The Cross and Martin Luther King Jr.

01/21/13+ Share

Below are two excerpts from a sermon John Howard Yoder preached the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. The first is short and makes an extremely important point about King’s approach to oppression. The second is much longer and discusses some of the often overlooked reasons why Jesus had to die on the cross and how that relates to King’s death.

Excerpt 1 (Radical Christian Discipleship, 133)

Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. always said that they were not against the oppressing race. Gandhi was not against the British government and Martin Luther King Jr. was not against white people. Instead, they appealed to the oppressor’s better self, trying to get you, the oppres­sor, to see the injustice of what is happening. Gandhi and King tried to help the oppressors stop, think, and change course. This is what Martin Luther King Jr. died trying to do. He was not, first of all, trying to obtain certain rights for African Americans. He was trying to bring white America to its senses. When in Birmingham, a few years ago, white America saw itself using dogs, fire hoses, and cattle prods on people, white America was called to self-awareness.

Excerpt 2 (Radical Christian Discipleship, 136-38)

Whatever else we can say, we have to begin by saying that there had to be a cross because Jesus had frightened the authorities. Crowds followed him. He was identifying social evils and getting a hearing. There had been a parade into the city. There had been the cleansing of the temple, interference with people’s ordinary religious rituals, interference with their economic life by setting loose all those sheep and bulls. He had let himself be called king, and later in John we are told that the label on the cross made it clear that the legal reason for his execution was that he was “King of the Jews” (19:19-22). Roman law required that when somebody was being put to death the reason should be explained publicly. Even today the theory behind the death penalty is that it will deter people. For the death penalty to deter crime, however, you have to say what crime it is that gets punished in this way. Therefore, when Jesus was put to death, the authorities said his crime was being “King of the Jews.”

All too easily we might say today, “They had him all wrong! He did not want to be king. The kingdom he was talking about was not that kind of kingdom. They should not have felt threatened.” Jesus did not say that the authorities should not feel threatened by his teaching. Jesus said that he had committed no crime and had done no wrong. But he didn’t say that he was trying to get out of trouble. He didn’t say they misun­derstood him when they thought that he was going to bring about a revolution. He could have said that, but he didn’t. He would not have been crucified if he had made clear, as we often try to make clear, that he was not a troublemaker.

Second, whatever else Jesus’ death means, there had to be a cross because Jesus said he was doing all of this in God’s name. He did not say that the cross was a good idea for improving Palestinian society. He did not say that the cross follows logically from some things we read in the Old Testament. That was the way the rabbis would have gone about it. He said simply, “In God’s name: These things must not be. These things must be. This is the kind of life I must lead. This is the kind of life you must lead if you follow me.” This rocked the boat because he did it in God’s name.

Third, whatever else Jesus’ death means, there had to be a cross because when this trouble came upon Jesus, he did not defend himself. He did not stick up for his rights. He didn’t even demand a fair trial. He knew he would not get one. He was ready for injustice. He was ready to meet injustice forgivingly, sufferingly, nonviolently, and nonresistantly. He could have tried to escape. He could have staged a revolt or waged a holy war. He could have set the place on fire. But instead he went to the treatment that hateful people held out for him, and he did so without complaint.

Lastly, there had to be the cross because Jesus made no compromises. He didn’t time his death so it would work. He didn’t wait until he earned a hearing. He didn’t choose a way of working that would not offend people. He didn’t wait until the atmosphere was right and people were looking for what he had to offer. He didn’t try to speak a language that people could accept without knowing how novel it was. He was uncompromising in the way that he stated God’s judg­ment upon his society and God’s promise to people in his society…

If that is what the cross meant for Jesus, what does it mean when he says that his followers will bear a cross and do the same? What does it mean that whoever is not ready to bear a cross is not worthy to be called his follower? What were his followers then to do?

We use the word cross in our hymns, in our piety, in our prayers, and in our pastoral language. But we use it too cheaply. We say that a person has to live with some sort of suffering in his or her life: a sickness that cannot be cured, an unresolvable personality conflict within the family, poverty, or some other unexplainable or unchangeable suffering. Then we say, “That person has a cross to bear.”

Granted, whatever kind of suffering we have is suffer­ing that we can bear in confidence that God is with us. But the cross that Jesus had to face, because he chose to face it, was not—like sickness—something that strikes you without explanation. It was not some continuing difficulty in his social life. It was not an accident or catastrophe that just happened to hit him when it could have hit somebody else. Jesus’ cross was the price to pay for being the kind of person he was in the kind of world he was in; the cross that he chose was the price of his representing a new way of life in a world that did not want a new way of life. That is what he called his followers to do.

That is what happened to Martin Luther King Jr. He represented a new way of life in a society that did not want that way of life.

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