“I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies... But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
Amos 5:21, 24
“So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.”
Galatians 6:9
Martin Luther King Jr. was not merely a civil rights leader; he was a prophet in the tradition of Amos, calling a nation steeped in religious ritual and patriotic ceremony to repent of its injustice. His words and actions unsettled the comfortable and brought comfort to the afflicted. He was a Holy Disruptor, whose faith demanded not passive belief, but active love tethered to justice.
One of Martin Luther King Jr.’s most profound and enduring quotes is:
“True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.”
Martin Luther King Jr., Stride Toward Freedom (1958)
This quote resonates powerfully with Amos 5:21–24, where God rejects empty religious rituals and demands justice and righteousness:
Amos 5 rings with divine frustration: God is not impressed with worship that is disconnected from justice. Dr. King echoed this prophetic cry in his 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail” when he wrote: “Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of people and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them... is a dry-as-dust religion.” Like Amos, King knew that true worship is not just what happens in sanctuaries but what spills into the streets. People need to march, sing, and demand that Black lives matter.
And yet, the journey toward justice is exhausting. Progress is slow. Opposition is fierce. Hate shouts louder than hope. That’s why Galatians 6:9 is so vital: “Do not grow weary in doing what is right.” Dr. King was deeply familiar with weariness: the bomb threats, the jail cells, the betrayals from white moderates, the ever-looming threat of death. And still he pressed on, rooted in the radical belief that love, not hate, is the final word.
“True peace,” he reminds us, "cannot be separated from the active pursuit of justice". In a world eager to “move on” or “keep the peace,” King compels the church and society to stay the course. In line with Galatians 6:9, he urges believers not to grow weary in doing good, especially when that good involves costly truth-telling, public struggle, and long-suffering hope.
For progressive Christians today, King offers more than inspiration; he offers a roadmap as clear as Gandhi's. His vision of the Beloved Community calls us to dismantle not only racism but all systems that dehumanize: economic injustice, environmental degradation, homophobia, transphobia, and more. He reminds us that peace is not the absence of tension, but the presence of justice. That loving our enemies does not mean silence in the face of evil, but resisting evil with courage, dignity, and nonviolence.
Dr. King was no tame dreamer. He was dangerous to the status quo. We must be, too, at this moment. The church cannot be content with charity while neglecting equity. We cannot bless injustice with silence. We must let justice roll, not trickle, not drip, but roll like mighty waters, with enough force to wash away every barrier to human dignity.
In remembering Martin Luther King Jr., the past is not only honored, but a call is reclaimed. To act. To persevere. To not give up. The struggle for justice is long, but the arc of the moral universe, as King so often said, bends toward justice, especially when we put our hands on it and pull.
King, Amos, and Paul all converge in a single message: God’s peace flows through justice, and justice requires perseverance.
Let us not grow weary. Rising up, again and again, until justice flows through every church, every street, every system until the Beloved Community is no longer a dream, but our shared reality.
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