The Fierce Urgency of Now

It's been 42 years since Martin Luther King delivered his anti-war sermon to the Riverside Church in New York City [04.04.1967]. Delivered exactly one year before his assassination, this was the speech that finally set off the Powers-that-Be in the United States. Some folks found King's subject a bit odd coming from a civil rights preacher, but he gave 7 reasons why his conscience left him no other choice but to speak out boldly against American military action in Vietnam [and why we Evangelicals follow this prophetic voice and speak out against our current military endeavors]:

1. War is always an enemy of the poor

Spending billions on fighting so-called enemies 8,000 miles away from our borders acts 'like some demonic, destructive suction tube,' as domestic programs helping the vulnerable, disadvanted and marginalized are slashed.

2. The poor fought and died in higher proportions to the rest of society

Young men are manipulated to join up in order to earn money for living expenses or college. For many, it's the only choice after the high school years.

3. Social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action

King called the United States 'the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today,' but didn't stand up as an innocent bystander, admitting it as 'my own government.' True change never comes from living out the myth of redemptive violence.

4. To save the soul of America

'If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read 'Vietnam.'
This war, like so many others, was 'some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war.'

5. His Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 made him a spokeman

This commission came from allegiances that transcended nationalism and patriotism.

6. As a minister of the enemy-loving Jesus Christ

If our Lord loved his enemies so much that he died for them, then what were Christians thinking to ordain and approve this war?

7. Bound by an allegiance to God's Reign

King was first and foremost a son of the living God. Peacemakers are blessed and shall be called 'children of God' [Matthew 5:9]. We worship a God who raises the dead...we can risk nonviolent obedience to his manifesto.

King's vocation to give a voice to the voiceless wasn't just his own. He called upon all ministers of the gospel of draft age to give up their ministerial exemptions and seek status as conscientious objectors. Calling upon immediate action [the fierce urgency of now], he called on people of conscience to abandon profits and privilege and be willing to sacrifice for God's Dream for the world.

This sacrifice, for King, must be soaked in what he called 'a true revolution of values.' This was a call to abandon our Western arrogance, [assuming that we need to teach others] and learn to listen to the voices of the other. This revolution of love, peace, fairness and justice would trump the truly systemic challenges of racism, poverty and militarism.

King called upon a progressive brand of Christianity who 'rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world.' God's Dream for the world [the Kingdom of God] is at hand. We anticipate it by enacting it with loving creativity. This movement is ecumenical, open to all people of conscience, regardless of faith, nationality, sex or class. Jesus infused this vision to his disciples in Mark's gospel: Whoever is not against us is for us.'

Today, King's 'beloved community' continues to be sidelined by followers of Jesus who are convinced that Jesus' message was spiritual and future, rather than spiritual and political and economic: a dedication to 'the fierce urgency of now.' We need to relearn that long-lost line of the disciples prayer: May your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In our stance towards Iraq and Afghanistan [and heating up in Iran], health care privileges, immigration status, and marital freedom, those of us who boldly take on a vocation of agony should strive for deep structural change to make the beautiful symphony of brotherhood a reality.

Everything in bold comes from his sermon entitled Beyond Vietnam. Let us meditate on these words today in our time of contemplation and prayer, concluding with 'Come, Lord Jesus.'