Consideration of “The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life”
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Revelation 21:1-6
Delivered at New Covenant Baptist Church,
Chicago, Illinois, on April 9, 1967
On Monday our nation will have not a “day off” but a “day on” to remember the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, a man of faith and a Baptist minister who courageously lived his life and gave his life for the Christian principle that all human beings were created equally by a loving God. King’s activism and his ministry from speeches to sermons, from boycotts to Baptisms, from prison walls to sanctuary halls, were based on his lived Christian understanding that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)
Often the personal Christian faith of Rev. King, who was a Baptist minister, is not the main focus on the occasion of his birthday, and so it has become my practice and privilege to share with you one of his sermons.
On April 9, 1967, he gave a sermon entitled “The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life” based on Revelation 21. He also used the parable of the Good Samaritan and numerous other scripture verses that were sprinkled within the sermon. He begins with the passage from Revelation where John, the author, is envisioning a future where there is completeness and wholeness. He speaks of a new heaven and new earth which will be a time that God will be with humankind and will live with them and be there to wipe every tear from their eye, to take away death, mourning, crying and pain. Our completeness will be found in God who is the Alpha and the Omega, who is the beginning and the end and who will gives us a drink from the spring of the water of life. Emmanuel – God who is with us. It seems to me that this new city and place of completeness is something that we all still seek in our life journey, and King’s sermon gives us timeless insights on how to find that place of communion with God. He goes on to use the equal measurements in verse 21:16 to create an analogy throughout the sermon and to guide us towards living a balance in the length, the width and the height of our lives. King says:
“… there are three dimensions of any complete life to which we can fitly give the words of this text: length, breadth, and height. Now the length of life as we shall use it here is the inward concern for one’s own welfare. In other words, it is that inward concern that causes one to push forward, to achieve his own goals and ambitions. The breadth of life as we shall use it here is the outward concern for the welfare of others. And the height of life is the upward reach for God. Now you got to have all three of these to have a complete life.”
To achieve that balanced life which we seek and yearn for each day, Pastor King reminds us to be mindful of the length, width, and height of our lives. The first measurement is important – we need to love ourselves. “We shall love our neighbor as our self.” A couple of months ago someone reminded me that we need to pray for ourselves, and I have tried to remember to include that on our own church prayer list. It is easy to forget to take care of ourselves! We need to take care of ourselves by nurturing our body, mind and spirit and believe in our worth as beautifully created children of God and treat ourselves as such. King goes on to point out there are many who don’t like or love themselves at all. He says:
“You know, a lot of people don’t love themselves. And they go through life with deep and haunting emotional conflicts. So the length of life means that you must love yourself. And you know what loving yourself also means? It means that you’ve got to accept yourself. So many people are busy trying to be somebody else. God gave all of us something significant. And we must pray every day, asking God to help us to accept ourselves. That means everything. Too many Negroes are ashamed of themselves, ashamed of being black. A Negro got to rise up and say from the bottom of his soul, "I am somebody. I have a rich, noble, and proud heritage. However exploited and however painful my history has been, I’m black, but I’m black and beautiful." This is what we’ve got to say. We’ve got to accept ourselves. And we must pray, "Lord, Help me to accept myself every day; help me to accept my tools." (King)
We who are here today in this little church in Littleton may not like parts of ourselves – but we don’t understand what it feels like to be ashamed of ourselves based on the color of our skin. We cannot even begin to understand what African Americans and people of color have felt and lived with all these years. It has been amazingly profound and moving for me to see the joy on their faces and in their tears when they speak about the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency. The news coverage the night in Chicago when President-elect Obama gave his victory speech captured a deep joy as well as realized hope in people’s eyes. Those tears were tears of possibility for themselves and for their children, and that realized hope was three hundred and ninety years in the making.
Three hundred ninety years in the making. It was in 1619 that the first group of Africans, whose names we do not know, were first sold into slavery when they arrived in Jamestown, Virginia aboard a Dutch boat. This Tuesday at noon, three hundred and ninety years later, Barack Obama, a child of God, man of faith, husband, father, and person of African American descent will become the President of the United States of America. It has been a long struggle for those who have been judged only by “the color of their skin and not the content of their character.” Rev. King was a courageous civil rights activist whose work was grounded in his faith. It was because of his tireless and passionate work, as well as that of countless others, that have made it possible for Barack Obama to be elected and sworn in this week – the same week that we remember Dr. King. I have heard it said that “Rosa sat so Martin could walk; Martin walked so Obama could run; Obama is running so our children can fly.”
We have times that we dislike ourselves and may complain about the color of our hair, or our weight, or our abilities. But King reminds us to love ourselves as God loves us, and to do whatever we do to the best of our ability. Let us remember to be grateful and thankful for ourselves, but always continue to work for attitudes and policies where “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.”
This brings us to King’s second measurement for a complete life, which was the need to be mindful and tend to the welfare of others. This is why the call to service this week by having a “a day on, and not a day off” in honor of Dr. King is so important. Some of you have shared this morning that you will take your children out of school to do a service project and watch the inauguration. Others all around the country will do an act of kindness or an act of justice not only on Monday – but will make it a practice of their life. The call to service and care is part of the story of God. The prophet Micah reminds us that God has shown us what is good – and what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
In his sermon, King also uses the parable of the Good Samaritan and he ponders why the Priest and the Levite, who first encountered the injured man didn’t stop to help the man on the Jericho Road. He suggests that they were afraid for themselves and that they asked the wrong question of themselves that day. King says:
“The first question that the Levite asked was, ‘’If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But the Good Samaritan came by and he reversed the question. Not "What will happen to me if I stop to help this man?" but "What will happen to this man if I do not stop to help him?" This was why that man was good and great. He was great because he was willing to take a risk for humanity; he was willing to ask, "What will happen to this man?" not "What will happen to me? This is what God needs today: Men and women who will ask, "What will happen to humanity if I don’t help? What will happen to the civil rights movement if I don’t participate? What will happen to my city if I don’t vote? What will happen to the sick if I don’t visit them?" This is how God judges people in the final analysis.”
For a balanced and complete life we are called by God to be concerned for the welfare of others. This is the width and breadth of our lives. The third measurement was the height of our upward reach towards God. Here King makes an interesting suggestion that even if we say we believe in God, but don’t spend time with God, we may be no different than those who profess there is no God. King says:
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“Now a lot of people have neglected this third dimension. And you know, the interesting thing is a lot of people neglect it and don’t even know they are neglecting it. They just get involved in other things. And you know, there are two kinds of atheism. Atheism is the theory that there is no God. Now one kind is a theoretical kind, where somebody just sits down and starts thinking about it, and they come to a conclusion that there is no God. The other kind is a practical atheism, and that kind goes out of living as if there is no God. And you know there are a lot of people who affirm the existence of God with their lips, and they deny his existence with their lives. You’ve seen these people who have a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds. They deny the existence of God with their lives and they just become so involved in other things. They become so involved in getting a big bank account. They become so involved in getting a beautiful house, which we all should have. They become so involved in getting a beautiful car that they unconsciously just forget about God. There are those who become so involved in looking at the man-made lights of the city that they unconsciously forget to rise up and look at that great cosmic light and think about it—that gets up in the eastern horizon every morning and moves across the sky with a kind of symphony of motion and paints its technicolor across the blue—a light that man can never make. They become so involved in looking at the skyscraping buildings of the Loop of Chicago or Empire State Building of New York that they unconsciously forget to think about the gigantic mountains that kiss the skies as if to bathe their peaks in the lofty blue—something that man could never make. They become so busy thinking about radar and their television that they unconsciously forget to think about the stars that bedeck the heavens like swinging lanterns of eternity, those stars that appear to be shiny, silvery pins sticking in the magnificent blue pincushion. They become so involved in thinking about man’s progress that they forget to think about the need for God’s power in history. They end up going days and days not knowing that God is not with them.”
Not much has changed since King spoke those words about the time and the amount of attention we give in worship and prayer and reflection with our Creator God. We still are too busy – too worried – too obsessed with and absorbed in our technology. Now we have even more technology to be absorbed with! And we certainly are too busy and continue to move at an unhealthy rather than a sacred pace.
We will absorb much of the qualities and characteristics of that which we spend our time with. If we can slow ourselves down to a sacred pace, breathe in the grace and beauty of God, and nurture the fruits of God’s spirit in our lives, we will be healthier. The fruits of God’s spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, and Paul reminds us to live by the Spirit and keep in step with the Spirit. (Galatians 5:22, 25) Pastor King reminds us to spend time with the God we profess to be in relationship with.
Rev. King was a civil rights activist and minister, but he was also a pastor and his words are timeless for every congregation and person of faith. Just as he nurtured and inspired a gathered congregation in 1967, his words and his faith can help us today to find a balanced life. He sent the people forth from worship with these words, and so may they also inspire and strengthen you as you go forth into the week that is before us. King says:
“Go out this morning. Love yourself, and that means rational and healthy self-interest. You are commanded to do that. That’s the length of life. Then follow that: Love your neighbor as you love yourself. You are commanded to do that. That’s the breadth of life. And I’m going to take my seat now by letting you know that there’s a first and even greater commandment: "Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength." I think the psychologist would just say with all thy personality. And when you do that, you’ve got the breadth of life.
And when you get all three of these together, you can walk and never get weary. You can look up and see the morning stars singing together, and the sons of God shouting for joy. When you get all of these working together in your very life, judgment will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Amen
Rev. Deborah J. Blanchard
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