It is said that most Hatfields had no idea why they hated the McCoys. It was just expected, because Hatfields hate McCoys and vice-versa. Neither chose to be born to one family or the other, but once you were delivered into the clan, you were marked for hate and expected to return the affection. It's so hard for me to imagine that any person could hate another, especially for things that cannot be chosen or controlled.
Hate is never good and is certainly not the mark of anyone who wants to call themselves a follower of Christ. It may show itself in a variety of ways, but prejudice, however it is expressed, is still a form of hatred.
“I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed; ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'"
Who wouldn't want that? Who wouldn't want to acknowledge and act out the creed that places every person on an equal plane - a place where every human being is afforded their own right to live, thrive and love? I recently read the entire text of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous "I Have A Dream" speech. He delivered it on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC in August of 1963. I wasn't even born, and I was only two years old when he was buried. But I have great admiration for this risk taking giant.
"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood." He went on to say, “I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character... little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with the little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.”
I know several folks who've been taught to look down on others who are not like them or don't measure up to a certain standard. I have Protestant friends who won't even consider Catholics to be their brothers. There are still congregations who are being led by prejudicial pastors to believe that they are God's only chosen and everyone else is the enemy. I have a couple of friends who express their prejudice through sad ethnic jokes that belittle anyone who is not white, Baptist, at least middle-class, and a proud tax paying American from the south. I wonder where their thinking was first molded. I'd like to know who planted the seeds of self-superiority in their minds. That kind of thinking certainly isn't found in the teachings of Christ.
Dr. King had some tremendous examples in his own life. His mother was known as a Godly woman who served her community and her church with a generous heart. Only six years after her famous son's death, she too was gunned down while she played the organ during a Sunday morning church service in Atlanta. After losing a son and his wife to hate and prejudice, Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr. said at his wife's funeral on July 3rd 1974, "I cannot hate any man."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. will always be a controversial figure. He didn't consider himself a saint, and he knew his human nature would always be his biggest weakness. But he was a risk taker. Some will always like him and give creed to his words only because he was a black man. Some will always hate him and completely disregard anything he had to say only because he was a black man. He wasn't asked if he wanted to be born in the south, black, a male, or with the name King. So beyond the man, his color, his heritage, and his geography, was the principle he promoted and died believing in. It was the same one that was espoused and documented by the worthy white men who framed the foundation of our country.
"...let freedom ring. And when we allow freedom to ring – when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.”
No comments:
Post a Comment