Martin Had a Dream

Martin had a dream.

That one day his four little children would live in a nation where they wouldn’t be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

He dreamed that one day in the American South little Black boys and little Black girls would be able to join hands with little white boys and little white girls, as sisters and brothers.

If we looked around the room, we’d assume that we are living this dream, but the question is, are we living in its fullness?

While the shackles no longer lay on the hands and feet of our brown brothers and sisters, they are now locked shut and dragged in the minds of people decorated in tradition and caged with ignorant bias and senseless bigotry.

But we find hope in this: Jesus has a dream.

That one day we will realize that while there are many members, we are all one in the body. It doesn’t matter that you are a hand and that your skin is a different shade, tone, or scuff. That doesn’t make you any less a part of the body.

Or maybe you’d say that because I don’t understand or have never experienced Black history, I am exempt from the celebration—the truth is, Black history is all of our history.

"God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together." (1 Corinthians 12:24-26)

In highlighting the beauty of kingdom diversity, when Paul said that we are one in Christ, he wasn’t stripping us of our culture and making us the same, but rather emphasizing that because of God's creative majesty, we can all fit together with all our beautiful differences and cultures as one.

Jesus has a dream.

That we will one day experience the fullness of God’s love with all of our heart, soul, and mind.

And through an extension of that love, we would love our neighbors, however they look, wherever they are from—whoever they are—as ourselves.

-Heaven Adams