The Courage to Speak: Martin Luther King Jr, Telemachus and 3 Hebrew Satraps

Today we celebrate the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Posters with his image hang in classrooms and libraries across the country. Post offices and banks will close. He's a near-universal hero now. It's easy to see him through the lens of all he accomplished and all the respect we have for him now. It's easy to forget the context in which he lived, with real hate, real danger. He paid a price–not just in death, but daily–for his actions and had no guarantee of success. He knew that his obligation stood apart from the consequences. He had the courage to speak against sin and injustice, and became a model of character God calls us all to.

Today we celebrate the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Posters with his image hang in classrooms and libraries across the country. Post offices and banks will close. He's a near-universal hero now. It's easy to see him through the lens of all he accomplished and all the respect we have for him now. It's easy to forget the context in which he lived, with real hate, real danger. He paid a price–not just in death, but daily–for his actions and had no guarantee of success. He knew that his obligation stood apart from the consequences. He had the courage to speak against sin and injustice, and became a model of character God calls us all to.

One of my favorite speeches in the Bible comes from Daniel 3, and I can see a little bit of Dr. King in it. You know the story: King Nebuchednezzar of Babylon decreed that everyone must worship the golden idol he had built. Three of his Hebrew satraps, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, refused. Standing before the king who was threatening the with a fiery furnace, they told him (in my own paraphrase), "Our God is able to rescue us if he wants, but either way, we're not caving." They knew their obligation stood apart from the consequences.

You may remember the story of the end of the gladiator games in the Roman coliseum. A monk named Telemachus traveled from the east reached Rome. Seeing crowds flocking to the coliseum, he followed them, and was horrified by their entertainment–two gladiators fighting to the death. He jumped down into the arena, begging them to stop.  He took a courageous stand against the savage games. The crowd, enraged by the threat to their entertainment, turned on him and stoned him to death. But Telemachus knew that his obligation stood apart from the consequences.

God calls us to stand up against evil. But unlike fairy tales and after-school specials on TV, there are no guarantees that everything will turn out great. We've been raised on the American Dream, and it's easy to believe that doing the Right Thing will result in Good Things. But not every reward comes in this lifetime. Sometimes doing the Right Thing results in poverty, persecution, death. But that doesn't change our duty or our calling, because our obligation stands apart from the consequences, too.

The good news is that God uses courageous people to affect real change in the world. Dr King's work changed the face of a nation. The Roman emperor declared Telemachus a victorious martyr and ended the bloody games. When Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego miraculously survived the fire without singe or smell of smoke, King Nebuchadnezzer praised their God and forbade anyone from blasphemy. They each had a choice: to be safe, or to be faithful.

You have the same choice. So do I. So, what will it be?