Brother Martin

Sermon from John, 1 Corinthians, & MLK Day.

 

We are back in the "Green Season," but this time of the church year is devoted to all the different and various ways that God reveals God's love, God's will, God's justice.

 

Today we read from the Gospel of John about how Jesus first changed water to wine. This story is as famous as it is lovely. We've all heard it a time or two, in fact I have been blessed to hear this one at a really neat wedding here.

And while this story has a lot to teach us, I also want to focus on St. Paul's writing in 1 Corinthians. We will get two other weeks of these readings, and I think it would be fun to do a sermon series.

Seeing as how Monday will be Martin Luther King Day, though, the Gospel has some interesting things going on. The dynamic that I imagine our Brother Martin could have identified with was Jesus telling his mother "now is not the time."

Not that brother Martin emulated Jesus. No, Martin emulated the most faithful character in this story, Jesus' mother.

Mary tells Jesus about the pending crisis, and Jesus tries to tell her now is not the time.

And he calls her "woman," I don't know about you, but even imagining calling my mother that somehow summons her and I can see her finger wagging.

Regardless, though; Jesus thinks now is not the time.

 

We only need to read brother Martin's letter from the Birmingham Jail to hear about how he struggled with all the people telling him now was not the time to struggle for civil rights.

But Brother Martin, like mother Mary, knew what time it was - Amen!

Yes, brother Martin knew and he would not be detracted. So to sit-ins and prisons, brother Martin went. He went because he knew what time it was.

Just like mother Mary. Faithful mother Mary. Jesus tries to shoo her from the scene, but she knows a thing or two.

For pity's sake, she was there when Gabriel told her should who bear a God's child.

Yes mother Mary knew a thing or two, and most importantly she knew how to tell time. Jesus may have tried to brush her aside, bless his heart; but Mary, like Martin, was faithful and persistent.

 

So she pulled some strings...

And we know the rest, don't we - Amen.

We know the rest. We know that John finishes by saying this was the first of Jesus' signs, revealing God.

Mary knew the time and she would not be deterred.

 

And brother Martin knew the time too, didn't he.

He couldn't be stopped, not until that tragic day when an assassin took his life.

But even know Brother Martin's vision lives on - Amen.

It lives on. Brother Martin knew the time.

Yes, it has been many years since he first gave that important, famous speech, but the words still ring.

The words still challenge us.

The words still remind us what time it is.

Let us listen to those words...

 

 

Brother Martin had a dream, and now it is to us to keep that dream alive, to dream that dream ourselves.

As I said earlier, I am looking forward for an occasion to do a series on St. Paul's words.

And it is not merely the Gospel of John that is so appropriate to our remembrance of Brother Martin.

There are also Paul's words.

In the reading from First Corinthians Paul is making a list of all the gifts God equips us with to be the body of Christ.

 

Paul is not trying to create an exhaustive list.

No, what Paul is doing is reminding those Corinthians that God loves diversity. Paul is reminding those Corinthians that each gift is valued by God.

Remember Paul is writing to those Corinthians in the first place because some folks there were blessed with the gift from God to speak in tongues. When these folks got that gift, well they got a little big-headed.

 

These folks got to think that not only did they earn those gifts, but that the gift of speaking in tongues was the most important.

It is to this human created hierarchy that St. Paul feels he must write about. Paul reminds them that each gift is just that, a gift. Paul reminds them that each gift comes from the same God. Paul reminds them, Amen, that each gift is valuable.

That each gift is given by God for the good of the entire body of Christ, for the building up of the common good.

 

Paul, sisters and brothers, knows what time it is too.

Paul knows that we live after a time when we must place things in order from most valuable to least valuable.

Paul knows that now we live in Christ and everything has changed.

Each gift comes from God, and God values each gift.

 

God loves diversity.

God can hold many different parts together.

 

We didn't listen to all of Brother Martin's speech - but if you google, "Martin Luther King Jr, I Have a Dream," you will find the speech.

Brother Martin was going to go on to talk about his dream that all of God's children would be treated equal.

 

Yes, Brother Martin knew what time it was. Brother Martin knew that know we all live in Christ.

To borrow another expression from Paul, so NOW there is no Jew or Greek, no male of female, no white or black, no us and "them."

Now we are all one.

Like mother Mary, like St. Paul, like brother Martin - let us look to Christ and remember what time it is now.

Amen.