The Goodness of God and Martin Luther King, Jr
Genesis 1:1-31
“Then God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness” (CSB Gen 1.3-4).
When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr was a seminary student he outlined a sermon about diversity in creation as evidence of God’s goodness. Using Genesis 1 as his source text, King argued that God’s goodness is so vast that one creature alone could not represent it. King said that “God brought things into being in order that his goodness might be represented by his creatures.”
Note: I cannot presume to know what Dr. King might have done with these notes, but I find them compelling enough to try and tease out where he might have gone had he written and preached this sermon. Forgive me for my audacity in advance.
Dr. King never preached this sermon; there’s no evidence that he ever completed it. Still, much of his later teachings indicate that the ideas he scratched out for seminary budded and blossomed into a fulness of philosophy that led him to become one of the most beloved men in America. His faith propelled his vision and his dream that truly, all men are created equal. The goodness of God has made us in his image, but created each person to a unique likeness, with variations in looks, intelligences, talents, gifts, ethnicities, histories, and personalities. God created all things, and then called it “good.” The distinctions between us illustrate the richness of God’s goodness.
King’s outline listed five parts of creation as significantly necessary to begin describing the goodness of God: the mountains, the oceans, the solar system, flowers, and human beings. King wrote, “These distinction [sic] were not made to be in conflict. They were made to exist together” (King, The Distinctions). Only the whole of creation all put together can begin to express the goodness of God.
The Mountains
The tallest mountain in the world is Mount Everest at 29,032 feet, with Godwin Austen (K2) and Kangchenjunga only slightly shorter at 28,253 and 28,171 respectively. Every continent of the world contains mountain ranges from the highest Himalayas in Asia to the modest Great Dividing Range in Australia. Often devoid of trees at the summit because their height means cold, wind, and little soil moisture hinder vegetation, mountains influence weather, provide natural boundaries for countries, and offer incomparable vistas of the grand scale of creation.
King was clearly influenced and inspired by mountains. They are a repeated feature in his speeches and sermons, including his most well known I Have a Dream, where he said,
And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that:
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
(King, Jr. 1963).
Mountains dazzle and inspire. They lend an air of permanence to a culture of unrest. Mountains represent strength and stability, enduring features of a landscape that persist through generations. God, as the ultimate good creator, made the mountains to make us look up for our help in time of need (Psalm 121). Our help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth.
The Oceans
From the heights of the mountaintops, King’s outline transitions to the unknowable depths of the world’s oceans. He didn’t elaborate in the outline for this sermon, but he often used Moses leading the people of Israel across the Red Sea on dry land as a metaphor for what he hoped to accomplish in the United States: leading the way to justice and liberty for all people and drowning the evils of segregation, imperialism, and bigotry in the process. He wrote, “In the final analysis evil dies on the seashore, not merely because of man’s endless struggle against it, but because of God’s power to defeat it” (King, Death of Evil Upon the Seashore).
While it is possible for humans to survive, albeit briefly, on the summits of the world’s highest oceans, they die by drowning in the depths of the ocean without exception. However, nearly half of the oxygen on the planet comes from the ocean in the form of the smallest planktons in drifting plants, algae, and photosynthesizing bacteria. The smallest of these bacteria may produce as much as 20% of the earth’s oxygen. If mountains offer protection and views, the oceans provide the essential air humans need to survive. The ocean is mysterious and its depths are not fully known. God’s goodness reflected in the oceans remind his people that he alone provides what they need to survive, and the vastness of his nature is incalculable.
The Solar System
When King was murdered in 1968, the first moon landing was more than a year away. But space was part of the American need to explore from early on. In his notes, King observed, “Some are warning about the result if ther [sic] is life on Mars. But I dont [sic]. It just give [sic] additional proof” (King, The Distinctions). More than 60 years after King scratched out the note, scientists still don’t know how vast the universe (and universes) might be, and we still aren’t convinced that there is life on Mars. I tend to concur with King: all a discovery of life on Mars will do for me is offer further evidence of a creative God.
The opening line of the Bible says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (CSB Gen.1:1). The sun, moon, and stars he put into place on the fourth day of creation. Since that day, humans have looked at the sky in wonder, considering the greatness of God revealed in the skies (Psalms 8, 19, 147). The Northern Lights, the alignment of planets, eclipses, and the constellations we see with our eyes are just the entrance to the portal of the universe. It is beyond our imaginations, yet in Psalm 147, God calls the stars by name. His goodness cannot be captured in the vastness of the multiverses, yet he not only named the stars, but he also counts the very hairs on each person’s head (Luke 12)! What kind of goodness is this?
The Flowers
Dr. King, using his skills as philosopher and preacher considered another extreme: the vastness of space to the universes contained in flowers. The MLK, Jr World Peace Rose Garden includes 185 roses in multiple colors: pink for Coretta Scott King, white for the bond between Dr. King and Gandhi, red for the African Americans and their contributions, and multicolored clusters that symbolize the nations of the world (“MLK Jr. World Peace Rose Garden”). King wore a lei of plumeria flowers during the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, AL. The lei was a gift from the Rev Akaka from Hawaii’s Kawaiahao Church, who included a note which read,
“Dear brother, Martin Luther King, as you bring good news to the meek, bind up those that are bruised, release the captives, our prayer and aloha reach to enfold you. History will honor this hour because his chosen servant was faithful, and a great nation responded to that faithfulness. Aloha. A.A.” (Mendoza).
Flowers are both beautiful and delicate. The goodness of God is gentle and intricate just as much as it is vast and awe-inspiring. Flowers act as symbols for love, pleace, friendship, and loyalty. Flowers allow us to gaze at a beautiful thing in its entirety while at the same time astound us with their detail. God knows the people need to both stand in awe of something great and to rest in quiet surrounded by the fragrance and color of his goodness.
Humanity
“Then God said, ‘let us make man in our own image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.’
So God created man in his own image;
He created them in the image of God;
He created the male and female. (CSB. Gen. 1.26-27)
The pinnacle of creation is humanity, and God created humans to be diverse. King said, “There can be unity without uniformity. Black and white can live together. Our biological differences are but varing [sic] expressions of the richness and complexity of the divine nature” (King, The Distinctions). God’s goodness is not contained by any ethnicity, history, or gender. The levels of melanin in the skin of people around the world cannot begin to provide all the variations of goodness in God. All are made in his image: the Imago Dei, loved by God so profoundly that he sent his one and only Son to reconcile all of us to him, not in condemnation, but in mercy and grace we will never understand (John 3). King wrote that distinctions of color were not supposed to be in conflict, but to exist together because the goodness and richness of God called it good.
When we look around at our communities, we should marvel at just how different each person is. Marvel, because it takes all of us to begin to represent the goodness of God. All of creation, from the highest mountain to the deepest sea, from the vast universe to the dandelion seed proclaims the glory of God. And we, the people within whom the very breath of God resides, we are invited to dwell with our Creator, who says to each one of us, in all our human colors, “Come” (CSB Rev. 222.17). From ebony to ivory, God desires us to live together as brother and sisters, proclaiming his immeasurable goodness to a broken world.
“And because His goodness could not be adequately represented by one creature alone, He produced many and diverse creatures, so that what was wanting to one in the representation of the divine goodness might be supplied by another” (Pegis, 261).
Resources
Christian Standard Bible. Holman Bible Publishers, 2017.
Browning, Mike. “Get Wild: What Determines Tree Line?” Summit Daily, 4 Nov. 2021, https://www.summitdaily.com/opinion/columns/get-wild-what-determines-tree-line/.
“Highest Mountains in the World.” WorldData.info, https://www.worlddata.info/highest-mountains.php.
“Ocean Facts” NOAA Ocean Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 16 June 2024, https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/howmanyoceans.html.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. Draft of Chapter VIII, “The Death of Evil Upon the Seashore.” 1962–63, Stanford University, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/draft-chapter-viii-death-evil-upon-seashore.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. The Distinctions in God’s Creation. Edited by Stanford University’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/distinctions-gods-creation#fn4.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. “I Have a Dream.” American Rhetoric, https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm.
Mendoza, Jim. “Here’s Why Martin Luther King Wore a Lei on His Historic Alabama March.” Hawaii News Now, 13 Jan. 2022, updated 17 Jan. 2022, https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2022/01/14/heres-why-martin-luther-king-wore-lei-his-historic-march-selma-montgomery/.
“MLK Jr. World Peace Rose Garden.” National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, https://www.nps.gov/malu/planyourvisit/mlk_jr_world_peace_rose_garden.htm.
“Mountains.” National Geographic, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/mountains.
Pegis, Anton C., editor. Introduction to Saint Thomas Aquinas. 1948. Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/introductiontosa0000anto.
Wallenfeldt, Jeff. “7 (or 8) Summits: The World’s Highest Mountains by Continent”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 14 Sep. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/story/7-or-8-summits-the-worlds-highest-mountains-by-continent.
Defaulting to Grace 