Today, Pilgrim Church welcomes the great Martin Luther King Jr. as our guest speaker. His past message might be of help to us as we deal with the present day crisis. The reading today is from the Gospel of Luke and concerns the power of persistent prayer. It also serves to help reflect on the role of the church as we grapple with the many problems we face today.
It is midnight in the parable and it is midnight now in our society. The darkness is deep. Terrorism strikes with regularity. Gun violence takes the lives of family after family. Police killings and the killing of police happens too often. We are killing ourselves one person at a time with handguns and long guns. Anxiety and depression are becoming more common throughout society. More people are taking medication for these than at any other time in history. Psychiatric wards are crowded with those who suffer from mental issues. Heroin is again ravaging our nation. It is even midnight within our moral principles. To hear some speak, it would seem straight white men are the most oppressed people on the planet. It is even O.K. to hate if you claim it is an act of love. We now see a change from survival of the fittest to survival of the slickest.
As related to the parable, there is now a knocking on the door of churches. People are hoping for the church to provide an answer to the confusion in their lives. People are looking for the bread of faith and the bread of hope. Most importantly, we are looking for the bread of love..the bread of peace…the bread of social and economic justice. Just as in the parable, people today continue to knock on the door despite their disappointment. THEY CANNOT STOP KNOCKING. Midnight is a time of deepest dark but the dawn will come, bringing with it hope and unspeakable joy!