Like so many great leaders, Martin Luther King, Jr. was ahead of his time. So many of the concepts he fought for are now increasingly accepted as common but they were radical for his day. With time, his impact has not only changed our country but it has challenged our world. Without King not only would our society possibly still support segregation but South Africa would never have been encouraged to end apartheid and Indian outcasts would not feel the encouragement to break free from the scourge of the inhumane caste system. King stood boldly on God’s truth: “In Christ there is now neither Jew nor Gentile, male or female, slave or free.” It took Martin Luther King, Jr. to apply God’s truth to a prejudiced America and for that we are grateful.

I will never forget my private pilgrimage to the poor part of Atlanta to see where Martin Luther King, Jr. was born and laid to rest. I can still see in my mind the “eternal flame” that burns for King’s “beloved community.” The biblical concept of a “beloved community” kept King striving for justice (an Old Testament concept) while showing grace (a New Testament concept) to those who resisted. King challenged the disconnect that existed in America between faith and practice suggesting that our faith must inform everything we do: our business practices, our politics and our behavior. Our faith teaches us to love our neighbors as ourselves. We must never let our faith be separated from our daily lives again.

King always spoke and lived with the “beloved community” in his mind. Heaven will be made up of people from every nation, race and language that love each other deeply. Heaven will be the “beloved community.”

As we celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday, let us continue to carry the torch for the “beloved community.” Let us continue to strive for justice and equality for all people. Let us pursue justice for the Dalits in India, for those trapped in human trafficking (modern-day slavery), for the handicapped, the elderly, the unborn and for those in our society who are not treated with human dignity. Let us always give grace to those who don’t understand justice as we do. Let us take encouragement by standing in the long shadow of this great man.

Most religions speak of oneness, unity and love. Though the construct isn’t exactly the same in each faith, together they point to the longing of every human being to be united with God in love and to express that love to others. But how is it achieved? What creates true unity?

Jesus was once addressing a crowd when he was told that his mother and brothers were outside wanting to speak to him. Before speaking with his natural mother and brothers he used the moment as a teaching opportunity.

Matt. 12:48-50  He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?”  Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers.  For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

How does one become so close to Jesus that he calls us family: brother, sister, mother? The answer is tied to obedience: whoever does the Father’s will. Obedient action for God toward others is tied to intimacy with God.

In a similar passage Jesus ties obedience with intimacy: John 14:21 Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”

If we should wonder what we are to obey, Jesus answers that question in John 15:9-14: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. . . . My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command.

It seems obvious. Love is not merely a feeling, it is not the absorption of all things into oneness. It is two distinct persons sacrificially giving themselves to each other. Sacrificial love creates the existential feeling of unity, oneness and family.  It is not the reverse.

Closeness is a feeling that follows the tangible action of love. By faith I believe in obeying Jesus and I will love that person as he has commanded me to. The outcome is feeling close to Jesus and often the person we have sacrificially loved.

Jesus is our example. He showed us the greatest love by laying down his life for us. He now calls us friends, family, loved ones if we follow his lead and lay down our lives for him and others. To feel loved, we have to love.

Someone will protest that this is not grace. They will argue that what I am saying is an earning of God’s love. But that is not true. Grace is undeserved. Jesus’ sacrificial love for us was unmerited. Our love for others is to be the same. That is grace. Grace is the motivation for our love for others. Grace does not create passivity but responsibility. We are response-able to God’s love to love others.

Love is not a pietistic platitude, centered solely around immaterial souls and heaven. It is substantive and earthy. Intimacy with the divine, without love for others, is heavenly poppy cock. It is spiritual cotton candy. A mirage. A spiritual state of mind only.

And to have the rock solid subjective assurance that we are one with God, there must be the objective evidence that we are in his family: that his DNA is in us; that we have our Father’s eyes. That truth is seen tangibly in our loving actions for others.

No other disciple was closer to Jesus than John, the Beloved. They were truly friends and he caught this truth. He said:

1 John 4:7, 11-12, 20  Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. . . Since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. . .  If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.

So let’s join the God-family. We believe that Jesus sacrificially loved us and died for our sins. Now let’s authenticate our family line by loving others and experience the oneness that he promised.

Sometimes it takes the 24-hour flu to remind me that I am just human. As my strength returned this morning I took a walk to the beach. As my feet reached the sand and I breathed in the fresh, salt air, I sighed, “Today, I’m just human.” It felt like a thousand pounds of unrealistic expectations dropped from my shoulders onto the sand below. All the “should haves,” the “oughts,” the “whens” and “if onlys” driving my soul fell to the ground. As the next wave washed away my footprints, my superhuman burdens were also swept away.

I, like many, try to live a superhuman life. Superman. Many, from Nietzsche to the writers of the comic-book hero, have pictured humans evolving or becoming superhuman in various ways. We imagine that it is in our power to become super or beyond human.

To facilitate this we create time efficient toys to make us feel we are achieving super human abilities. God is omnipresent. So are we, or so we think by our smart phones. God is all-knowing so are we with our access to infinite online knowledge. God is all-powerful and so are we, at least in our own minds. (Our spouses and friends know better). Still, in ways we appear to be beyond human.

But there is a price to pay. The more we conquer and accomplish the more is expected of us. It used to be that 40 hours a week was a normal work week. But when we were out of the office we were not working. We were playing, eating, driving or resting. Now we ring every drop out of those multi-tasked-forty hours. Then on top of that, we take our work into the car, at the lunch break and to our home. We cram 60 hours of work into forty and then take an extra 20 outside the office. Have we become immortal or are we less human?

The weight we carry and the speed at which we travel reminds us of our true mortality. We may be able to travel in space but we still need space suits. We may be able to work and accomplish great things but we stress ourselves to the point of exhaustion and psychologists still insist we need proper sleep to recharge. We still need to eat and exercise. And we still need play time to re-create our souls. As amazing as we think we are we are still merely but barely human.

The bible, even from the earliest pages, reminds us of that. Genesis chapter two describes us as being created from the dust of the earth, just like the rest of the animals. We are creation not creator. It is a great but humbling reminder to contemplate the truth I don’t always want to hear— I am dirt.

Yet, Scripture is equally stunned by the action of God in making us in his image. The passage says he breathed into us his breath making us a living soul. So we are unique and distinct from the rest of nature but that distinction is not our achievement. It is God’s. I am the image of God to those around me.

Yes, I am special not because of my accomplishments and abilities but because of God’s character stamped onto my being. Reflecting God to this world, giving his love to those around me is the highest the most superb thing I will ever do.

The writer of Psalm 8 seems to reflect this tension between dirt and the divine when he says:
what are mortals that you should think of us, mere humans that you should care for us?
For you made us only a little lower than God, and you crowned us with glory and honor.
Yes, it is wonderful and humbling to be human.

So as I continue in my walk I embrace the dirt-ness of my humanity. My footsteps are washed away as quickly as I leave them in the sand. I can’t do everything. I can’t be everything. I can’t be everywhere or respond to everything. Life is coming at me too fast to respond. I am racing down the freeway so fast that I couldn’t slow down to catch the next exit even if I wanted to. I almost thought I was God. But only he is everywhere at once, all-powerful and all-knowing. There is a God, and it is not me. As for me? Today I’m just human.