Today we celebrate the life and work of the Reverend Doctor, Martin Luther King Jr., a prophet in our time. His was a voice of conscience and like so many prophets before him, he was killed in service to the good, he was murdered for speaking the truth.
Martin Luther King wore the mantle of a prophet, not in the sense that he saw the future (though he did foresee his assassination), prophecy is not prognostication, that is not what a prophet does. A prophet is not a seer or an augur, a diviner or a fortuneteller.
A person is a prophet who delivers the word of God, and Martin Luther King did just that; he was not a prophet in the sense that he had a unique channel to the creator of the universe, or because God spoke to him in a privileged way. The Reverend Doctor made no pretensions to being that sort of person. He was an ordinary man who answered and extraordinary call, in so doing he became transformed and through his transformation he pointed to the way for us to follow, he presented a blueprint for transforming our society, for taking the world we have inherited and making it into something new, the community of the beloved, and he left the greater portion of that work for us to do.
God speaks to all of us in the same way, this is one of the things that the Reverend Doctor spoke to us about, clarifying for us the responsibility we each have, to listen to the demands of our conscience when we hear it speaking in our hearts; he called on us to do more than listen…the Reverend Doctor called on us to act.
Martin Luther King had no more and no less access to supernatural powers than any of us, what made him different than most was the choice he made to comply with the demands of his conscience, even to the point where it cost him his life.
He listened to the voice of God, the same voice that speaks to each and every one of us. He heard the voice of God and he responded to the call by cleaving to the message and sharing it with the world.
Like Jesus whom he followed, the Reverend Doctor loved mercy, he worked for justice and he walked humbly all the days of his life, setting an example for the rest of us to follow.
Today we are given countless opportunities to reflect on Martin Luther King’s likeness, to consider his words, to reflect on their meaning and on the life of an American Saint…we are wise to do so.
We are wise to remember the man, Martin Luther King Jr., a rare person whose measure in our society exceeded the ordinary flaws that make us all human; he lived with his flaws and he reached beyond them.
The Reverend Doctor transcended even death, though he was taken by the assassin’s bullet. He lives now in our collective consciousness, in our collective-conscience; he lives in the global psyche, speaking to us from the dimension of myth, a human being who was more than human, a child of God overflowing with grace and wisdom.
Today he calls us to service, to share his cup, so that upon drinking from it we may aspire to do the same, to live the same, to be the same as he was.
The Reverend Doctor spoke truth to power and offered hope to the powerless, and for that he was shot down. He was once considered by the director of the F.B.I. to be the most dangerous man in America and from that status he became our most beloved hero, the prime exemplar of what it means to be an American, a radical-freedom-fighter, unparalleled and unforgotten.
He was beaten and arrested dozens of times for the crime of seeking justice.
His life was threatened daily.
His reputation was smeared without regard for the truth or appreciation for his selfless works.
He was killed for his efforts, but not destroyed. He was, and continues to be, an example to us all.
The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr., our prophet, he still points the way, lighting the long journey along the arc of justice, a journey that still lies ahead of us…toward a justice that will not be denied.
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