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Inspired by sermon on love, hate and the “highway of history” on this MLK Day

By Douglas Berman

On MLK days in recent years, I have made a tradition of making time to listen to the full “I Have A Dream” speech by Dr. King (which always delivers), and I now also explore Stanford University’s awesome collection of MLK Papers.  In previous years (in posts linked below), I have quoted from various renown speeches and writings with an emphasis on the intersection of the civil rights movement and criminal justice reform.  But today, what caught my attention was Dr. King’s sermon titled simply “Loving Your Enemies,” which he delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in November 1957.  I recommend the full sermon, and here are some excerpts:  

I think the first reason that we should love our enemies, and I think this was at the very center of Jesus’ thinking, is this: that hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe.  If I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me back and go on, you see, that goes on ad infinitum.  It just never ends.  Somewhere somebody must have a little sense, and that’s the strong person.  The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil.  And that is the tragedy of hate, that it doesn’t cut it off.  It only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe.  Somebody must have religion enough and morality enough to cut it off and inject within the very structure of the universe that strong and powerful element of love….

And if somebody doesn’t have sense enough to turn on the dim and beautiful and powerful lights of love in this world, the whole of our civilization will be plunged into the abyss of destruction.  And we will all end up destroyed because nobody had any sense on the highway of history.  Somewhere somebody must have some sense.  Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness.  And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody.  Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe.  And you do that by love….

There is a power in love that our world has not discovered yet.  Jesus discovered it centuries ago.  Mahatma Gandhi of India discovered it a few years ago, but most men and most women never discover it.  For they believe in hitting for hitting; they believe in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; they believe in hating for hating; but Jesus comes to us and says, “This isn’t the way.”

Also a helpful reader made another reading recommendation for this day, this new opinion piece from the Washington Post by Colbert King, headlined “To bend toward justice, the arc of history has to bend toward family, too.”  An excerpt:

“The family, that is, the group consisting of mother, father and child, still remains the main educational agency of mankind,” King said. Those words can’t top the majesty and call to action of King’s “I Have a Dream” oration, or match the moral teachings of his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” But they go to the heart of what’s missing in the lives of the many who are not free to join in this weekend’s festivities [because they are incarcerated].

A few links to a few recent MLK Day posts: