3rd August 2025

03/08/25 – "I have a dream."  -  Martin Mowat

 Readings: Psalm 9

As many of you know, Charlotte and I have just spent 3 weeks in the USA where we stayed in 3 different states, Georgia, Tennessee, and Arkansas.  

In Georgia we were stayed with missionary friends near Atlanta and they took us to visit the Martin Luther King Junior centre. It was both fascinating and challenging. 

In the middle of it there is a beautiful cascading pool that surrounds the graves of Martin Luther King and his wife, who campaigned with and after him. In it are the words of Amos 5:24. “Let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream!” 

Martin Luther King Junior was born in 1929 and lived until he was murdered in 1968, at the age of only 39, so he lived in the days when negros in the southern states of the US were desperately fighting for equality. He was the son of a Baptist minister, called of course Martin Luther King Senior but affectionately known by everyone in his church as Daddy King. 

Despite his humble beginnings, Martin Luther King Junior became one of the most famous people of the last century. Why, because he had a dream, a vision, that he wasn’t afraid to express, even though he knew that doing so could cost him his life. 

While King achieved, albeit posthumously, amazing progress for black people, it is undeniable that there are still places in our world today where we seem to be going backwards when it comes to racial, ethnic, political and religious persecution. 

Innocent people in war torn countries like Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza and many others, are seeing their families, their lives, and their livelihoods progressively disfigured and even destroyed by power-grabbing entities seeking to further their spheres of power, influence, riches and control. 

As a result, HUGE numbers of people are being systematically deprived of their human rights, while the world just sits by and watches. That was what motivated Martin Luther King Junior. 

So, partly for fun, partly for the historical interest, and partly because it’s still so pertinent, I’ve decided to read to you some extracts from Martin Luther King’s most famous speech.

Where it talks about America, and its various states, read the world and the countries I’ve just referred to. Where it talks about black people, read people whose cultures and lives are being systematically and unceremoniously destroyed. 

But before I begin, let me say that I am NOT trying to make a political statement. Rather, this is partly a reminder that what we learn from history is that sadly, we don’t learn from history, partly a challenge for us to ask ourselves what our own dreams and visions are, and lastly a reminder that love, joy and peace are still attainable through and with Jesus Christ, and that God, the God who said “Let there be light” and there was light, the God who “breathed” perfect order and life into complete chaos, the God who allowed himself to be nailed to a criminal’s cross, and ONLY that God, is ultimately in control.  

« Arise, Lord, » we just heard King David say in Psalm 9, « do not let mortals triumph; let the nations be judged in your presence. Strike them with terror, Lord; let the nations know they are only mortal. »

(Psalms 9:19-20 NIV). + Daniel 4:34-35 from Lectio 365 today. 

So, let’s listen to Martin Luther King Jr. The year is 1963. 

“Five score years ago” he said, “a great American, (that’s Abraham Lincoln) in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatise a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a cheque. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable rights" of "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." 

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of colour are concerned. Instead of honouring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad cheque, a cheque which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood, and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. 

No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream." (That’s Amos 5:24 that I mentioned earlier) 

And 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."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character. 

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, … little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together." (That’s Isaiah’s prophecy that Luke quoted when referring to Jesus.)

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the mountains of Pennsylvania. 

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when we let freedom 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!”

Martin Luther King Junior had a dream, a vision. This church also has a vision, which is to be a place where people will find family and friendship as the get to know God, his love and his peace.

That might sound insignificant compared to Martin Luther King’s dream, but let me tell you that there is no greater need in the world today than that of knowing God’s love and forgiveness.