Remembering the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

January 18, 2016

It was 1986, exactly thirty years ago this weekend, that through mysterious providence I found myself in Atlanta sitting in the fourth row from the front of Ebenezer Baptist when the first Martin Luther King holiday was celebrated. Just a few feet in front of me sat Coretta Scott King, Vice President Bush, Bishop Tutu, The Rev. Jesse Jackson and a whole cadre of leaders in the civil rights community. The fight for a King holiday had not been easy. As we remember those days, we now know that almost fifty years after Dr. King spoke the words “I have a dream…”, the nightmare of racism is still very much alive in the American body and soul.

Theodore Parker, an abolitionist of the the 19th century wrote: “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.” Dr. King paraphrased the thoughts of Parker with these memorable words: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

With the the death of innocent prayers in Charleston in our minds and the death of countless people of color in our souls, we find hope in the words of Dr. King. After fifty years of fits and starts, the hope of a moral universe bending toward justice is needed more than ever. I pray for our nation and our world on this holy day- a prayer that calls each of us and all of us to see the arc of the universe and commit our very lives to justice.

Gregg Mast

The Rev. Gregg A. Mast, Ph.D., President
New Brunswick Theological Seminary