How Things Ought To Be

The celebration of Martin Luther King Day gives us a chance to not only reflect on how human relationships should ideally operate, but on the love and power of God that can truly make that occur. Paul wrote in 1st Corinthians chapter 1:
10 Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
11 For it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe's household, that there are contentions among you.
12 Now I say this, that each of you says, "I am of Paul," or "I am of Apollos," or "I am of Cephas," or "I am of Christ."
13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?

Division is such a toxic force, and we know that the enemy of our soul, the enemy of the cross, would want to keep us apart.  If we are divided within the Church, we cannot experience the best that God has to offer us. It is through the love of Jesus that we can put aside turf and territories and reject principles of partiality, so that we see each other through His eyes - not viewing someone because of outward appearance, but because he or she is made in the image of God.

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Romans 15 includes a passage that can provide a template for true unity under the banner of the cross. It states:
2 Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification.
3 For even Christ did not please Himself; but as it is written, "The reproaches of those who reproached You fell on Me."
4 For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.
5 Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus,
6 that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Last year, the following words appeared on the website of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina:

Dr. King was the “drum major of justice,” organizing and leading the effort against the backdrop of bigotry and racism. The celebration of his life, his dream, his legacy and the fruit of his sacrifice seems more poignant today than ever. This country (and the church) has come a long way since those wet-soaked streets stained with the blood of marchers. Deemed a hero today, this was in stark contrast to the general sentiment of his time.

The words prefaced and were part of an article written by church planter Antoine Lassiter, the grandson of a former preacher named James Hampton, who had shown him a picture of the late Rev. Dr. King "laying on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, with several people pointing toward the direction of the gunshot that killed him..." Lassiter writes that the picture "has always been seared in my mind."

He writes:

My grandfather spoke of Martin Luther King Jr. as a man who nonviolently raged against the “way things used to be” and led a movement with the hope of Christ to the “way things ought to be.” So, as we celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., it is my hope that we have the hope of Christ championed in us the way things ought to be.

Antione Lassiter included a portion of a sermon by Dr. King called "Loving Your Enemies," which was preached in Montgomery at the Dexter Avenue Church. King said: “Now let me hasten to say that Jesus was very serious when he gave this command; he wasn’t playing. He realized that it’s hard to love your enemies. He realized that it’s difficult to love those persons who seek to defeat you, those persons who say evil things about you. He realized that it was painfully hard, pressingly hard. But he wasn’t playing." He continued: "We have the Christian and moral responsibility to seek to discover the meaning of these words, and to discover how we can live out this command, and why we should live by this command.”

The love of Jesus helps us to move toward that "way things ought to be."  Alveda King, the niece of the late Martin Luther King, Jr. reinforced that notion in a FoxNews.com piece last year on the anniversary of the "I Have a Dream" speech; she wrote:

Indeed, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. taught civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance to injustice in everything he did. He taught that "we must come together as brothers. "And here I will add "and as sisters," so that we do not "perish together as fools."

My uncle also taught we are the one-blood human race. He was a man of peace who sought justice and preached for unity, and he would abhor the violence on our streets today.

She added: "We are indeed 'one blood/one human race.' Most important is that we respond to each other’s concerns without violence, in unity and peace, so that we can affirm the very important truths that make our Nation the greatest on Earth."

Lassiter wrote:

The hope that became the catalyst for change was rooted in his Christian faith. This is the beauty of what reconciles us all, first to God and then to each other.

The shame of the past is cleansed by the redemptive nature of the cross, but the residue of sin and its consequences remain until Christ’s return. So we celebrate Dr. King with the continued cry for justice and equality but with the realization that God has placed in us the hope of eternity that is expressed through His one and only Son, Jesus.

Ryan Bomberger of the Radiance Foundation, in a piece at the Standing for Freedom Center website, wrote, regarding the March on Washington in 1963:

Civil rights champions marched with the American flag despite not being extended all of the rights that our red, white, and blue represent. They were hopeful. They were relentless. They were filled with faith.

It was this Gospel-centered faith that drove Dr. King’s Dream. It wasn’t Corporate wokism. It wasn’t atheism. It wasn’t humanism. It was the deep abiding faith in a God who created us equally and demands justice. “With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood,” King spoke over the massive crowd of various hues gathered at the March on Washington.

So, we can consider, as the body of Christ, how, as Rev. Lassiter wrote, "things ought to be."  Martin Luther King painted the picture in his "I Have a Dream" speech and marched toward that goal throughout his work in ministry.  I have repeatedly said that the Church should lead the way in the area of race relations.  But, there are powerful forces that would deceive and distract us in order to produce division in the Church - when we take our eyes off of Jesus and put them on each other, and allow wayward forces such as partiality and stereotyping to get us off track, then we fail to achieve what God has called us to do.

A divided Church cannot hope to set the example that our world so desperately needs to see.  In order to avoid this division according to racial and cultural lines, we need to rediscover a powerful force - the love of Jesus, which can produce a deep and lasting unity; rather than the world's feeble attempts to bring people together, the characteristics of Christ's love can propel us where judgment is cast aside and the principles of Scripture applied to human relationships become the norm.