Giving all praises and glory to God, our Father, honor to the honorable Mayor of Rowlett Dr. John Harper and other members of city council, peace to my brethren of the ecclesiastical authority of Rowlett and members of the “Pray” Rowlett Pastor’s Fellowship, love, peace, and grace be unto you the citizens of this growing city.
Tomorrow our nation will give notice and recognition to one of the greatest Americans to have ever lived, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and to his ongoing legacy called the Dream. I have been privileged to speak a word in memory and honor of this Champion of Freedom and ethnic equality and of his speech, “I Have a Dream,” past, present, and future. This prolific preacher, civil rights leader, and drum major for justice and peace has inspired Americans of many generations.
Nearly 50 years ago, 47 to be exact, America was given a gift by God to save our democracy. He sent it in the form of a dream. It is not unusual for God to work through dreams to save his people from devastation. He sent a dream to Pharaoh interpreted by an Israelite named Joseph who was sold into slavery by his brothers and saved Egypt and his family from famine. He sent another dream to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon about the coming of an everlasting Kingdom. Unable to understand the dream, he issued a death decree to all of the wise men in his kingdom which included Daniel and his three friends, Meshach, Shadrach, and A-b-e-d-n-e-g-r-o, I mean, Abednego. And Inspiration states Daniel tells King Nebuchadnezzar:
The secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the soothsayers, shew unto the king; But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these; Daniel 2:27, 28
The Dream Maker’s gift to America came in the form of a dream delivered to a Dreamer who called himself a Drum Major for Justice, Drum Major for Peace to save his people from social injustices, poverty, and ethnic discrimination. And I can tell you that in preparation for this occasion; I encountered some sorrow of heart as I listened to his speeches. All of the men that God has ever given the responsibility of being a visionary for His people have suffered. And listening to His homily called “A Knock at Midnight” he tells of the many, many phone calls that he received threatening his life and the life of his family. But what strengthened him, what gave him the moral fortitude to continue, by his own testimony, was that He had to get to know the one his father told him about and that is the Dream Maker, Jesus Christ.
The Dream of the Past was birth in the midst of treachery and violence posed on the Negro and other minorities in America. It inspired hope to a people sunken with despair in the face of social, economical, and mental cruelty. The Dream was the spark the catalyst of a new America by calling into action old American values and principles. By this is what I believe Dr. King meant when he said “We have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check…But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.” And those who championed the cause of freedom in our country who endured the bombings, long nights in small cells, the bullets of fire hosing, the bites of ferocious dogs and even after his assassination believed in the Dream. They silenced the Dreamer but could not stifle the Dream because the Dream Maker gave it to us through him. The Dream did not die in the past, went away until someone else carried the “torch,” it forced America to take a deep, deep look within herself and make some notable changes which brings us to the “Dream of the Present.”
Make no mistake about it, Dr. King’s Dream wasn’t political; I reiterate that it was very spiritual. Neither the movement for which he fought was political it was theological. You see politics is the way of the majority in any government while theology attempts to help us to see things and live our lives on a spiritual plateau. But I say to you that the Dream of the Present has been counterfeited. One particular cause you know has been getting a lot of press here lately. When it started they said that “It was the new Black.” I have to be careful here because we have to keep things in perspective. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was not a politician he was a preacher and I must quantify that by saying a Gospel preacher.
To say that being gay is the “new” Black is a slap in the face to the cause of equality in this country. If he were here I know he would concur because he read the same Book that I read. This inordinate behavior must not be seen in light of human rights for it is in itself contrary to the very nature of our being. If homosexual behavior is preferred over heterosexual behavior the operation of procreation would cease and mankind then becomes an endangered species. Homosexuality is a nightmare to humanity and to our country. It has no association to the Dream. And to say that because I hold these views makes me homophobic and antiquated with old religious philosophy is typical rhetoric from a movement that counterfeits such a noble man and a noble cause.
Being Black then and now is not a behavior although it has been stereotyped as such. I don’t even like fried chicken, watermelon, red soda water, I like root beer, so then being Black is not what I do it’s who I am. The social injustices that we face go far beyond our behavior in the bedroom behind closed doors. As it is we still have women seeking justice with fair wages for performing the same job, minorities still are seeking justice in the work place for the same opportunities for promotion as whites, the country needs a reasonable and fair education for all and equal housing.
Affirmative Action is America’s attempt to enact the Dream. Frederick Douglass, another great American abolitionist, once said that "If the Negro can’t stand on his own two feet then let him fall." Where would we be today without it? Our Caucasian brothers see it as a “hand out,” and our Black brothers see it as an apathetic attempt to right many wrongs, but I see it as opportunity afforded where bigotry once forbade and thereby I classify it as progress. However it is far from the “urgency of Now” that Dr. King spoke of, and I would even venture to say that it is doing what he did not want for America to do and that is to take the “tranquilizing drug of gradualism.” We are gradually moving towards the American dream becoming a reality for all.
One would have thought that with the election of Senator Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States would have brought an end to the ugliness of hate and bigotry in this country. It has not quite ended it but it has lost a lot of steam. What his election showed was the vitality and vigor of the Dream of the Present. It is the very essence of what Dr. King meant when he said that he wanted his children “to live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Now minorities in America know that they have opportunity in the land of opportunity.
Finally let us build for the “Dream of the Future.” Dr. Harper I believe that we need victory marches every year in Rowlett to remind us of the fight for justice and peace perhaps one that leads to the steps of city hall. But if the Dream of the Future is going to exist, we can’t expect legislation to do what we have to do individually. We can’t even leave it up to ourselves to perpetuate the Dream because we are carnal and as I have told you this cause is spiritual. God told the prophet Jeremiah,
"Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil." Jeremiah 13:23
And Jesus said, "I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing." John 15:5 We can’t even get along without Jesus helping us.
To build this Dream of the Future, we are going to have to lean upon the Church, because as I recall, it was the Church in America that upheld the disposition of separatism and segregation. Dr. King penned in his book the Strength of Love, “The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.”
And I hate to say it but what has the Church become today? Time magazine, in its January 11, 2010 issue, had an article in it about what a Chicago megachurch was doing to integrate his congregation. It even cited a quote from Dr. King. In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. famously declared that "11 o’clock Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of the week ... And the Sunday school is still the most segregated school." That largely remains true today. Despite the growing desegregation of most key American institutions, churches are still a glaring exception. Surveys from 2007, show that fewer than 8% of American congregations have a significant racial mix.
The Future of the Dream hinges upon the backbone of American culture and that is our Faith. Now understand that Faith is not self-produced. Faith is a spiritual term a theological facet. "How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." Romans 10:14-17
Would to God, the great Dream Maker, a great sheet let down from heaven like He did the Apostle Peter, with all manner of four-footed beast, so that God would convict us of our prejudices? We brethren must address evil in all its facets or our sheep will come to think it is acceptable to be disrespectful, prejudice, and unloving. This Dream is just a means to an end. That same dream that King Nebuchadnezzar had exists today as well, and Dr. King’s dream is a minute depiction of that dream which culminated in the establishment of God’s eternal Kingdom. Jesus said that, “Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer?” (Mark 11:17) The Apostle Paul followed by saying, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:28, 29) If our churches remain segregated our communities will also and that will prolong the culmination of our Dream. And how will the promise of Matthew 24:14, “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come” come to pass?
Dr. King knew where the dream ended, as I close, When we allow freedom to ring we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
May God bless you!
