Just give it a little time......

Demanding action against injustice will separate you from the masses.  Standing up and insisting that injustice be addressed will get you labeled 'fanatic' or even 'unstable'.  Folks will want you to soften your language, and decrease your demands.  You will be set apart to some degree.  The larger the injustice the greater the waves you will cause by your protest.

In my lifetime this was clear in those who protested the Vietnam War; those women who wanted equal treatment in the workplace; and those citizens who demanded equal treatment for all races of people.  Boy were there some heated debates.  Families experienced estrangement.  Marriages were stressed.  The nation struggled and chism was everywhere and in some places, very, very deep. Assassination became a solution for some.

Martin Luther King, Jr in his Letter from a Birmingham jail, acknowledged all of this.  He was the leader of a group who pounded on the door of the American legal system and demanded justice.  He demanded that we live up to our own ideals as a nation.

I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the eighth-century prophets left their little villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their hometowns; and just as the Apostle Paul left his little village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to practically every hamlet and city of the Greco-Roman world, I too am compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my particular hometown........

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have never yet engaged in a direct-action movement that was "well timed" according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "wait." It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This "wait" has almost always meant "never."


When we read the parable of the Persistent Widow* through the lens of King's letter, it is no longer amusing and the expectations of those who follow Jesus are no longer comfortable.  Jesus said that this parable was about praying always without losing heart.

Seems like that is the least we can do for those who continue to stand oppressed.  It seems like calling on the name of the Lord is the most powerful thing we can do as we live in this world.



Luke 18.1-8