Kitchen Table Prayer – January 17, 2019

It was January 27, 1956. The Montgomery bus boycott had begun the month before.  Martin Luther King, Jr., a twenty-seven year old pastor, activist and one of the organizers of the boycott, was receiving death threats. He had a young wife and a baby daughter and he was tired and scared.  He had returned home late that night, after a long strategy session with his colleagues.  The phone rang.  Another death threat.  He hung up, went to the kitchen of the clapboard parsonage, made some coffee and sat down at his kitchen table and prayed.

In King’s book Stride Toward Freedom, he tells the story:

I was ready to give up. With my cup of coffee sitting untouched before me, I tried to think of a way to move out of the picture without appearing a coward.  In this state of exhaustion, when my courage had all but gone, I decided to take my problem to God.  With my head in my hands, I bowed over the kitchen table and prayed aloud. 

The words I spoke to God that midnight are still vivid in my memory. “I am here take a stand for what I believe is right.  But now I am afraid.  The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they too will falter.  I am at the end of my powers.  I have nothing left. I’ve come to the point where I can’t face it alone.” 

At that moment, I experience the presence of the Divine as I have never experienced God before. It seemed as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying; “Stand up for justice, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever.”  Almost at once my fears began to go.  My uncertainty disappeared.  I was ready to face anything. 

Three days later, his house was bombed. But he continued on.  There were more death threats, more bombings. A stabbing. And he continued on.  Eventually, twelve years after his kitchen table prayer, a gunman’s bullet killed him.

On Monday, a little more than fifty years after his death, we will observe Martin Luther King, Jr Day. It will be a day off school and work for many.  For some, including our own SFX teens and tweens, it will be a Day of Service (our Middle School and High School kids are joining in the Day of Service organized by Rockhurst University).  There is so much work to do to make King’s dream a reality.  We need God’s strength to do the hard work of justice and peace.

May we all spend some time in prayer on Monday and hear God’s quiet assurance, “I will be at your side forever.”