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I define affirmative action as intentionality.
For those who dilute it and destroy it, I beleive that Martin said we must judge by character and ignore historical and intentional acts of discrimination based on color.
I respectfully suggest as we seek clarity concerning his vision that we look at the letter from the Birmingham Jail along with the "I Have a Dream" speech.
The letter has as its core, law and justice.
And it underscores the truth that justice delayed is justice denied.
It lays down the blessing of struggle and the holiday honors the divine nature of struggle.
This godlike creature called human hungers for freedom, yearns and groans for liberation, and resist any force that seeks to inhibit or enslave it.
Even little chickens create turbulence in the shell when they are ready to be liberated.
I had some easter eggs for my great grandchildren and before my eyes two of the eggs started making noise and the shell rocked and cracked and eventually two little chicks stuck their heads out.
My great grandchildren were fascinated and they don't know how it shook me up, but it reminded me there is a spirit in the universe.
Particularly that which is encased in humans that is restless and figidity and dissatisified and uncomfortable until it has found its freedom.
The holiday honors the non-violent nature of the struggle.
It established the ethics of non-violence in acheiving social change.
The letter from the Birmingham jail, and I have suggested that it is powerful material for curriculum in Sunday school, to understand the nature of the man who wrote it and the ethics of the non-violent militance of the struggle.
The letter was written to eight white clergymen in Birmingham who wrote Martin.
And Martin answered while he was in prison on scraps of paper because they would not give him any stationary.
And incidently the clergymen who wrote him did not deny the righteousness of the cause of the movement in Birmingham, in fact they affirmed.
They confessed that they beleive the cause was just and they understood that part of the movement.
What they objected to was not the purpose or goal of the movement, but its timing.
The movement was heading in the right direction, but chose the wrong time.
It should choose a more convenient season to exercise its prerogatives.
But the oppressor whose heel is on the neck of the oppressed forfeits the right to determine the shape, form, time, color or rhythm of the movement to remove the heel.
It is the oppressed who maintained the prerogative as to when and how the heel must be removed from the neck.
Martin said in the letter from the Birmingham jail that they don't mean later, these powerful forces who would delay justice.
They say later but they really mean never.
And so we should genuinely and joyfully seek to shape the future from the vision in our celebration.
We must not stop with honoring the man, we must honor the mission as well.
There is something wrong with ennobling the missionary and ignoring the mission.
Today's calling, as we celebrate, is not only to stop and help the wounded traveler on the Jericho road, it is to pave the Jericho road so that it does not become convenient to assault the poor and those who travel on their life journey.
Our celebration must move beyond charity to love.
Charity will give a hungry man a fish sandwhich.
Love will teach him how to fish.
But love will not stop there.
Lenient love will try to provide opportunities for schooling and training so that the hungry man can find a good job and earn a livable wage in order to buy good fishing equipment and catch a good fish.
But love will not stop there.
Love will go to see that the water in which he has to fish is clean and non-polluted in respecting God's creation.
Charity is seasonal, love is everlasting to everlasting.
Charity is selective, love is inclusive.
Charity can overlook justice, love embraces justice.
So if we are to shape the future through a celebration through the life and ministry of Martin Luther King Jr., we should move from charity to love.
We must move from the dream to shaping the future, and see it as moving from ceremony to sacrament.
If we are serious about honoring Martin Luther King and the march to justice, ceremony is insufficient to lead us to a new level of stewardship.
Ceremony is unnecessary -- this is a ceremony but problem with ceremony is that they end with a benediction.
I believe there is a benediction here -- no there is not a benediction -- but most ceremonies -- (laughing) -- end with a benediction and that is insufficient.
And that is insufficient.
We must move from ceremony to sacrament.
See, sacraments begin with benedictions -- they do not end with the benediction.
Sacraments -- baptism is a sacrament but the act of baptism is a ceremony -- begin in your righteous living after you baptize.
If you don't become a new creature after baptism, you stopped with ceremony and you did not begin the process of sacramental living.
Baptism is ceremony.
Ceremonial patriotism concludes with waving the flag on the fourth of July.
But sacramental patriotism cries out yes my nation right or wrong, but when she is wrong I'll fight to set her right.
Ceremony is putting a ring on her finger at the wedding, but sacrament is filling her life with love and joy every day, and every hour, every year after.
You can say amen if you want to I don't care.
(laughing)
Any place that has Fredrick Douglass cementary and grave nearby ought to not be afraid to say amen.
And so its with that sacramental prospective that I challenge you to approach the celebration of the life and minisitry and mission of Martin Luther King.