Martin Luther King's dream still eludes us

Jan 28 2008 With Bishop Dr Joe Aldred

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HAD he lived to see it, the Rev Dr Martin Luther King would have been 79 years old next Tuesday.

Instead, on April 4, 1968, he was assassinated at 39 years old.

Most of us will be familiar with King's "I have a dream" speech which was delivered on August 28, 1963, as the keynote address of the Civil Rights march on Washington DC.

Even today, every time I hear this speech I get goose pimples.

Who can forget poignant words like "I have a dream that one day, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers"?

King's wife Coretta is said to have commented that during this speech: "It seemed as if the Kingdom of God appeared. But it only lasted for a moment."

What has been described as King's most apocalyptic sermon, however, was delivered the day before he was killed. Titled "I see the Promised Land", it was preached at Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee, headquarters of America's largest Black Pentecostal denomination, the Church of God in Christ.

The "Promised Land" that King saw was a society in which there was justice for all irrespective of race, ethnicity, social standing or religious persuasion.

For King, it was not enough to talk about "long white robes over yonder" when people lacked suits, dresses and shoes down here.

It was not enough to talk about "streets flowing with milk and honey" in heaven when children lived in slums without food. If King were here in Birmingham, England, he'd probably say it's not enough to hope to live in the heavenly New Jerusalem when you cannot get justice in Newtown!

As we approach King's posthumous 79th birthday, and later this year the 40th anniversary of his death, it is a sobering thought that his dream of a just world still eludes us.

Jesus taught his disciples to pray to God: "Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

We will recognise that Kingdom when it comes because justice will reign and our children, following our examples, will not kill and maim one another, but will walk hand in hand into their God-ordained destinies.

Dare we hope for the coming of such a kingdom?

Dare we hope that when it comes it will last for longer than a moment?

We must dare.