Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said this in his sermon Our God is Able:
“At the center of the Christian faith is the conviction that there is a God of power who is able to do exceedingly abundant things in nature and in history. This conviction is stressed over and over again in the Old and New Testaments. Theologically, it is expressed in the doctrine of the omnipotence of God. The God whom we worship is not a weak and incompetent God. God is able to beat back gigantic waves of opposition and to bring low prodigious mountains of evil. This ringing testimony of the Christian faith is that God is able.”
Our God is able. That is good news for all of us - but does it mean that our God is able and willing to grant victory to a football team because of a display of faith by a particular faithful football player?
I believe that God doesn’t care about sports teams, geographical borders, or political parties. God doesn’t care whether we are Catholic or Protestant, or speak Spanish, Arabic or English. God doesn’t care about the color of our skin, what kind of purse we carry or shoes we wear. God doesn’t care whether we listen to National Public Radio or a sports talk show.
God does not play favoritism. Romans 2, Galatians, Ephesians all say that God does not show favoritism. We read in Psalm 139 that God knows each one of us intimately:
Psalm 139
1 You have searched me, LORD,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, LORD, know it completely
This is true for all of us and not just me or you – but every person all around the world. If we think about the billions of people in the world that can be hard for us to imagine, but that is what we believe in faith. That God loves all of us, knowing the hairs on our head, then God shows no favoritism.
Rev. King in his sermon reminds us that Our God is able. He goes on to point out that some people say there is no god and that only humanity is able. They point to science and all of its advances as evidence that there is no God.
King states that is not true and interestingly, Dr. Frances Collins, the host of our DVD series on Religion and Science also speaks about that. Collins says that when scientists state that advances in science prove that there is not God – that they are making a false claim. There is no proof of that either.
King addresses two arguments that are often used to prove that there is no God.
- One is the advancements made in science.
- The second is the problem of evil.
Science
On the advances made in science Rev. King discusses the speed of our airplanes and our space ships, and says that some point to those as proof or evidence that God has been replaced. King says we need to take a broader look – beyond our world and look out at the universe. He says:
“Think about the fact, for instance, that earth is circling the sun so fast that the fastest jet would be left sixty-six thousand miles behind in the first hour of a space race. In the past seven minutes we have been hurled more than eight thousand miles through space. Or consider the sun. Our earth moves around this cosmic ball of fire once each year, traveling 584,000,000 miles at the rate of 66,700 miles per hour. By this time tomorrow we shall be 1,600,000 miles from where we are now. Six months from now we shall be on the other side of the sun -- and in a year from now we shall have swung completely around it and back to where we are right now.”
Rev. Martin Luther King says that “our God is able.”
Evil
Then King addresses the problem of evil by bringing up the question that most every one of us asks and wrestles with at some time in their life. What about the problem of evil? King says:
“Christianity contends that evil contains the seeds of its own destruction. History is the story of evil forces that advance with seemingly irresistible power only to be crushed by the battering rams of the forces of justice. There is a law in the moral world - a silent, invisible, imperative, akin to the laws in the physical world - which reminds us that life will work only in a certain way.”
In the sermon King goes on to say that the evil powers of colonialism in Africa, communism in the Soviet Union, and slavery in America were eventually defeated by justice and that God was at work in the world. King says:
“these great changes are not mere political and sociological shifts. They represent the passing of systems that were born in injustice, nurtured in inequality, and reared in exploitation” and that “God's control is never usurped.”
Rev. Martin Luther King says that “our God is able!”
He goes on to conclude that “God is able to give us the inner equilibrium to stand tall amid the trials and burdens of life. God is able to provide inner peace amid outer storms.”
And then he tells a story about he and his wife sitting on a rock at the tip of India looking out at the mighty ocean. They were at a place called “Land’s End” because it is the southernmost point of the continent. They sat upon a rock enthralled by the vast power of the sea and the immensity of what was before them and the waves that crashed around the rocks. Then they watched as the sun – at that moment a huge ball of fire set to the west before them. They sat in darkness for a minute before the moon began to rise over the ocean from the East and its radiant light began to spread across the water. It then occurred to him that God is indeed able and gives us interior resources for both the dark nights of our soul and the blessings and joys of our good days.
King said “God has two lights: a light to guide us in the brightness of the day when hopes are fulfilled and circumstances are favorable, and a light that guides us in the darkness of the midnight when we are thwarted and the slumbering giants of gloom and hopelessness rise in our souls.”
God gives us the interior resources for both of those times in our lives and that this should be our ringing cry: “our God is able!”
Let this be our ringing cry - believing with conviction that there is a God of power who is able to do exceedingly abundant things in nature, in history, the world, the larger universe and in our lives. God is able to beat back gigantic waves of opposition and to bring low prodigious mountains of evil. This is the ringing testimony of the Christian faith for all of us and for the world. Our God is able.
Amen
Rev. Deborah J. Blanchard
Sources:
· http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/primarydocuments/Vol6/1Jan1956OurGodIsAble.pdf
· http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/primarydocuments/Vol6/July1962-March1963DraftofChapterXIII,OurGodIsAble.pdf
· Martin Luther King Jr., “Our God is Able” in Strength to Love, ©1963 by Martin Luther King Jr., ©1981 Forwarded copyright by Coretta Scott King. (Fortress Press: Philadelphia)107-114.
|