January 18, 2026: MLK Sunday: The Courage to Love

Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray

Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of the strengthen needed to choose love in the face of hate and discrimination. In honor of his birthday, we reflect on his teachings of the centrality of love and the courage it takes to choose love.

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Sermon Text

Courage to Love

Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray

UU Church of Bloomington

January 18, 2026

READING

Our reading is from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's historic speech, “A Time to Break the Silence,” delivered in April, 1967 at the Riverside Church in New York City. In this speech, controversial at the time, Dr. King linked the struggle of the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. to his opposition to the Vietnam War.

Here are King's words:

“The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality...We will be marching ...and attending rallies without end, unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy.

“We must rapidly...begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person- oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

“A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

“A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, ‘This is not just.’

“A true revolution of values will lay hand[s] on the world order and say of war, ‘This way of settling differences is not just.’ A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death…

“There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood…

“This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing …and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft misunderstood concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man.

“When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response...I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim- Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate -- ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: ‘Let us love one another, for love is God…’ Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day.’”

SERMON Courage to Love

This weekend we honor the life of the great spiritual and prophetic leader, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King is such a giant figure in history - in American history - and in the struggle for civil rights, human rights, peace, and justice. Yet, his life was so incredibly short.

Did you know that Dr. King was only 26 years old when the Montgomery bus boycott began. He was serving his first full time ministry at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery when he was asked to be the main spokesperson of the boycott effort.

He was only 34 years old when he gave his “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington.

And when he was murdered at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, helping to support the sanitation workers strike and just getting the Poor People's Campaign off the ground, he was only 39 years old.

Our nation and our world lost so much on that day. His family lost even more. Today, we remember him and his teachings - and in doing so both preserve the radical critique he offered of our country, and the courage that he embodied through his unwavering commitment to love, which he described “as the most durable power in the world.”1

1-Martin Luther King, Jr. “The Most Durable Power.” 1956 Sermon in Montgomery, Alabama

Amid efforts today to roll back the wins of the Civil Rights Movement - including the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act - and distort them to recalcify racial segregation, discrimination, and white supremacy - much is done to sanitize and distort King's legacy. So today, we'll look at two aspects of his legacy - first his central analysis and critique of the United States, and second his commitment to the necessity of change through nonviolence. Our reading from this morning, from King's historic speech at Riverside Church in New York, “A Time to Break the Silence,” articulates both these powerful lessons.

Too often, King's legacy is thought to be only about the Civil Rights Movement and his “I Have a Dream” speech. But what began as his commitment to civil rights - rooted in his love of himself as a Black man and his love of his people - grew each year broader to a commitment to freedom and liberation for all people exploited by poverty and violence across the world. Indeed, the Poor People's Campaign that King was building when he was killed was a campaign dedicated to the struggle for and with poor people; poor whites and poor blacks, the poor of all races - a campaign for dignity and living wages.

And while some want to restrict his legacy to one of civil rights, in the Riverside speech, King explains the through-line that links poverty, racism, and U.S. militarism - the line of exploitation, callousness, and greed that runs through American foreign and domestic policy.

He writes, “The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality...We will be marching...and attending rallies without end, unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy.

“We must rapidly...begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person- oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

King links these three giant evils, as he names them in another speech - racism, poverty and militarism. And just as on point for today, he calls out the exploitation and theft of natural resources from Asia, Africa, and South America, as well as the U.S.'s tendency to prop up brutal oligarchies in South America.

Yes, some things have changed since King's time - things he and people-powered movements helped change. But, the fundamental revolution in values that places people - human lives and dignity - above profits and property - that has not succeeded. In many cases, it is worse today.

We witness the extreme growth of wealth inequality, the criminalization of poverty, the exploitation, abuse and now, criminalization of immigrants who the U.S. relies on for workers. We witness a doubling down on tax policy in our state and federally that further enriches the wealthy while starving our communities of fundamental necessities of healthcare, education, housing and food. Meanwhile, we invest more and more in prisons, law enforcement, incarceration, and the military - systems of cruelty, control, and violence. And we force basic human services - things we all need - like healthcare and education - to be run with profit motives rather than the motives of serving human well being and growth.

King's words ring true nearly 60 years from when he spoke them, that we will be endlessly marching, demonstrating, and protesting if we cannot change this underlying reality. If we cannot bring about a change that puts human life, human thriving, and community care first.

King's legacy is civil rights - but it is not only civil rights. For he was committed to a vision of a world where all people - white people, people of color, people of all nations - would not be bound by poverty - nor forced to sacrifice their lives and their humanity in service to endless war and violence, but instead would be free to develop into the fullness of their humanity. And the path he sought to create that reality was the powerful and courageous path of love.

Dr. King understood the capacity of human beings to carry out sin and evil. He was not a Pollyanna about the human condition. He understood the ways that human fears could be stoked and manipulated to divide people along lines of race, class, nationality, or any other difference. He understood the effectiveness of fear - and also how fear led to hatred and violence.

Fear and hatred may make a person arm themselves with implements of violence - but it is not the strong path. It is not the courageous path. Choosing love - rather than fear - requires courage because it invites us to see the brokenness in our own lives and the suffering of our neighbors. It is easier to choose not to see, not to feel. Love requires courage, because in choosing love - once we feel that suffering, it invites us to act - to respond to alleviate suffering as we are able.

As a Christian minister, an organizer, a scholar, King understood the power of love to help individuals and humanity choose a different course. And every time King talked about love, he was clear that what he meant was not a passive, sentimental or weak form of love. It was a powerful form of love - a form of love that could, as the Gospel of John says, cast out fear.

For King, this form of love - the love that John spoke of - was “the love of God operating in the human heart.” It was a love that sought redemptive good will, reconciliation, the realization of the fundamental interconnection of all life, the kinship of humankind. And the choice to live this form of love, to choose this love - in the face of oppression, violence, and hate is a courageous one.

Dr. King's words still challenge us today. They are challenging in the ways they name the roots of our ongoing investments in systems of greed, violence, and control. And they are challenging when he call us to love those who oppress us.

These words challenge us when it is easier to hate, demean, or wish harm or vengeance on ICE agents or those that give them their orders from the administration. (Let's sit with that one for a moment.)

Now, King makes clear that this call to love is not an affectionate one. In his words, “It would be nonsense to urge men to love their oppressors in an affectionate sense. Love in this connection means understanding, redemptive good will.”

He is calling us to dig deeper into our spiritual foundations and reach higher in our capacity as human beings - to understand that what we must seek to change is the system that perpetuates violence and oppression. And we can only do that by working towards redemption of the human spirit - and believing in the humanity and the redemption and reconciliation that is possible in those that have lost their way down the path of fear and hate and violence.

King was deeply influenced by the writings and teachings of Mahatma Gandhi and his model of nonviolent resistance to oppression. Gandhi wrote, “Hatred ever kills; love never dies. Such is the vast difference between the two. What is obtained by love is obtained for all time. What is obtained by hatred proves a burden in reality, for it increases hatred. The duty of a human being is to diminish hatred and to promote love.”

King understood that if we were to undertake a radical revolution in values that the foundation of the revolution needed to be love, needed to be nonviolence. For the means must reflect the ends.

I am inspired by the unbelievable courage and discipline of much of the community in Minneapolis to practice nonviolent resistance to the federal occupation of their city. Amid the violence of the state, they are overwhelmingly responding peacefully, nonviolently, even as they forcefully demand ICE to leave their community. And I note there are differences between the Civil Rights Movement and today. The Civil Rights Movement was organized to change a recalcitrant system of racial segregation - they were pushing against a system unwilling to grant equal rights. Today, it is the President and administration seeking to roll back freedoms, democracy, and constitutional rights. Rather than organizing for change, we are resisting this violent turn toward authoritarianism. And so there is a place for the marches, the ICE watches, and the playful ridicule. In fact ridicule - people in frog costumes, unicorns, snowballs - that undermines the image of power and the fear that this overwhelming force is trying to create. So, resistance rooted in love - in community - and with playfulness - is powerful.

Through these tactics, the people of Minneapolis are courageously choosing love for their neighbors and channeling their anger into a powerful witness for what the community can and must look like. King said of love, and of nonviolent resistance, that “The end [goal] is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community...It is this type of understanding goodwill that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age. It is this love which will bring about miracles in the hearts of men.”2 2-https://guideposts.org/positive-living/reflecting-on-martin-luther-king-jrs-beloved-community/

We pray for these miracles. And we send our care and resources to Minneapolis. Later this week, clergy from all over the country will be showing up in Minneapolis to join the people resisting this occupation of their city. We pray for all who are there, for all who will join - for courage rooted in love and demanding justice and freedom.

King's words challenge us today. They challenge our system which continues to perpetuate violence, poverty, and racism. They challenge us to resist in ways that are rooted in love and that seek not vengeance or punishment but beloved community where all are welcome, where all may be reconciled, where all can thrive. May we find this courage. May we build more of it each day. May we continue to act, to resist, to love. For as King says at the end of his speech at the Riverside church: “We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.

“Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose it in this crucial moment of human history.”

Amen! May it be. May we see to it!