Three Lessons from Dr. King

This Monday is America’s annual celebration of the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As we remember Dr. King, what can we learn from him about what it means to be a good neighbor? MLK frequently referred to the parable of the Good Samaritan and challenged America with the very question, “Who is My Neighbor?” In his final speech in Memphis, popularly known as “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” he references the Good Samaritan, and I believe there are three main things we can learn from King’s exposition of this parable.

1. The Good Samaritan saves us from self-preservation. This message was present in many of King’s uses of the Good Samaritan. When he spoke in Memphis, the focus of his speech was the Memphis Sanitation Strike, when some 1300 black sanitation workers walked off the job in protest of discrimination and dangerous working conditions. Much of the unrest was due to the death of two sanitation workers who, after being criticized by Memphis citizens for “picnicking,” or eating lunch outside their truck, sat in the compactor (since there was little room in the bed of the truck), and were crushed when the machine malfunctioned. King said the following in reference to the difficult question about whether to help the sanitation workers:


And so the first question that the priest asked -- the first question that the Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him? That's the question before you tonight. Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to my job. Not, "If I stop to help the sanitation workers what will happen to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as a pastor?" The question is not, "If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?" The question is, "If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?" That's the question.


King showed how our tendency toward self-preservation is often motivated by fear. We ask the wrong question because we fear what others will think of us when we associate with certain people or certain causes. We fear being interrupted and having our weekly tasks or long-term goals thrown off. But King reminds us that when we put the welfare of others before ourselves, we can have faith that God will take care of us and our loved ones. Jesus can help us turn our “What will happen to me?” into “What will happen to them?”


2. The Good Samaritan saves us from misplaced preoccupations.
In King’s speech in Memphis, he recounts his trip that he took with his wife to Jerusalem. He had an opportunity to drive down the Jericho Road which Jesus references in the parable, and this is what he says about it:


It's a winding, meandering road. It's really conducive for ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is about 1200 miles -- or rather 1200 feet above sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty minutes later, you're about 2200 feet below sea level. That's a dangerous road. In the days of Jesus it came to be known as the "Bloody Pass."



Anyone who drives down a dangerous road knows that it takes a lot of concentration. You need to calculate the turns, dodge the potholes, be aware of oncoming traffic, and if there’s a steep downhill you need to make sure you don’t pick up too much speed. And you better hope the weather is good. With all of these details keeping you preoccupied, it’s hard to think about things that don’t directly benefit your immediate goal: getting to the end of the road.

But perhaps our goal is not the end of the road. What if our goal is the middle of the road? What if our goal is looking for people who are struggling on the journey and being with them as they travel the road? King helped us to see how this parable sets our eyes in a different direction. As Christians we live by a different reality where our primary goal is to love God and love others. This goal makes us slow down on the hectic Jericho Road that we call life. In fact it often makes us go very slowly. And as we see in the parable, sometimes it causes us to completely stop. Only when we go slowly and stop along the way are we able to see our true purpose. 

3. The Good Samaritan saves us from our own causes.
King was criticized for visiting Memphis when he did. Many thought that advocating for the sanitation workers was not a strategic decision in his civil rights campaign. There were other cities and other causes that had more significance and would generate more support. In general, King was criticized when he took up causes that seemed to divert from the main civil rights agenda. His decisions to oppose the Vietnam War and take up the Poor People’s Campaign did not, by any means, generate unanimous support from other civil rights leaders.

As King stated in his speech in Memphis, the question is not so much “What will happen to me if I do?” as it is “What will happen to them if I do not?” In Memphis, he saw that the injustice done to sanitation workers needed to be addressed. Yes, like some of his other decisions, it might have taken him away from the large-scale civil rights movement. But King knew the danger of allowing a movement, program, or initiative to abstract itself from the people who are suffering, the people for whom it is intended.

Initiatives and programs can be a gift - they can create a common vision to rally around. But we pray that as soon as our programming becomes an idol that removes us from loving God and loving others, it will take a backseat. In our church it might be easy to think that good programming means good work is being done. But the program is only the framework. It’s the vehicle that we’re driving in down the Jericho road.

Ironically, in King’s Memphis speech, which was the night before his assassination, he emphasized his readiness to die for the cause. What gave him such confidence? He said, “I just want to do God’s will...He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land.” It’s a picture of hope that gave MLK his confidence. He was able to believe in something that his faith in Christ gave him the vision to see. As we continue our journey of learning what it means to take part in Christ’s mission - what it means to know and love our neighbor - we pray that our vision will be transformed. We pray that we will see with eyes that have seen the Promised Land.

*All excerpts of King’s speech are taken from http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm.