Sunday: A Knock At Midnight: The Sermon Conclusion. Updated: 4:50 PM PST

It's Sunday morning, and the sun is out. The sky is clearing up, and I'm at a new Starbuck's getting acclimated to the store. I'm moving this week to a new place, and it may very well be the Starbuck's I come to in the mornings. It's been a while since I started the journey of revamping or contemporizing an old Dr. Martin Luther King sermon titled, "A Knock At Midnight." In it, the Bible passage from which the parable is taken tells the story of a man that has some unexpected guess show up at his door, and he was in need, as was customary in his time, to provide them with some sustenance or bread as it was. And in his 'importunity,' he was forced to go to his neighbor and wake him in the Midnight hour only to be rejected at first; it turned out that it was his persistence at knocking that he got what he needed.

So, let me attempt to bring about the end of that sermon with some comtemporised ideas in it to help bring about an understanding of what was happening in the world then and how we find that not much has change now for the role of the 'church'.

As in the parable, so in our world today, the deep darkness of midnight is interrupted by the sound of a knock. On the door of the church millions of people are knocking. In this country and in many across the world through tele-evangelist like the preacher like Joel Ostein or not so long ago, Billy Graham, the number of church 'presence' members is higher than ever before but in decline. More than a one billion people are at least affiliated with one kind of church or another or synagogue.

This size growth of the church should not be its point of attraction. We should not confuse spiritual power or awareness and large numbers. Just because a church has three Sunday morning services does not mean it is more fulfilling it's mission than the church that is only holding one service. We cannot be judge a churches' Spiritual' in-fillment with the quality or the quantity of the worship team. I have found that being spirit-filled is really a matter of how good the worship service sounded and got people singing and clapping versus people seeking spiritual guidance and personal repentance. Being "spiritual" as many people qualify themselves, is a loosely all-inclusive standard for measuring a persons's consciousness of eternity within any church community or out side of any. These types of 'spiritual' church people are not the same as the ones that evoke positive community effects by being on their hands and knees. An increase in quantity inclusive of 'spiritually aware' people does not automatically bring an increase in quality of people but rather an indicator of its socially relative appeal and sense of "feel-goodism". A larger membership does not necessarily represent a correspondingly increased commitment to have good will to others or even follow Judeo Christian principles. Historically, it has always been the work of a few dedicated peoples that has made the world better.

And although a numerical growth in church membership does not necessarily reflect an increase in ethical commitment, millions of people do feel that the church  or being 'spiritual' provides an answer to the deep confusion that encompasses their lives and the outcome of this year's election. The 'church' is still the one familiar landmark where the weary go to in the Midnight hour. It's the one place of 'solas' which stands where it has always stood, the house to which the man travelling at midnight either comes or refuses to come. Some decide not to come. But the many who come and knock are desperately seeking a little something to help sustain them till the journey or episode of calamity in their life is over.

The traveler in the parable asks for three loaves of bread. Although he may not know it, he wants the bread of faith. In a time of so many upsets and even the disappointment of many in the past election, men and women have lost faith in God, faith in man, and faith in the future. The  blatant disregard for human life infects our police forces around the country. And what is their job, "To Protect & Serve". The last time I checked, many of our uniformed personnel are doing their best to uphold the law, to protect the citizens that gave them the power to govern and police over them, and provide service to those in need. And like in any group of people that have power, there are always a few that fail to appreciate the depth of their responsibility and that they have a responsibility to be humane, and it has lead to violence against people they don't like or to put it differently, 'violence or even indifference to the people they feel are not like them.' It's true, and we know this because the Black Lives Matter movement would not exist otherwise.

There is a deep longing for the bread of hope. Dr. King points out in his original sermon that the early years of our nation, many people did not hunger for this bread largely because they were caught up in progress. They believed that every new scientific achievement lifted man to higher levels of perfection. But as series of tragic developments, the on-going threat of terror, and the revealing of the selfishness and corruption of man only reminded them that "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." This continues to be a real and traggic discovery that has led to various social trends of pessimism. Many concluded then as they are today that life has no meaning especially among our youth. Dr. King was right in reminding us of historic theme played out in our culture. The philosopher Schopenhauer said that life is an endless pain with a painful end, and that life is a tragicomedy played over and over again with only slight changes in costume and scenery. Shakespeare’s Macbeth believed that life is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. But even in the inevitable moments when all seems hopeless, men know that without hope they cannot really live, and in the night light they seek the bread of hope.

You don't have to walk very far or flip through too many Instragram or Face Book posts before you come across an old-fashioned notion of the bread of love. Everybody wishes to love and be loved. Anyone who feels that they are not loved feel that they do not count. Much has happened in our millennial time to keep people in touch but not connected. Living in a world which has become oppressively impersonal, many of us have come to feel that we are little more than a Face book friend or a foller of some one else's IG account. Bewildered by the tendency to be reduced to a card in a vast index of 'friends and family, People are desperately seeking the bread of love.

When the man in the parable knocked on his friend’s door and asked for the three loaves of bread, he received the impatient retort, "Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything." How often have people experienced a similar disappointment when at midnight they knock on the door of the church. Millions of Africans and other immigrants are patiently, or like the Black Live matter movement-impatiently, knocking on the door of the Christian church where they seek the bread of social justice, have either been altogether ignored or told to wait until later, which almost always means never.

Millions of American people are starving for the want of the bread of freedom, have knocked again and again on the door of so-called "churches", but have usually been greeted by a cold indifference or a blatant hypocrisy. Even the white religious leaders, who have real empathy desire to open the door and provide the bread, are often more cautious than courageous and more prone to follow the expedient to please the 'donating' members than the ethical path of accommodation. One of the shameful tragedies of history is that the very institution which should remove man from the midnight of racial injustice participates in creating and perpetuating the midnight many are trying to escape.

We, in the ever-growing midnight of war,  have knocked on the door of the church to ask for the bread of peace, but the church has often disappointed us. What more pathetically reveals the irrelevancy of the church in present-day world affairs than its witness regarding war? In a world gone mad with terrorism, chauvinistic passions, misogynistic approaches to women, and imperialistic exploitation of the working class, the church has either endorsed these activities or remained appallingly silent!! It's true. During the last war on terror, national churches even functioned as the ready prayer supporters of the state, offering prayers up for our mighty armies in singing, "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition." A weary world, pleading desperately for peace, has often found the church morally sanctioning war.

And those who have gone to the church to seek the bread of economic justice have been left in the frustrating midnight of economic privation. Such is the fate of every ecclesiastical organization that allies itself with things-as-they-are unable to ride the politic from the pulpit.

The church must be reminded that it is not a the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic purpose, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority; it will be "Spiritual." If the church does not participate actively in the struggle for peace and for economic and racial justice, it will loose the loyalty of millions in the generations coming of age, and cause men everywhere to say that it has exhausted it's desire to do right. But, if the church will free itself from the status quo, and recover its historic mission and speak fearlessly and insistently in terms of justice and peace, it will ignite the imagination of mankind and reboot the souls of men, reviving them with love for truth, justice, and peace. People all around will know the church as a great fellowship of love that provides light and bread for lonely travellers at midnight.

While speaking of the laxity of the church, I must not overlook the fact that the so-called Negro church has also left men disappointed at midnight. I say so-called Negro church because ideally there can be no Negro or white church. It is to their everlasting shame that white Christians developed a system of racial segregation within the church, and inflicted so many indignities upon its Negro worshipers that they had to organize their own churches.

In the parable we notice that after the man’s initial disappointment, he continued to knock on his friend’s door. Because of his his persistence he finally persuaded his friend to open the door. Many men continue to knock on the door of the church at midnight, even after the church has so bitterly disappointed them, because they know the bread of life is there somewhere. The church today is challenged to proclaim God’s Son, Jesus Christ, to be the hope of men in all of their complex personal and social problems. Many will continue to come in quest of answers to life’s problems. Many young people who knock on the door are perplexed by the uncertainties of life, confused by daily disappointments, and disillusioned by the ambiguities of history.  We must provide them with the fresh bread of hope and infuse them with the conviction that God has the power to bring good out of evil. Some who come are tortured by a nagging guilt resulting from their wandering in the midnight of ethical relativism and their surrender to the doctrine of self-expression. We must lead them to Christ who will offer them the fresh bread of forgiveness. Some who knock are tormented by the fear of death as they move toward the evening of life. We must provide them with the bread of faith in immortality, so that they may realize that this earthly life is merely an embryonic prelude to a new awakening.

Midnight is a confusing hour when it is difficult to be faithful. The most inspiring word that the church must speak is that no midnight long remains. The weary traveller by midnight who asks for bread is really seeking the dawn. Our eternal message of hope is that dawn will come. Our disenfranchised parents realized this. 

Faith in the dawn arises from the faith that God is good and just. When one believes this, he knows that the contradictions of life are neither final nor ultimate. He can walk through the dark night with the radiant conviction that all things work together for good for those that love God. Even the most starless midnight may herald the dawn of some great fulfillment.

MLK and moderately con-temporized by yours truly.