I felt some regret Monday when my current favorite devotional, Lectio 365, featured a memorial to Martin Luther King Jr. This reminded me I’d said nothing to acknowledge the holiday at church on Sunday. It doesn’t help that Lectio 365 is from Britain! (Well, it does help me be humble!)
The devotional quoted a speech King gave in Memphis the night before he was assassinated on April 4, 1968. Have you heard of it? It’s come to be known as “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” and it rocks. I’m aware that MLK’s record is not roundly viewed as without blemish. I’m no expert on that. As an aging career mobilizer however, I feel a little expertise in the realm of mobilization: This speech is fantastic.
Moving toward his conclusion, King referenced Jesus’s parable of the Good Samaritan, “And so the first question that the priest asked — the first question that the Levite asked was, ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’”
As you may have experienced, there’s real, though for most of us mild, risk in advocating for Muslims. What will happen if we do? People may squawk, misunderstand and disparage.
King goes on, “But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’”
Paraphrasing King’s call for fair pay for Black sanitation workers in Memphis, I would ask, “If we don’t stop to help Muslims learn of the love of God in Christ, what will become of them?”
King wrapped his sermon with this, “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. . . .I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!”
We too have been to a mountaintop. It’s called Revelation 7.9 and we’ve seen some from every Muslim tribe, tongue, people and nation standing before the throne and before the Lamb. God will accomplish his purposes, and by some gorgeous grace, he’s invited us to join him. Praise God and thank you, Dr. King for the encouragement.
PS: Fun news: Get this, I had a chance this afternoon, at a memorial service, no less, to use the three words of Farsi that you and I learned last week in Muslim Connect. (Check it out, if you’ve not seen it yet!) It was super fun and kind of silly, but an elderly Bahai Persian dude asked me to pray for him afterward, so I’m saying a win. If you want, join me in asking Jesus to meet him before his journey on earth comes to an end.