A Knock at Midnight by Clayborne Carson & Peter Holloran

Author:Clayborne Carson & Peter Holloran [CARSON, CLAYBORNE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780759520196
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2009-10-31T00:00:00+00:00

DELIVERED AT EBENEZER BAPTIST CHURCH, ATLANTA, GEORGIA,

5 JUNE 1966 [MLKEC]

THE THREE

DIMENSIONS OF A

COMPLETE LIFE

INTRODUCTION BY FATHER THEODORE HESBURGH

One of the great deceptions that one must guard against in reading the sermons of Martin Luther King is that on the surface they appear so simple as to be simplistic. This particular sermon starts out talking about a complete life being made up of length, breadth, and height. How simplistic can one be? However, if you read carefully and listen intently, the message is very deep, very essential, and even at times mystical.

There are moments when Martin speaks very simply in the black jargon of the day, mixing up grammar, tenses, and proper grammatical connections. Then, once he has the attention of the listener, who is hearing familiar words, he lifts them into the sky, to heights of idealism, to the very core of the Christian life, and buttons it all down by constantly quoting Jesus, who spoke the same way and made the great mysteries of the universe seem fairly simple and certainly understandable.

Martin was never pedantic, yet he was always teaching. The spirit of the gospel runs deeply through each line of this sermon, and the familiar citations from the Lord make the words sound very much like family talk. In the midst of simple conversation about life and the things of God, he suddenly pulls in (without identifying its author) a very profound statement from Saint Augustine about the restlessness in our hearts. No need to show off his wide-ranging reading in theology. It is wonderful how scriptural wisdom and the actual biblical expressions of that wisdom flow simply in and out of the discussion, without adding a pedantic tone.

Martin was preaching in a time of enormous social concerns, social unrest, and deep-seated injustice that made it difficult for a black person to keep his or her self-respect. Martin simply says that life is about knowing and loving and respecting yourself—but not just that. That, he says, would be a selfish kind of life. One must not only be concerned about one’s own inner peace but also what one might do for the good of others. This guidance is tied to the problems of those days: getting behind the social revolution, taking part in the civil rights movement, maintaining one’s self-respect, and especially conquering fear of the present or even the future.

Dr. King reaches out directly to God and all that God has promised us and all that he gives us and all that we might expect if we give ourselves completely to him and leave ourselves in his hands. I imagine inner peace settling upon his congregation when Martin says that while he does not know how long he might live, he would do what he could for as long as he did.

These are very deep and pointed reflections on the times in which he lived and the difficulty of living in such times. In the end, he brings us back to God and to our faith in

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