Palm Sunday 04/07/1968

I assume that you, like me, are tired of the hate which consumes everyone, of the dream deferred, of the cheapness of human life.

I'm tired.

I want now to seize this season of darkness and make of it a season of brilliant new light. I assume without question that each of you do also.

There is a constant theme which runs through our history as Christians. That history which reaches all the way back to Father Abraham and reaches a mighty climax in Jesus of Nazareth. That theme which is part of our history, is the theme of undeserved suffering being the means whereby human history can be given a turn, into a new Promised Land. Suffering, willingly borne for the sake of others. A self emptying, by a people, or a person, is the mighty theme held forth as the manner in which life can come out of death, healing can come out of hurt, salvation out of strife.

Almost two thousand years ago a man entered the city of his fathers. Really not seeking a crowd. Confusing even his closest friends by the manner of his entry. The role of suffering servant, being hidden even at that time, from his followers. By the end of that week he had been murdered. Had willingly offered up his life. Had struggled with the question of his own death. Had chosen to suffer and die, rather than react violently to his condemners and executors.

From the death of Jesus, his self emptying death, his death for others, a new power entered the world which gripped, controlled, and changed people. To become with their life, participants in self-emptying, suffering servants for the sake of the world. A new power of self emptying, which enabled new men and women, to stand alongside of all men, to be reconcilers, to be life conveyors.

The self-emptying death of Jesus occurred also a time when Mighty Rome was falling apart. And yet the men and women who took their clue from Jesus as to what life really is, carried that empire for another seven hundred years. And when it finally fell apart, the self-emptying followers of Jesus (who had acquired the name Christian) were responsible for bringing into being a new age for the world, new lifestyles and new possibilities for all the people of their time.

I am pointing us to the fact, that again and again in history, it has been the self-emptying life, lived for others, suffering servant life, which has brought to its time, possibilities for lifting man again to a new level of life, to a new and greater future.

I am pointing us to the fact, that where such life is lived. There. Is what we mean by the spirit of Christ, the spirit of God, the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost.

I am pointing us to the fact, that this is the style of life which Christians at all times have been called to live. In the midst of the world. For the sake of the world. Because only so does the world know life.

Since last we met on March 31st, the Christ Spirit, the self-emptying sign, the Holy Spirit, has been publicly portrayed in the lives of two men of our nation. The Christ has been present in two lives, holding out once again, the call to self emptying, wherein there is the possibility for a brand new nation to be born.

Last Sunday evening, Lyndon Baines Johnson, whom few would call a saint, and who many of us were more tempted to call the devil, the President of the US, so concerned with his place in history, so determined to exert his will over events, made the deflating and self emptying decision not to run again for president (his finest hour).

I take Mr. Johnson at his word. I believe that he is seeing that the only way in which new possibilities for peace at home and abroad could arise, would be if he took himself out of the picture. In that decision Mr. Johnson died for the sake of the world. For the sake of his country. In that decision, we Christians are called to see and rejoice in the Christ event. That his decision has opened possibilities for new approaches in solving domestic, and world problems, has been pointed out by columnists on end.

The primary target of everyone has been removed. Who to pin responsibility on now? Everyone, every presidential candidate, to the lowest peasant, has to work out a new style. Has to himself or herself throw themselves into the fray.

In the self-emptying of Mr. Johnson, the world and the nation have been given the opportunity to chart a new course toward Shalom. The church in America has been reminded dramatically of its ever old, and ever new task. To be the Servants of Christ, in the service of men. The self-emptying act, has given us the possibility to work for, and move toward, that “New City of Man”.

That “New City of Man”, which was the dream of the other man in whose life, and through whose death, on April 4th, 1968, the Christ Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the self-emptying, hope for the world spirit, was set forth so dramatically, that only deaf, blind, and dumb Christians can miss it.

The murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, a tragedy as horrible as the murder of Jesus, whom Dr. King served as Lord.

The murder of Dr. King, the man whose life was emptied for the sake of the poor.

The murder of Dr. King, has just four days past last Sunday, been another public dramatization of the Christ event. Jesus died for tax collectors, Dr. King died for garbage collectors. Both LBJ and Dr. King died for the sake of a new world.

The word once again to the church in America, through the life and death of one of her sons. Seize the opportunity. The hour of your salvation is here. Form up the company of those who choose now. For now is the time to become the Servants of Christ, in the service of men. To bind up the wounds of the nation. To move a country out of the wilderness into “The New City of Man”.

As horrible as the death of Dr. King has been, as horrible as have been the consequences in our own city, and in the cities of our land, in his self emptying life-and-death we the church in America and citizens of this land are given the possibility of making the name “The New World” really fit this part of the globe.

The self-emptying life and death of Dr. King, in that it has brought to the surface, the depth and the horror of the alienation and separation between black and white, law and justice, government and people, can at the same time be cleansing and healing for our nation. If it brings forth once again that self-emptying army of persons, who take responsibility for making a united nation, out of a torn and divided one.

There never has been, and never can, be any style of Christian Life, except that of the one who empties himself and takes the form of a servant. How can I speak the name of Jesus the Christ, and not be willing, if necessary, to die for the sake of all men? Twice in a week has been made plain the Christian teaching of self emptying for the sake of all.

One year ago last Thursday, Dr. King preached in Riverside Church in New York City. I close with his words.

“Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter -- but beautiful -- struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.”

Grant O Lord, that we and thy whole Church in America will do the necessary deeds.

Amen.