Sermon on the Mount and MLK
In a college sophomore speech class, I was asked to examine Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream Speech" for rhetorical devices. The very next day I declared Communications as my minor. As the country celebrated the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington this last week, I spent some time reflecting on the profound impact listening to the whole speech had on me 19 years ago.
Tonight, I worshipped at Solomon's Porch, the place which will become my church home for the next 9 months as I complete my internship with them. As a group, we read the Sermon on the Mount from start to finish aloud. Before we started, the pastor, Doug, predicted it would take us about 10 minutes to read it and compared this to the amount of time it took MLK to deliver "I Have a Dream."
I don't know if Doug was intentionally making a connection between the two speeches or not, but last spring during a study of Matthew, I read something like, "The Sermon on the Mount is an 'I Have a Dream Speech.'"
Reading the Sermon on the Mount through that lens completely opened my eyes to anew to Matthew 5-7, and I now understand it like this:
I have a dream of a new kingdom where the poor, meek, persecuted, and merciful inherit the Kingdom of God--this is the fulfillment of heaven. I have a dream of a day when we orient ourselves towards God and others, instead of earthly treasures. I have a dream of a new time when societal rules, the do's and don'ts of life, are irrelevant because we all will be living righteously--taking care of each other and loving our enemy as if he/she were our neighbor. I have a dream of a place where religious piety and the boundaries we set up between ourselves and others are meaningless--because we will be judged not by what we show on the outside or how we have differentiated ourselves from others. Instead, we will be judged by our character and the love we have shown. I have a dream that the hearers of these words will become the salt and light of the earth.
Tonight, I worshipped at Solomon's Porch, the place which will become my church home for the next 9 months as I complete my internship with them. As a group, we read the Sermon on the Mount from start to finish aloud. Before we started, the pastor, Doug, predicted it would take us about 10 minutes to read it and compared this to the amount of time it took MLK to deliver "I Have a Dream."
I don't know if Doug was intentionally making a connection between the two speeches or not, but last spring during a study of Matthew, I read something like, "The Sermon on the Mount is an 'I Have a Dream Speech.'"
Reading the Sermon on the Mount through that lens completely opened my eyes to anew to Matthew 5-7, and I now understand it like this:
I have a dream of a new kingdom where the poor, meek, persecuted, and merciful inherit the Kingdom of God--this is the fulfillment of heaven. I have a dream of a day when we orient ourselves towards God and others, instead of earthly treasures. I have a dream of a new time when societal rules, the do's and don'ts of life, are irrelevant because we all will be living righteously--taking care of each other and loving our enemy as if he/she were our neighbor. I have a dream of a place where religious piety and the boundaries we set up between ourselves and others are meaningless--because we will be judged not by what we show on the outside or how we have differentiated ourselves from others. Instead, we will be judged by our character and the love we have shown. I have a dream that the hearers of these words will become the salt and light of the earth.
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