Pastor Phil McCutchen

Dr. King & His Biblical Narrative

I don’t preach a lot about racism, because I honestly know of no one in my audience who judges, or even limits, opportunity for others based on the color of their skin or their nationality.  If you know of racism in our church, please tell me and I’ll be right on it.  I am not saying racism isn’t still a problem, but the ignorant racist assumptions of people in my circle of relationship are no longer the same as where I grew up in the late 50’s and 60’s.  I hate to inform my fans who think my messages and blogs have global influence, but they do not.  So I don’t waste time throwing rocks at every socio-political barking dog, just so I can get a meaningless, “You go tell ’em, Pastor Phil.”  Don’t confuse me with Dr. Phil.

I have mostly one person to thank for liberating my social circle from from the dark ages of racial prejudice and that is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  The only bias I still proudly nurture in myself is that the Bible is the greatest book ever written, and so I am convinced that the reason the Civil Rights movement, led by Dr. King, is still the gold standard for advocating human rights is because his narrative and his analogies were Biblical.  This is not to take anything away from a great man who willingly put himself in a position to be martyred for the cause of freedom, but I do intend to advocate opening our Bibles, as he did, to best further the cause of human flourishing.

Now, back to the importance of the Biblical narrative of MLK, here’s an excerpt from Ramon Tuason’s outstanding article, “The Biblical Exodus in the Rhetoric of Martin Luther King.”

“While King called his followers to exercise their natural rights as American citizens, he also portrayed their struggle for equality as a modern-day Exodus, using the biblical tale of Israel leaving the oppression of Egypt to give the civil rights movement a structure or narrative to follow. In his speech, ‘I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,’ King discusses time periods in history that he would have liked to personally see. He says, ‘I would watch God’s children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt through, or rather across, the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land.’”

“King recalls the biblical tale of Joshua and the Battle of Jericho, using this example to endorse the non-violent marches of the civil rights movement. In this story, God tells Joshua, who had been leading the Israelites through the desert, that he and his people must march around the city of Jericho once a day, for six days. On the seventh day, they must march around Jericho seven times—this causes the walls of the city to collapse at the hands of God, allowing Joshua and the Israelites to conquer it.”

Yesterday, at our annual congregational meeting, we celebrated the fact that our year-end financial report revealed that through our “Compassion New England,” we invested $321,000 last year, directly into programs and resources that benefit the neediest people in our community.  I personally established, nearly fifteen years ago, that the Biblical narrative for Compassion New England would be the story of the Good Samaritan.  The Good Samaritan story is about an unappreciated Samaritan giving generous time, money, and energy to one of  life’s victims on the Jericho Road, with absolutely no discrimination regarding his race, his lifestyle, his beliefs, or even his character.  This story was Jesus’ best example of God’s love for the human race.  The late Dick Enberg used to respond to a remarkable play when calling a football game with, “Oh my.”  When I see how the word of God leads me to support human freedom and human flourishing, I feel like saying, “Oh my.”

Establishing a Biblical narrative for your life is when you find the scriptural story that addresses your God-given concern.  After you establish a compatibility of concern, you modernize, localize, and personalize; which means to put yourself in the story.  Unfortunately, I don’t have a sentence big enough to tell you how powerful it is to start living your life inside of a Biblical Story; sure you can do good without it, but there are a lot of pitfalls.  MLK did it the best, and he stayed faithful to scriptural analogies.  If you are better than Dr. King, then what are you doing reading my blog?  Just sayin’.

So, my question for all of you today, with regard to social justice, is which one of God’s narratives can you see yourself in?  Martin Luther King Jr. found his Biblical Narratives in Israel’s trek out of Egypt, Moses’ ascendance to Mt. Sinai, and Joshua’s non-violent March around the wall of Jericho.  At Bethany Community Church, we have found ourselves in the Jesus story of the indiscriminate compassion of the Good Samaritan.  God’s got a “be good for humanity” story for you to find yourself in today as well.  Scripture gave Dr. King’s activism energy, boundaries, non-violence, moral stability, common sense, and most importantly, hope.  It’s my opinion that if you set out to do good, and you ignore scripture, you might miss some of those essentials for a powerful world-changing movement.