When our religious and social structures can’t contain the power of the Gospel

A Reflection for Monday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time

Find today’s readings here.

History remembers Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” as a detailed statement of the principles of nonviolent direct action. It contains some of Dr. King’s best-known quotes, including “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed,” and “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Many have found inspiration in the letter’s moral clarity and have taken instruction from its practical approach to nonviolent action. 

What is often overlooked is that nearly a third of the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is a polite but unsparing indictment of moderate religion. The letter itself is Martin Luther King’s response to a joint statement entitled “A Call for Unity” that eight local religious leaders (including a rabbi and a Catholic bishop) published four days previously in The Birmingham News. The moderates argued that direct action and public demonstrations were unnecessary. Victories in the courts, they averred, were slowly but inexorably unwinding the snarl of segregationist laws throughout the country. Anyone who longed for justice merely had to wait for the courts to do their job. To this, Dr. King responded, “‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’ We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that ‘Justice too long delayed is justice denied.’”

In contrast to America’s moderate Christianity, “merely a thermometer that records the ideas and principles of popular opinion,” Dr. King hearkens back to a time when “early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church…was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.” The religious and social structures of that earlier time were insufficient to contain the power of the Gospel. The presence of Christ’s disciples challenged and transformed Roman society and drew it closer to God’s dream for humanity.

“No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak. If he does, its fullness pulls away,

the new from the old, and the tear gets worse. Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins are ruined. Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins.” The situation that Martin Luther King describes is perennial in Christianity. Religious and social structures in every age have been insufficient to contain the power of God’s vision. Saul’s animal sacrifice did not fully express the devotion that Israel promised at Sinai. In Jesus’ day, practices of fasting and sabbath rest did not adequately symbolize the freedom to which Christ invited his followers. In our own time, the social structures we have created do not effectively make real God’s dream for the human family. In every age, Christ’s disciples must strive to make the Gospel their own and build human structures to reflect its wisdom. Only in constantly renewed wineskins can humanity hope to contain the intoxicating Word of God.