Martin Luther King Day memorials tend to celebrate King the Civil Rights leader, stressing his activism on behalf of interracial equality and reconciliation. We slight his emphasis on the link between racism and poverty and so neglect King the advocate of the poor. At the time of his assassination King was participating in the Memphis Sanitation Workers' struggle to achieve a decent wage while simultaneously planning the Poor People's Campaign. King's sermons, speeches and writings echo ancient Christian teachings on poverty and wealth, which may still serve as a resource for the contemporary struggle to overcome economic inequality. He was a 20th century exemplar of a very old tradition.
Princeton Historian Peter Brown argues convincingly that "a revolution in the social imagination occurred between 300 and 600 C.E. closely associated with the rise to power of the Christian bishop. For the Christian bishop was held by contemporaries to owe his position in no small part to his role as the guardian of the poor. He was the 'lover of the poor' par excellence." The 4th century bishops, St. Basil of Caesarea, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Gregory of Nazianzus elucidated this novel virtue and its centrality to the community life of Christians. In 369 a severe drought followed by famine prompted Basil to preach a sermon on the parable of the rich fool (Luke 12:16-18), the man who decides to tear down his barns and build new ones to hold his surplus grain. "But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God." Basil elaborates:
"Who, then, is greedy? -- The one who does not remain content with self sufficiency. Who is the one who deprives others? The one who hoards what belongs to everyone. Are you not greedy? Are you not one who deprives others? You have received these things for stewardship, and have turned them into your own property! Is not the one who tears off what another is wearing called a clothes-robber? But the one who does not clothe the naked, when he was able to do so -- what other name does he deserve? The bread that you hold on to belongs to the hungry; the cloak you keep locked in your storeroom belongs to the naked; the shoe that is moldering in your possession belongs to the person with no shoes; the silver that you have buried belongs to the person in need. You do an injury to as many people as you might have helped with all these things!"
Basil enacted the Christian social vision he preached by establishing a hospice and soup kitchen for the famine victims and later developed a large complex to house the poor, tend the sick, and where the poor who could work were employed or trained in various trades. Around 369, St. Gregory of Nyssa preached on almsgiving: "Do not look down on those who lie at your feet, as if you judged them worthless. Consider who they are, and you will discover their dignity: they have put on the countenance of our Savior; for the one who loves humanity has lent them his own face, so that through it they might shame those who lack compassion and hate the poor." In a sermon on the Last Judgment scene in Matthew 25:31-46, in which care for the poor is the standard of judgment "for in as much as you did it [or did it not] to the least of these you did it to me." St. Gregory of Nazianzus warns that we should fear condemnation if we "have not ministered to Christ through those in need ... Let us take care of Christ, then, while there is still time: let us visit Christ in his sickness, let us give to Christ to eat, let us clothe Christ in his nakedness, let us do honor to Christ in his needy ones, in those who lie on the ground here before us this day." .
In 1956, King preached a sermon that echoed Basil's condemnation of greed: "God never intended for a group of people to live in superfluous, inordinate wealth while others live in abject, deadening poverty. God intends for all of His children to have the basic necessities of life, and He has left in this universe enough and to spare for that purpose. So I call upon you to bridge the gulf between abject poverty and superfluous wealth." In 1962, King preached, "I see hungry boys and girls in this nation and other nations and think about the fact that we spend more than a million dollars a day storing surplus food. And I say to myself 'I know where we can store that food free of charge - in the wrinkled stomachs of the millions of people in our nation and in this world who go to bed hungry at night.'"
In 1961, preaching on the same text from Luke as Basil, King linked racism and poverty, "You see this man was foolish because the richer he became materially the poorer he became spiritually.... This man was a fool because he failed to realize his dependence on others... Now this text has a great deal of bearing on our struggle in race relations... For what is white supremacy but the foolish notion that God made a mistake and stamped an eternal stigma of inferiority on a certain race of people; what is white supremacy but the foolishness of believing that one race is good enough to dominate another race?...And there was a final reason why this man was foolish. He failed to realize his dependence on God...because he felt that he was the creator instead of the creature."
Like the ancient "Fathers of the Church" King emphasized that "the least of these" are children and "icons" of God, whose treatment is the measure of our "salvation or damnation" as persons and as a nation. Like them he argued that excess wealth is "robbed from the poor." Like them he cautioned us against the ineluctable tendency of consumption to addict us to status and power. Like them he exhorted us to "move from being a thing-oriented, to a person-oriented" society. This year, as economic crisis threatens severe cutbacks to social services for the needy, we would do well to celebrate Martin Luther King Day by remembering and resolving to emulate his advocacy of the poor in our personal and political actions.
Jim Wallis: Matthew 25: Why We Went To the White House
Rev. Amy Ziettlow: Treating the Body as a Sacred Home
Thanking you for taking up the cause of the wretchedly poor peoples in the United States from the Appalachians to the share croppers in the South, to the farm workers in the west.
One such as yourself only comes around once in a life time, if not once in a century period. You continue to inspire many with service to those that have not-- all though the forces that don't want change, and don't want a level playing field for all continues to bang their drums loudly against anything that smacks of kindness or fairness.
We were so lucky to have him. He is in glory, we are in tears.
As a 99er, I can assure you that information about unemployment and Washington are foremost in my mind every day, so RS is not a stranger to me. I voted for BO but won't again, if I live to vote again. I'm now 60 with a disabled wife, no home, and recently discharged from Chapter 7. We are ruined financially and what legacy we might have had at one time to leave to our children is gone. I can also assure you that I'm not a twenty- or thirty-something who got fired or out-sourced from a $300/wk. job. I started working enough to pay taxes in 1964. When I taught school and coached, I also worked one, if not two, jobs each summer. I also worked in the private sector for many years, returned to education as mentor teacher and tutor in public schools. In 2000, I went to work outdoors, was physically fit, and very good at my job. We were middle-class comfortable. I was making @ $53K/yr. Nothing extraordinary, a few frills.
One of the biggest, most cruel, aspects of the 99er situation is the way we have been left at the altar by unscrupulous politicians running their "please re-elect me" mouths and offering 11th hour legislation while most of Congress was already home. But billions have gone to foreign countries, the Banks, Wall Street, and the rich got to keep more of their wealth.
Unemployment and small business, in my mind, are two distinct issues by this fact: if the UI conundrum of America was not the clusterf*ck tht it is, small biz wouldn't have half the sweat on their brow they have today. Their biz relies on people who are now unemployed and the 99ers. Name them: barbershops, local hardware stores, luncheonettes, dry cleaners, child care centers, pharmacies, strip malls, outlet stores...money once spent there by those now unemployed and those without any UI left wasn't always "disposable" income but all we have now is mandatory spending. If we still have shelter, rent or sharing. If kids are in college, they're home now and looking also. Public schools vs parochial. Electricity, running water, heat. A car is a luxury and the gas that goes into it MUST be accounted for with each mile or necessary trip. Food helps, if it's "free" it's even better. Helping at the shelters is expected and contributed no questions asked. Where I live, begging is considered solicitation so there's no way to do that. The evisceration by creditors and banks (cards and loans...credit rating) is basically history to many of us. There are no cards, thee are no loans, and credit is for another lifetime. Most of us have cashed out insurance or cancelled important kinds. A doctor's visit usually entails some form of negotiation and payment plan.
this is not a depression you are experiencing; this is a decline of wealth and values of a nation.
this will be not help I know but a nation that puts profits over people like they did to you and millions of others is a nation destined to fail. the universe demands it. history has told us time and time again the future of any nation that puts profits and wars for profits over its people the future of that nation but yet nations continue doing the same things over and over again and again.
we are a self ish arrogant nation that actually thinks we are a chosen nation from god. how foolish such thoughts. we are experienceing rome all over again but in 60 years not 600.
what economic ideology puts profits over people. why it is our beloved capitalism. go figure.
until americans look systemically at their corrupt economic system little will change. all that charity stuff will not work. visit a third world nation and find out how charity is working for them and how the top 2% treat and think of their third world fellow citizens.
as americans dont understand their wars they dont understand third world suffering. most americans have never been out of america and they sure are not taking their vac's to iraq or afghan.
my favorite MLK quote again:"We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed” Martin Luther King.
ok that was my second favorite MLK quote; here is my favorite: A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.
how few americans understand that quote. not most of our religious folks.
history tells us what happens to many of those that buck the system without an army behind them and the fate they have. the problem is those that use an army end up being worst than those they threw out of gov. paradox thing?
In the wake of King's assassination, Bobby Kennedy - soon to be an assassination victim himself - said "Now is not the time for hate and violence. What we need is understanding." As we have seen with the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords, anger can only breed the worst in humanity.
In the United States we have nearly 14 times the population of Australia yet we cannot figure out how to feed and house our homeless and jobless.
We have adequate resources to provide self sustaining communities for people to share on common land and they should be available to anyone in need.
We need to require our legislators to organize the resources or get out of the way so the citizenry can pull together and get it done, just as the Aussies are doing.
One of the first things we must require as law is the release of hoarded land held by the wealthy for speculation. It is unreasonable that Ted Turner owns over 2 million acres of land while families are living under bridges and in cars. It is unreasonable that our Bureau of Land Management which has over 2 million unused acres it is holding for the "use and benefit of the people" has not made viable land available for the creation of such communities.
We have more than the entire population of Australia unemployed at this time - 27+ million Americans; Australia's population is 22.5+ million. If we help those 27 million to have the resources to create self sustaining communities for their use till we have organized a better social design we will have used our most valuable resources (our people) wisely.
Religion gets a bad rap in this country because its so misrepresented and abused.
It seems you are hating on the man's religion, even though it is one of the major pillars he stood on. It's not "Martin Luther King Jr.", it's "Rev. Martin Luther King. Jr.". To not respect the man's religion is to not respect the man in this case.