January 14, 2007

The Second Sunday after the Epiphany

Martin Luther King, Jr.:

Visionary Pastor and Empowering Leader

1 Corinthians 12:1-11; John 2:1-11

The Reverend Richard E. Allen

 

 

Coming as it does on the heels of the Christmas and New Year’s festivities, it would be easy to trivialize tomorrow’s Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday.  After all, while banks and government offices will close, only about a third of businesses and offices will do so.  As I picked up my shirts at the laundry yesterday, another customer left, with the remark, “Well, have a good holiday,” but then he paused to ask, “Are you going to be open on Monday?”  “We’ll be open,” came the response.  “Me, too,” the customer said as he walked out.  Holiday or not, the memory evoked by the day is not trivial, so let’s take these few moments of worship to remember Dr. King and his impact for us all, considering as well what this legacy might mean for us as a Christian community.

 

Out of his deep faith, King’s calling was to be a pastor. No surprise:  he was the son and grandson of pastors. Upon completing his doctoral dissertation at Boston University in 1954, Reverend King accepted the call to be the pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.  The church had been through internal strife, and the young leader arrived on the scene with a 34-point plan.  He came with a pastor’s heart, which, as he understood well, included a leader’s vision.

 

Of course, local events, centered primarily in Rosa Park’s courageous determination, soon captured his attention and called for his visionary leadership.  All too quickly these local events became national headlines.  The times called for a leader, and Dr. King found himself thrust onto a larger stage.  In the national spotlight his vision became a dream, not merely for his own church, or for his own town, or for his own African-American people, but for all people.  When he said, “I have a dream,” he spoke to the nation, not merely to Birmingham or to the American South. 

 

Do you remember his vision, to which he called the country, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963?  “I have a dream,” he said,“that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”  It was a dream of Godly equality of all of God’s children.

 

His was also a dream of justice.  Years later, reflecting on the meaning of this holiday, Coretta Scott King reminded us of the larger implication’s of the great leader’s vision:  “On this day,” she said, “we commemorate Dr. King’s great dream of a vibrant, multiracial nation united in justice, peace and reconciliation; a nation that has a place at the table for children of every race and room at the inn for every needy child.  We are called on this holiday, not merely to honor, but to celebrate the values of equality, tolerance and interracial sister and brotherhood he so compellingly expressed in his great dream for America.” (“The Meaning of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday,” from the King Center website.)  Honoring Dr. King’s vision means keeping that vision alive in our own time, and in our own church, for at its heart this vision was, and remains, a biblically based, Godly vision for human community.

 

King’s vision is a pastoral vision.  The dream articulated to the throng on Washington’s mall in 1963 was as much for white Americans as for black Americans or other non-white Americans, for it was for ALL Americans and for all America.  But it was not just political; it was spiritual, even religious, with a firmly religious vision at its core:  “I have a dream,” King said in the last echo of that great phrase, “that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain and the crooked places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”  We in the church know those words well.  Before that was Dr. King’s dream, it was Isaiah’s dream.  Or, more accurately, because it was Isaiah’s dream, it belonged to the preacher, who gave it in turn to the nation.

 

The vision began as a hope for racial equality, but it was always more.  Even then, King saw himself as liberating not merely black people, but all people.  His was a vision of universal equality, and over time, King knew, true equality meant economic as well as racial equality.  He called as well for a universal commitment to serving one another, to humility, compassion, and justice.  At its core, King’s vision was one of a world led by the spirit of love – love for neighbors, ALL neighbors, born in a love for the God.  It was a pastoral vision to the end.

 

Although I am only a journeyman pastor, I share a similar pastoral vision.  I did not arrive at this church with a 34-point action plan, but I’ve spent the past few months watching, listening, and learning.  At this point in our life together, my dream is that our church will be a community where our love for God transcends our individual differences of background, theological subtleties, or distinctions of race, politics, or cultural origin.  My dream is …  that our church will continue to reach out in love and concern for the least, the last and the lost, whoever they are, and whatever their language, nationality, or even their religious affiliation.  My dream is …  that we will evidence our love for God and one another by our use of the gifts and the grace that God has given us.

 

To reach its vision, any church finally depends on love.  It’s no accident that in the first miracle in the gospel of John, one of today’s lessons, Jesus turning water into wine.  Water:  flat, tasteless, becomes wine:  full-bodied, spirited.  It’s the spirit that makes the difference, after all – the spirit of God’s love exhibited at a wedding, a celebration of human love.  The lesson reminds the church that our task is to love God and to love our neighbors – wives and husbands, children and parents, friends and (if Jesus is to be believed) foes as well. 

 

Our calling as people of faith is to love our communities, to love our country, and to love our ever-shrinking world.  Our job is to love this good creation, this fragile planet that God has given us in trust, and to pass it on in better shape to our descendents, not to consume thoughtlessly all its resources in our own quest for self-fulfillment or comfort.  Our task is to love our lives by giving our lives freely to God’s guidance, and, in doing so, to live in hope that the One who changed water into wine will also impart to us a truly holy spirit.  If we are very blessed, we will inherit that same Godly spirit of Christ.  Then, with Him and in Him, we will embody the very best qualities of love:  the qualities of justice, mercy, compassion, equality, hope and joy.

 

That is a challenging vision, best accomplished by a united effort.  This common effort requires a mutual ministry – commitment and sacrifice on the part of each of us.  Calling us all to this common task is the job of empowering leadership, the first of the eight quality characteristics of the Natural Church Development process that I want to introduce to you today, and that you’ll be hearing more about in coming weeks.

 

First, a prefatory explanation:  Natural Church Development is a process in which a church grows into its fullest potential naturally, intentionally improving its weakest characteristic.  We’ll spend some time considering all of these eight core ministries:  leadership, small groups, worship, spirituality, evangelism, spiritual gifts, structures, and relationships.  We’ll evaluate ourselves, and then we will work together to improve our church’s ministry in the area identified as least developed in our church at this time.

 

Today, I want to say a word about just one of these eight quality characteristics, empowering leadership.  When I was a pastor in South Carolina, for several years I attended and helped lead a camp for youth near Beaufort, in a little crossroad community known as Frogmore.  We worked improving the homes of poor people in the area, and at night we ate and slept at the Penn Center.  The name suggests the heritage of the place.  Just after the American Civil War, a group of Quakers established the Penn Center as a school for former slaves and their children.  The dormitories and classrooms remain, a beautiful and important landmark.

 

In the 1950’s and ‘60’s the Penn Center found new life as a strategic meeting place for a young minister and his associates.  It was a place where they retreated to rest, to pray, to gather their strength, and to develop their strategy for the civil rights struggle being led by this young minister, whose name was Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

Dr. King’s retreats at the Penn Center are important, though largely unknown, because they explain the survival of his dream through today.  A key reason Dr. King’s vision continued after his assassination in 1968 is that he empowered others to share in the leadership necessary for realizing his dream.  He led others by casting a national vision, but he led as well by giving others a part to play in implementing the vision.  He was a coach as well as a player.  Among the many he worked with were Ralph Abernathy, Jesse Jackson, and Andrew Young.  King’s vision lives on today, partly because many of those he coached continue the work he started.  He met with some of them at the Penn Center in the village Frogmore, outside Beaufort, South Carolina.

 

Empowering leadership is leadership that sets a vision and works toward it, but that also gives others their place in implementing the vision.  Empowering leaders equip, support, motivate and mentor others to become all that God’s Spirit hopes they will become.  Empowering leaders celebrate God’s use of the individual gifts of every Christian.

 

You will likely hear more about individual gifts, and each of us will have a part to play in the vitality and growth of our church.  Today, though, I commit myself to the model of empowering leadership.  I will do my best to be a coach as well as a player. This model might be expressed in the words of the lesson read earlier from First Corinthians: “there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.”  (1 Corinthians 12:4-6)

Let us pray:  Loving God, by your living spirit, give us the vision to see your world redeemed, courage to accept our part in living toward your vision.  Empower us to do your will, and encourage us to empower others to share with us the task of loving both You and others, with heart, soul, mind and strength.

 

In the name of Christ our Lord, who calls disciples to share in his life and in his work. 

Amen.