor a Episcopalian. God
is bigger than all of our denominations. If you are to be true
witnesses for Christ, you must come to see that America.
But I must not stop with a
criticism of Protestantism. I am disturbed about Roman
Catholicism. This church stands before the world with its pomp
and power, insisting that it possesses the only truth. It
incorporates an arrogance that becomes a dangerous spiritual
arrogance. It stands with its noble Pope who somehow rises to
the miraculous heights of infallibility when he speaks ex
cathedra. But I am disturbed about a person or an
institution that claims infallibility in this world. I am
disturbed about any church that refuses to cooperate with other
churches under the pretense that it is the only true church. I
must emphasize the fact that God is not a Roman Catholic, and
that the boundless sweep of his revelation cannot be limited to
the Vatican. Roman Catholicism must do a great deal to mend its
ways.
There is another thing that
disturbs me to no end about the American church. You have a
white church and you have a Negro church. You have allowed
segregation to creep into the doors of the church. How can such
a division exist in the true Body of Christ? You must face the
tragic fact that when you stand at 11:00 on Sunday morning to
sing "All Hail the Power of Jesus Name" and "Dear Lord and
Father of all Mankind," you stand in the most segregated hour of
Christian America. They tell me that there is more integration
in the entertaining world and other secular agencies than there
is in the Christian church. How appalling that is.
I understand that there are
Christians among you who try to justify segregation on the basis
of the Bible. They argue that the Negro is inferior by nature
because of Noah's curse upon the children of Ham. Oh my friends,
this is blasphemy. This is against everything that the Christian
religion stands for. I must say to you as I have said to so many
Christians before, that in Christ "there is neither Jew nor
Gentile, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male
nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus." Moreover, I
must reiterate the words that I uttered on Mars Hill: "God that
made the world and all things therein . . . hath made of one
blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the
earth."
So Americans I must urge you
to get rid of every aspect of segregation. The broad
universalism standing at the center of the gospel makes both the
theory and practice of segregation morally unjustifiable.
Segregation is a blatant denial of the unity which we all have
in Christ. It substitutes an "I-it" relationship for the
"I-thou" relationship. The segregator relegates the segregated
to the status of a thing rather than elevate him to the status
of a person. The underlying philosophy of Christianity is
diametrically opposed to the underlying philosophy of
segregation, and all the dialectics of the logicians cannot make
them lie down together.
I praise your Supreme Court
for rendering a great decision just two or three years ago. I am
happy to know that so many persons of goodwill have accepted the
decision as a great moral victory. But I understand that there
are some brothers among you who have risen up in open defiance.
I hear that their legislative halls ring loud with such words as
"nullification" and "interposition." They have lost the true
meaning of democracy and Christianity. So I would urge each of
you to plead patiently with your brothers, and tell them that
this isn't the way. With understanding goodwill, you are
obligated to seek to change their attitudes. Let them know that
in standing against integration, they are not only standing
against the noble precepts of your democracy, but also against
the eternal edicts of God himself. Yes America, there is still
the need for an Amos to cry out to the nation: "Let judgement
roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream."
May I say just a word to
those of you who are struggling against this evil. Always be
sure that you struggle with Christian methods and Christian
weapons. Never succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter. As
you press on for justice, be sure to move with dignity and
discipline, using only the weapon of love. Let no man pull you
so low as to hate him. Always avoid violence. If you succumb to
the temptation of using violence in your struggle, unborn
generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night
of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an
endless reign of meaningless chaos.
In your struggle for justice,
let your oppressor know that you are not attempting to defeat or
humiliate him, or even to pay him back for injustices that he
has heaped upon you. Let him know that you are merely seeking
justice for him as well as yourself. Let him know that the
festering sore of segregation debilitates the white man as well
as the Negro. With this attitude you will be able to keep your
struggle on high Christian standards.
Many persons will realize the
urgency of seeking to eradicate the evil of segregation. There
will be many Negroes who will devote their lives to the cause of
freedom. There will be many white persons of goodwill and strong
moral sensitivity who will dare to take a stand for justice.
Honesty impels me to admit that such a stand will require
willingness to suffer and sacrifice. So don't despair if you are
condemned and persecuted for righteousness' sake. Whenever you
take a stand for truth and justice, you are liable to scorn.
Often you will be called an impractical idealist or a dangerous
radical. Sometimes it might mean going to jail. If such is the
case you must honorably grace the jail with your presence. It
might even mean physical death. But if physical death is the
price that some must pay to free their children from a permanent
life of psychological death, then nothing could be more
Christian. Don't worry about persecution America; you are going
to have that if you stand up for a great principle. I can say
this with some authority, because my life was a continual round
of persecutions. After my conversion I was rejected by the
disciples at Jerusalem. Later I was tried for heresy at
Jerusalem. I was jailed at Philippi, beaten at Thessalonica,
mobbed at Ephesus, and depressed at Athens. And yet I am still
going. I came away from each of these experiences more persuaded
than ever before that "neither death nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor things present, nor things to come . . .
shall separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus
our Lord." I still believe that standing up for the truth of God
is the greatest thing in the world. This is the end of life. The
end of life is not to be happy. The end of life is not to
achieve pleasure and avoid pain. The end of life is to do the
will of God, come what may.
I must bring my writing to a
close now. Timothy is waiting to deliver this letter, and I must
take leave for another church. But just before leaving, I must
say to you, as I said to the church at Corinth, that I still
believe that love is the most durable power in the world. Over
the centuries men have sought to discover the highest good. This
has been the chief quest of ethical philosophy. This was one of
the big questions of Greek philosophy. The Epicurean and the
Stoics sought to answer it; Plato and Aristotle sought to answer
it. What is the summon bonum of life? I think I have an
answer America. I think I have discovered the highest good. It
is love. This principle stands at the center of the cosmos. As
John says, "God is love." He who loves is a participant in the
being of God. He who hates does not know God.
So American Christians, you
may master the intricacies of the English language. You may
possess all of the eloquence of articulate speech. But even if
you "speak with the tongues of man and angels, and have not
love, you are become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal."
You may have the gift of
prophecy and understanding all mysteries. You may be able to
break into the storehouse of nature and bring out many insights
that men never dreamed were there. You may ascend to the heights
of academic achievement, so that you will have all knowledge.
You may boast of your great institutions of learning and the
boundless extent of your degrees. But all of this amounts to
absolutely nothing devoid of love.
But even more Americans, you
may give your goods to feed the poor. You may give great gifts
to charity. You may tower high in philanthropy. But if you have
not love it means nothing. You may even give your body to be
burned, and die the death of a martyr. Your spilt blood may be a
symbol of honor for generations yet unborn, and thousands may
praise you as history's supreme hero. But even so, if you have
not love your blood was spilt in vain. You must come to see that
it is possible for a man to be self-centered in his self-denial
and self-righteous in his self-sacrifice. He may be generous in
order to feed his ego and pious in order to feed his pride. Man
has the tragic capacity to relegate a heightening virtue to a
tragic vice. Without love benevolence becomes egotism, and
martyrdom becomes spiritual pride.
So the greatest of all
virtues is love. It is here that we find the true meaning of the
Christian faith. This is at bottom the meaning of the cross. The
great event on Calvary signifies more than a meaningless drama
that took place on the stage of history. It is a telescope
through which we look out into the long vista of eternity and
see the love of God breaking forth into time. It is an eternal
reminder to a power drunk generation that love is most durable
power in the world, and that it is at bottom the heartbeat of
the moral cosmos. Only through achieving this love can you
expect to matriculate into the university of eternal life.
I must say goodby now. I hope
this letter will find you strong in the faith. It is probable
that I will not get to see you in America, but I will meet you
in God's eternity. And now unto him who is able to keep us from
falling, and lift us from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy
of hope, from the midnight of desperation to the daybreak of
joy, to him be power and authority, forever and ever. Amen.
Delivered at Dexter Avenue
Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama, on 4 November 1956. MLKP.
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