The sermon Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was planning before he was killed was to be titled “Why America May Go to Hell”.
While he never got to give that sermon, the title is in line with the political and moral stances Dr. King took throughout his life and especially in his last years. Recently, a wide range of articles have come out highlighting Dr. King’s outspoken opposition to poverty and to the war in Vietnam, and his vision of a multiracial movement of the poor. Check out Bill Moyer’s interview with James Cone and Taylor Branch, Gary May’s article “A Revolution of Values: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Poor People’s Campaign”, Thomas Sugrue’s article “Restoring King” in Jacobin Magazine, Eugene Robinson’s article in the Washington Post on “MLK’s prophetic call for economic justice”, and Cornell West’s piece for Salon Magazine, “His dream was for all poor and working people to live lives of decency and dignity“, among many others. We’re proud to be part of the effort to reclaim Rev. Dr. King and take up the unfinished business he laid out, especially the work of building the unity and social leadership of the poor through a new Poor People’s Campaign for today.
The title of that last sermon compels me to ask myself why “America May Go to Hell”. As an ordained minister I have wondered about the existence of hell for some time. Some days (in fact quite often over the past 20 years of my involvement in a budding social movement to end poverty, led by the poor), I would very much like there to be a place where those who have subjugated, exploited and oppressed others are judged by God and held accountable for those sins. But the biblical passages that are often used to talk about hell – parables that end with “and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” most likely describe the reality of life for the poor and marginalized rather than a place after death where people are judged.
[aesop_image img=”https://kairoscenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/2014-04-04-MartinLutherKingspeakinginMemphis1968.jpg” align=”center” lightbox=”on” caption=”Rev. Dr. King speaking in Memphis in 1968″ captionposition=”left”]
In the Gospel of Matthew alone there are many such passages: Matt. 8:12 “While the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”; Matt. 13:42 “and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”; Matt. 13:50 “and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”; Matt. 22:13 “Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’”; Matt. 24:51 “and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”; and Matt. 25:30 “cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
When read alone and out of their biblical and historical context, these are concerning statements. We have been taught to think that in these parables, Jesus/God is the king casting out poor workers and slaves because of their disobedience and unworthiness, that therefore judging them and sending them to a place of suffering is the will of God. But if we read the text more closely and with a critical understanding of the historical context of Jesus’ time in Galilee, Antioch, and the larger Roman Empire, I believe that these parables actually flip the script on these prevailing understandings of Jesus and his relationship to power, kingship, and authority.
Instead of being a king who exploited and oppressed, sending poor people and slaves to suffering and punishment (similar to a ruler like Caesar), I think Jesus was a teacher, leader, and prophet of a budding revolutionary social movement of the poor that practiced and preached about God’s coming reign of abundance, dignity, and prosperity for all. This religious and political movement was accurately understood by the ruling elite of the Roman Empire to be in stark opposition to the empire’s economic, political, and religious structures. And one of the main ways Jesus took up his role as teacher, leader, prophet, and also alternative ruler was through the parables.
One of the larger biblical stories, Matt 8:8-13 reads, “But the centurion replied, ‘Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, “Go,” and he goes, and to another, “Come,” and he comes, and to my servant, “Do this,” and he does it.’ When Jesus heard this, he marvelled and said to those who followed him, ‘Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ And to the centurion Jesus said, ‘Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.’ And the servant was healed at that very moment.”
In this story, a Roman centurion defies Caesar and those above him in the Roman Imperial hierarchy to seek out lowly, poor, revolutionary Jesus to heal his own slave. Although the Centurion’s role is to help uphold the structure of poverty, slavery, and subjugation of the Roman Empire – protecting the will of Caesar by force – he steps out of this role to honor and follow Jesus, someone who is established as counter to Caesar and interested in organizing a social movement to overcome and overthrow the Roman Empire and end slavery for all. The Centurion, in fact, says that he is not worthy to have Jesus enter his house when in the regular order of the time, it would be Jesus, a poor person, very close to the position of a slave himself, who would not be worthy to enter the Centurion’s house. Jesus’ reply is that this type of act, defying wealth and power, is what is needed to bring about God’s empire on earth.
[aesop_quote background=”#507b96″ text=”#ffffff” align=”center” size=”2″ quote=”Jesus was a teacher, leader, and prophet of a budding revolutionary social movement of the poor that practiced and preached about God’s coming reign of abundance, dignity, and prosperity for all. ” parallax=”off” direction=”left”]
Indeed Jesus does pronounce judgement in this passage but it is against those who use and abuse power to exploit and oppress rather than the Centurion who subverts the economic and political status quo, warning everyone that when God’s reign comes in the here and now (and overcomes Caesar’s reign), those who have impoverished and dispossessed others will have to look that suffering in the eye. Many scholars think that the lines about sending people into darkness where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” are present day statements rather than statements about a future hell after death. Jesus uses such statements not to damn more poor people and slaves to this kind of suffering, but instead uses conditions the poor were familiar with (living in darkness, fear, oppression, and suffering) to say that those who are responsible for the suffering of others may get a taste of their own medicine as the poor unite to transform society here on earth.
I think this can help us understand what Dr. King meant by the title of his sermon. There were many reasons why Dr. King would have asserted America was going to hell in 1968 – the struggle to implement voting rights and the violent response, the deep poverty and inequality across the US, especially in Northern ghettos and the whole of the American South, the urban rebellions and the battle for economic equality and police accountability that were spreading across the country, the impact of the Vietnam War at home and abroad. And there are many reasons today why America may still be on a similar road.
Thinking about 21st century America on the road to hell is something like Dante’s Inferno: we can imagine the types of people and structures that would be described in such a volume. Consider the massive suffering and death taking place in the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill; there are thousands of people whose lives and livelihoods have been completely destroyed and very few have been held to account for that human-made suffering. Scientists now agree that the production of coal in West Virginia causes thousands of people there to suffer with and die from cancer each year, and yet the coal industry is not held responsible in any real way. In Detroit, tens of thousands of families have had their water shut off in the past few months because they can’t afford the high water rates while the Nestle Corporation can get and sell as much water as they wish from the same water sources for $1 a year.
Farmworkers who make below poverty wages in Florida have discovered and helped to break up 6 modern day slave rings in the hidden agricultural industry while grocery stores and fast food companies continue to make profits by robbing their employees and supply chain workers of decent pay and enabling working conditions that amount to modern day slavery and debt bondage. The struggle for Medicaid expansion specifically, and the universal health care fight in general, demonstrates that we are losing the fight to value life over profit – where thousands of people die each year whose lives could be saved because they lack medical care. There is the case of Wal-Mart where the Walton family alone owns as much wealth as 43% of the population and of Zara workers who are mistreated and discriminated against in one of the largest fashion retailers in the world.
[aesop_image img=”https://kairoscenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Walmart-action-.jpg” align=”center” lightbox=”on” caption=”Walmart employees and other low-wage workers pray before an act of civil disobedience aimed at Alice Walton.” captionposition=”left”]
On MLK Day, Oxfam announced: “The combined wealth of the richest 1 per cent will overtake that of the other 99 per cent of people next year unless the current trend of rising inequality is checked” and another article came out that said the majority of public school kids nationwide qualify for subsidized lunch and are therefore poor. There are millions and millions of poor people in this rich nation. From this list alone, we see a modern day hell on earth for so many of the poor and dispossessed. It seems possible that this could be Dr. King’s indictment against America. Much of America, indeed much of the whole world, is already in a living hell.
In the “Last Judgment” in Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus says, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.” (Matt 25:41-43)
Perhaps this is the type of judgement that Martin Luther King Jr. believed needed to be preached to those who exploited and oppressed in 1968. And perhaps it is also our role in the year 2015 to preach this judgement and warning in the Gulf Coast, Appalachia, Detroit, Immokalee, Florida and across the country and world. If our nation does not change the direction that its going in, if those who cause widespread suffering and make families weep, live in darkness, and gnash their teeth year after year are not held responsible, if death for poor people continues with no accountability and no judgement, then our country is on a dark path.
But there is hope in all of this nonetheless. Just like even the Roman Centurion defies his authorities and the status quo, we can change the path of this great nation. A new reign of justice and equality is possible on earth, in the here and now, if we head the prophet’s warning, repent and change our ways. To quote a sign that I recently saw at Penn Station in NYC: “The kingdom is coming. Will you be ready?”