Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 14 January 1993 — Page 12

The Muncie Times, Thursday, 14 January 1993, Page 12

Mountaintop sermon seemed a premonition about death

Thank you very kindly my friends. As I listened to Ralph Abernathy in his eloquent and generous introduction and then thought about myself, I wondered who he was talking about. It’s always good to have your closest friend and associate say something good about you. And Ralph Abernathy is the best friend that I have in the world. I’m delighted to see each of you here tonight in spite of a storm warning. You reveal that you are determined to go on anyhow. Something is happening in Memphis, something is happening in our world. And you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of taking a kind of general and panoramic view of the whole

of human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, “Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?’’ — I would take my mental flight by Egypt, and I would watch God’s children in their magnificent trek from dark dungeons of Egypt through of rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn’t stop there. I would move on by Greece, and take my mind to Mount Olympus. And I would see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and Aristophanes assembled around the Parthenon, and I would watch them around the Parthenon, and I would watch them around the Parthenon, as they discussed the great and eternal

issues of reality. But I wouldn’t stop there. I would go on, even to the great heyday of the Roman Empire. And I would see developments around there, through various emperors and leaders. But I wouldn’t stop there. I would even come up to the day of the renaissance, and get a quick picture of all that the Renaissance did for the cultural and esthetics life of man. But I wouldn’t stop there, I would even go by the way that the man for whom I’m named had his habitat. And I would watch Martin Luther as he tacked his ninety-five theses on the door at the church of Wittenberg. But I wouldn’t stop there. I would come up even to 1863, and watch a vacillating President by the name of Abraham

Lincoln finally come to the conclusion that he had to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. But I wouldn’t stop there. I would even come up to the early thirties, and see a man grappling with the problems of the bankruptcy of his nation. And come with an eloquent cry that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. But I wouldn’t stop there. Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say, ‘ ‘If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the Twentieth Century, I will be happy.’’ Now that’s a strange statement to make,because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land. Confusion all around. That’s a strange statement. But I know.

somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the Twentieth Century in a way that men, in some strange way, are responding... something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa, Nairobi; Kenya; Accra; Ghana; New York City; Atlanta; Jackson, Miss.; or Memphis, Tenn. —the cry is always the same-“We want to be free.’’ Another reason that I’m happy to live in this period is that we have been forced to a point where we’re going to have to grapple with the (cont. on pg. 25)

his is a time to consider the possibilities of a world without foes or allies, racism or provincialism... .It is proper that for one brief period each year we consider how different the world might be if we were more understanding. Then tomorrow we practice it... and spread it to others. John E. Worthen, President Ball State University Ball State University A Premier Teaching University