More like MLK
He is ready to separate the chaff from the wheat with his winnowing fork. Then he will clean up the threshing area, gathering the wheat into the bar and burning the chaff with never-ending fire. — Luke 3:17
I wish I were more like MLK, a modern-day hero of mine. He took these words from John the Baptist and used them in his never-ending fire for justice and equality. He heard John. The word ‘separate’ was the segregation that birthed a liberation theology that needs to continue because of a truth no one can ignore: we aren’t all liberated or equal.
I wish I were more like MLK because he had chutzpah, gumption, and passion. He must have heard a voice that said, “You know, you don’t have to do too much.” Instead of following that voice, he followed the voice of Jesus Christ. As a boy, young man, and preacher, he didn’t just taste suppression, segregation and inequality. He had to eat it.
Rather than keep it down, he spit it up. The Southern Baptist inspired hundreds, thousands, and then the heartbeat of justice-seekers everywhere, both then and now.
We can all be like MLK. We can petition, cheer on, learn from, lean into, and inspire even more chaff from wheat. Let’s do this with praise for the Nazarene who, as prophets foretold, would set captives free.
MLK knew the winnowing folk was just that, a divider of good and evil—freedom winning over oppression.
My fellow Boston University alum didn’t please everyone. He couldn’t. Jesus couldn’t, either. But both knew what they had to do, which is fill valleys, level mountains, straighten crooked paths and smooth rough places.
PRAYER: Father God, let me be more like MLK. Let never-ending fire burn in me and in those like me who know what is true: Jesus is indeed cleaning up the threshing area. Amen.
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