Monday, January 16, 2012

Another word on Justice

On this the celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. I ran across the text of his "I have a dream" speech at  the Jesus Creed blog, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/ and glanced through it.  I was struck by the passion, the intricacy, the biblical imagery and references.  But I was also struck by the call to excellence. To quote MLK, Jr.

"We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone."


If there is any trait that is necessary in the pursuit of justice in the sense of the Minor Prophets, it is this understanding that what I do must be pursued on the "high plane".  To paraphrase MLK, 'the end does not justify the means.'  It is the loss of excellence that concerns me in this new decade of pursuing justice.  Too many people buy into the opposite philosophy, "the end justifies the means,' and as a result are changed objects rather than being objects of change.


If Jesus, Paul, the prophets and countless other saints of the Christian tradition are to be our example, then it is our transformed character that produces change in the world around us, not our creative solutions to the problem.