“To our most bitter opponents we say, “We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with our soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as cooperation with the good. Throw us in jail, and we shall still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down be our capacity to suffer. One day we will win freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory.”

        From the sermon, “Loving Your Enemies” by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

        For the past month the folks in my congregation have explored the possibility that God saves everyone, no exceptions. We have struggled with the idea that within the concept of grace, there is no room for hell. We have journeyed to the irrational and imagined a heaven where the righteous are seated alongside the terrorists and rapists, and we have attempted to wrap our hearts and minds around the idea that God works beyond the limits of human life in God’s pursuit of creating the open table.

        Well the challenge today is to practice this belief. How are we going to lead with forgiveness and patience in our lives? How are we going to spread this message of love and inclusion to our friends and our enemies? It is our capacity to love that will make it happen. It is our capacity to return physical force with soul force that will change the world. Dr. King inspired a generation of southern blacks to take charge of the situation. His vision was that people were engaged in their lives and their suffering. There would no longer be an entire race of people who were apathetic victims of a social structure that left them behind. He also challenged the white folks to follow their faith and practice the love that they were preaching. Join in the gospel movement of liberation for America. Join in the change that will allow more and more people to be free of poverty, sickness, and injustice. Join as disciples to bring this good news to the lonely and outcast that they are not alone. Let us suffer with those who suffer, thirst with those who thirst, hunger with those who hunger, let us show our families and our world that the practice of our faith will win us a double victory.

        We can create a heaven where the lion lies down with the lamb and where all people are one. This is the promise of gospel of Jesus Christ.