Sermon for January 18, 2015
The reading
John 1
The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip
and said to him, "Follow me." Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city
of Andrew and Peter. Philip found
Nathanael and said to him, "We have found him about whom Moses in the law
and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth." Nathanael said to him, "Can anything
good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and
see." When Jesus saw Nathanael
coming toward him, he said of him, "Here is truly an Israelite in whom
there is no deceit!" Nathanael
asked him, "Where did you get to know me?" Jesus answered, "I
saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you." Nathanael replied, "Rabbi, you are the
Son of God! You are the King of Israel!" Jesus answered, "Do you
believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see
greater things than these." And he
said to him, "Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the
angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.
The message
This morning, we heard readings about God’s call for us to
live good, faithful and committed lives, we hear God’s invitation to the
comfort, freedom and joy that comes from waking up, going to sleep, working,
and doing all things knowing that we are loved by God. We also prepare ourselves for tomorrow’s
holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr. the pastor, civil rights leader,
theologian and non-violence activist, named in honor of Martin Luther, the
founder of our own faith tradition. To help us think about both, I am going to
share parts of a sermon from Martin Luther King Jr. called “Three Dimensions of A Complete Life”. King delivered this message at New Covenant
Baptist Church in Chicago in April of 1967, about a year before he was assassinated.
This is after the March on Washington,
the Nobel prize, Selma, countless acts of non-violent protest, the passing of
the Civil Rights act and the voting rights act. By 1967, King had expanded his vision and view
of the power of non-violence to confront other issues and troubles in the world.
This quickly grew to include our role in the Vietnam war and poverty around the
world: The original sermon was probably around an hour long ( I have shortened
it considerably.) The message is based
on John’s vision of Jerusalem in the book of revelation, where he notes, The
length, height and breath of the city are equal and it is complete: The rest of what I am going to say here this
morning comes from Martin Luther King’s sermon:
There are three dimensions of any complete life ; length,
breadth, and height. Now the length of life as we shall use it here is the
inward concern for one’s own welfare. In
other words, it is that inward concern that causes one to push forward, to
achieve his own goals and ambitions. The
breadth of life as we shall use it here is the outward concern for the welfare
of others. And the height of life is the upward reach for God. Now you got to have all three of these to have
a complete life.
Now let’s turn for the moment to the length of life. I said
that this is the dimension of life where we are concerned with developing our
inner powers. In a sense this is the
selfish dimension of life. There is such a thing as rational and healthy self-interest.
A great Jewish rabbi, the late Joshua Leibman, wrote a book some years ago
entitled Peace of Mind. And he has a chapter in that book entitled "Love Thyself
Properly." And what he says in that chapter, in substance, is that before
you can love other selves adequately, you’ve got to love your own self
properly. You know, a lot of people don’t love themselves. And they go through life with deep and haunting
emotional conflicts. So the length of life means that you must love yourself.
And you know what loving yourself also means? It means that
you’ve got to accept yourself. So many people are busy trying to be somebody
else. God gave all of us something significant. And we must pray every day,
asking God to help us to accept ourselves.
This is what we’ve got to say. We’ve got to accept ourselves. And we
must pray, "Lord, Help me to accept myself every day; help me to accept my
tools."
Now the other thing about the length of life: after
accepting ourselves and our tools, we must discover what we are called to do. And once we discover it we should set out to
do it with all of the strength and all of the power that we have in our
systems. We should set out to do that work so well that the living, the dead,
or the unborn couldn’t do it any better.
A lot of people never get beyond the first dimension of
life. They use other people as mere steps by which they can climb to their
goals and their ambitions. These people don’t work out well in life. They may
go for awhile, they may think they’re making it all right, but there is a law.
They call it the law of gravitation in the physical universe, and it works,
it’s final, it’s inexorable: whatever goes up can come down. You shall reap
what you sow. God has structured the
universe that way. And he who goes through life not concerned about others will
be a subject, victim of this law.
So I move on and say that it is necessary to add breadth to
length. Now the breadth of life is the outward concern for the welfare of
others, as I said. And a man has not begun to live until he can rise above the
narrow confines of his own individual concerns to the broader concerns of all
humanity. This is what God needs today :
Men and women who will ask, "What will happen to humanity if I don’t help?
What will happen to the civil rights
movement if I don’t participate? What
will happen to my city if I don’t vote? What will happen to the sick if I don’t visit
them?" This is how God judges people in the final analysis.
And don’t forget in doing something for others that you have
what you have because of others. Don’t forget that. We are tied together in
life and in the world. And you may think
you got all you got by yourself. But you know, before you got out here to
church this morning, you were dependent on more than half of the world.
But don’t stop here either. You know, a lot of people master the length of
life, and they master the breadth of life, but they stop right there. Now if
life is to be complete, we must move beyond our self-interest. We must move
beyond humanity and reach up, way up for the God of the universe, whose purpose
changeth not. People become so involved
in thinking about man’s progress that they forget to think about the need for
God’s power in history. We were made for God, and we will be restless until we
find rest in him. And I say to you this
morning that this is the personal faith that has kept me going. I’m not worried
about the future. You know, even on this race question, I’m not worried. I was
down in Alabama the other day, and I started thinking about the state of
Alabama where we worked so hard and may continue to elect the Wallaces. And
down in my home state of Georgia, we have another sick governor by the name of
Lester Maddox. And all of these things
can get you confused, but they don’t worry me Because the God that I worship is
a God that has a way of saying even to kings and even to governors, "Be
still, and know that I am God."
In Conclusion, I say Go out this morning. Love yourself, and
that means rational and healthy self-interest. You are commanded to do that.
That’s the length of life. Then follow that: Love your neighbor as you love
yourself. You are commanded to do that. That’s the breadth of life. And I’m
going to take my seat now by letting you know that there’s a first and even
greater commandment: "Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, (Yeah)
with all thy soul, with all thy strength." I think the psychologist would
just say with all thy personality. And when you do that, you’ve got the breadth
of life.
And when you get all three of these together, you can walk
and never get weary. You can look up and see the morning stars singing
together, and the sons of God shouting for joy.
When you get all of these working together in your very
life, judgment will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty
stream.
When you get all the three of these together, the lamb will
lie down with the lion.
When you get all three of these together, you look up and
every valley will be exalted, and every hill and mountain will be made low; the
rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places straight; and the glory
of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh will see it together.
When you get all three of these working together, you will
do unto others as you’d have them do unto you
Amen
If anyone wants to read the complete sermon or learn more
about Pastor King’s preaching / writing / life / work, you can visit here: http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive
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