[This sermon on Matthew 11:28 (excerpted below from Dr. Martin Luther King on Love) was delivered in September 1956 at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Like many of Dr. King’s writings — especially on faith — though the details might have changed over the past 70-plus years, the overall message is no less relevant than on the day it was delivered. In this case, perhaps even more so. —Ed.]
There can be no gainsaying of the fact that modern life is characterized by endless tensions. On all levels of life, men are experiencing disruption and conflict, self‐destruction and meaninglessness. And if we turn our eyes around our nation, we discover that the psychopathic wards of our hospitals are filled today. Fear and anxiety have risen to the throne of modern life, and very few persons escape the influence of their powerful domination. It is probably true to say that we live today in one of the most, if not the most, frustrated generations of all human history.
Now, what accounts for this tension, this anxiety, this confusion so characteristic of modern life? What is the causal basis for all of the tensions of our modern world? I will say that if we are to find the cause, we must look for more than one cause, and it’s a plurality of causes that have all conjoined to make for the tensions of our generation.
The Tensions of Modernity
First, there is a tension that comes as a result of the competitive struggle to make a living. It is true to say that our whole capitalistic economy is based on the profit motive under more or less competitive conditions. And whether we want to or not, we all find ourselves engaged in the competitive struggle to make a living. Sometimes we come to the point of feeling that life is a sort of endless struggle to pay bills and to pay taxes and to buy food to eat. We go to work to make the money to buy the food to gain the strength to go back to work, and life sometimes seems to be an endless chain of monotony, an endless round of sameness. . . .
Then again, we find that that tension grows out of the whole of modern urbanization and the industrial structure of our modern life. We live in an age in which men live in big cities and mass populations. It is a machine age in which we have vast industrial [orders]. And there is a danger that men will feel in such a system that they are lost in the crowd. . . .
And then, there is a tension that results from the fears accompanying a war-torn world. We find ourselves today standing amid the threat of war at every hand, and we often wonder what will happen. We feel at times that the future is uncertain, and we look out and feel that the future is shrouded with impenetrable obscurities, that we don’t know how things will turn out. . . .
Then, there is the tension that comes as a result of man’s general finite situation. Man has to face the fact that he’s finite, that he is inevitably limited, that he’s caught up within the categories of time and space. And he faces this thing that he may not be. . . . And he knows that there will come a moment that he will have to go into his room and pull down the shades and turn out the lights and take off his shoes and walk down to the chilly waters of death. And he confronts this threat of nonbeing that drives through the whole structure of modern life. And because of that he lives in tension and dismay and despair because he knows that hanging over him is the cloud of nonbeing, the threat of nothingness. He wonders, “Where does it go from here?”
This is the tension of modern life, and these things account for the tension. These things all come together and leave all of us standing amid the tension of modern life.
The Answer to the Tensions of Life
But then in the midst of all of that, a voice rings out through all of the generations saying, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I’ll give you rest” [Matt. 11:28 (KJV)]. That voice cries out to us, saying, “Come unto me, all ye that are laboring everyday trying to make a living. You’re caught in this round of life, in this chain of life. All of those who are laboring trying to explain life, all of those who are laboring under all of the problems of life, those who are heavy-laden with burdens of despair, those who are laden with fear, those who are laden with anxieties and disappointment, come unto me and I will give you rest.”
That’s the voice that comes crying out to modern life, which gives us a little solace to carry us on. And if we didn’t hear that voice, we couldn’t make it. That voice simply says to us that the answer to the tension of modern life is to sufficiently commit ourselves to Christ and to be sure that we have a truly religious bit of life. For until a man discovers a religious attitude of life, he lives life in eternal frustration, and he finds himself crying out unconsciously with Shakespeare’s Macbeth that life “is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Until he gets some religion, he cannot stand up amid the tensions of modern life. . . . It is religion, it is a proper religious faith, that is the answer to the tensions of life.
The Gifts of Faith
Now what does religion give us? What does genuine religion give us? What is it that Christ gives us to help us face the tensions of life and to stand up amid the tensions of life? What is it that he gives us to keep us going? What is it that genuine religion has to offer for us to live the difficult [reign] of life?
I think the first thing is that religion gives us a capacity to accept ourselves. And I think that is one of the first lessons that all of us should learn, the principle of self-acceptance. . . .
But not only that, high religion, genuine religion, gives you the capacity to accept the realities of life, not only yourself but the external circumstances that beat up against you in life. That is one of the things that makes, also, for a lot of the problems of modern life: that so many people have not mastered this art of accepting life in a balanced perspective. We must come to see that life is a pendulum swinging between two opposites — a pendulum swinging between disappointment and fulfillment, between success and failure, between joy and sorrow. And that’s life. . . .
And then, finally, there is something else that religion does. There is something else that Jesus does. It reminds us that at the center of the universe is a God who is concerned about the welfare of His children. Religion gives us that.
High religion gives it in terms of a great personality. Religion at its best does not look upon God as a process, not as some impersonal force that is a mere moral order that guides the destiny of the universe. High religion looks upon God as a personality. Oh, it’s not limited like our personalities. God is much higher than we are. But there is something in God that makes it so that we are made in His image. God can think; God is a self-determined being. God has a purpose. God can reason. God can love.
Our Other-Loving God
Aristotle used to talk about God as “Unmoved Mover,” but that’s not the Christian God. Aristotle’s God is merely a self-knowing God, but the Christian God is an other-loving God. He reaches out with His long arm of compassion and love and embraces all of His children. It gives life a meaning and a purpose that it could never have without Him.
I say that if there is not a God, there ought to be one; and since there ought to be a God, there is a God; and if man doesn’t find the God of the universe, he’ll make him a god. He’s got to find something that he would worship and give his ultimate allegiance to. And I say this morning that the Christian religion talks about a God, a personal God, who’s concerned about us, who is our Father, who is our Redeemer.
And this sense of religion and of this divine companionship says to us, on the one hand, that we are not lost in a universe fighting for goodness and for justice and love all by ourselves. It says somehow that although we live amid the tensions of life, although we live amid injustice, no matter what we live amid, it’s not going to be like that always. . . .
And I say to you this morning, I’m not going to put my ultimate faith in these little gods that are here today and gone tomorrow. I’m not going to put my ultimate faith in a few dollars and cents and a few Cadillac cars and Buick convertibles. I’m going to put my ultimate faith in the God of the universe who is the same yesterday, today, and forever [Heb. 13:8]. When all of these gods have passed away, He’s still standing. And He is the eternal companion.
Exclusively excerpted, adapted, and abridged from Dr. Martin Luther King on Love, a new compilation of Dr. King’s reflections on love and its transformative power.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), civil rights leader and recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace, inspired and sustained the struggle for freedom, nonviolence, interracial brotherhood, and social justice.