Howard Thurman, former Boston University professor and Dean of Marsh Chapel, was considered the theologian of the Civil Rights Movement. His writing and spiritual counsel had a profound effect on the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Junior — who reportedly kept his dog-eared copy of Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited nearby throughout his justice work.
Thurman wrote:
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flocks,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among the people,
To make music in the heart.
On Sunday, we’ll consider what it means “to make music in the heart,” and how that music inspires us to enact God’s kind of justice. We will reflect on Psalm 9, sing some of the songs that inspired the Civil Rights movement, and reflect together what it means for us to sing ourselves further into justice.
Come and join us.
In faith,
Kent
Image credit: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. leads singing marchers from Selma to Montgomery in March 1965. On the right, SNCC Chairman, John Lewis. Photo by Matt Herron/AP File photo
