April 11, 2011

“American Dream” Sermon

1. According to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the American Dream is found in the words of the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evidence, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by God, Creator, with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Rights that can’t be taken away: equality for all men. We all have been blessed by God, Creator with life, and freedom to pursue happiness.

2. According to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we are equal by creation from God. By God’s authority we are all created free and equal. In addition, our forefathers penned our right to be equal in the Declaration of Independence. All men are created free and equal by God, Creator.

3. Martin Buber describes the two-fold nature of human relationships: We either connect with another as a personal presence (the I-Thou connection) or as an object, (the I-It paradigm). What Buber is inferring, I think, is that we can encounter and be affected by the divine personal presence in and through another person (I-Thou), or we can merely treat the other as an object to be manipulated (I-It). It’s a very graphic dichotomy. Do you want to be a Thou or an It? No contest there. But there is a catch, you have to open your heart first, and then it’s simple, you either choose to love, or you choose not to love. Simple, but not easy

4. I think American cannot become “one big family of Americans” without additional labels to distinguish us because of the power struggle. America has most of its wealth tied up with 10 percent of its people. 50 percent of the people share a tiny 3 percent and shrinking. The truth is that America’s ruling class want labels, and class structures attached to the people. They are too powerful and never will be “one big family of Americans” without labels to distinguish us. We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a 'thing-oriented' society to a 'person-oriented' society. At that time we will be able to be one big family of Americans without labels to distinguish us.

5. King’s primary arguments against a “class system” in American is that sometimes a class system can be as vicious evil as a system based on racial injustice. He argued that a no degree is just as important as a PhD. A man who has been to no house is just as important as one that has been to Morehouse University. We are guilty of separating by class systems also in our little circles. We don’t want to socialize with others we deem as beneath us. All men are created equal. There is no little class or high class in God’s eyes. Some of the least people we come in contact with have a God given wisdom high above anything we can achieve.

6. The action King advocates to make the American dream a reality are to get rid of the last vestiges of segregation. Nonviolence is still the way to rid the nation of segregation and