Thirty-two years ago tomorrow night, April 3, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his last public address. At the Bishop Charles J. Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee, Dr. King spoke to a crowd of striking sanitation workers and their supporters with what one commentator regards as his most apocalyptic speech. It needed to be. The strike was breaking down. Discouragement began to creep through the movement. The strikers needed a dose of solidarity, encouragement, hope. They got it.

In that speech Dr. King envisions God asking him, “Martin Luther King, what age would you like to live in? In what era would you choose to live?” Dr. King speculates. He dashes through the great ages of humankind: Greece, Rome, the Renaissance, the Reformation, our Civil War, the Great Depression. After this tour through history Dr. King says he “would turn to the Almighty and say, ‘If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the twentieth century, I’ll be happy.’”

He then proceeds to tell his Memphis audience that “now, in the history of the world, it’s nonviolence or nonexistence.” He speculates that if “something isn’t done, and in a hurry, to bring the colored peoples of the world out of their long years of poverty, their long years of hurt and neglect, the whole world is doomed. . .” He continues with a focus on the sanitation strike, the unfairness of the city of Memphis to its sanitation workers, the many press reports distorting the issues at stake. And in their direct struggle against the civil authorities? Dr.King reminds them that in Birmingham years earlier strikers singing “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me ‘round” faced Bull Connor’s dogs; that burning with a certain kind of inner fire no water could put out, they resisted high pressure fire hoses; that singing “We shall overcome” they got rammed into paddy wagons, shunted off to jail, crammed behind bars.

But he is not finished. He gets personal. Dr. King reviews the challenge of world-changing events triggered by men and women like those sanitation strikers in his Memphis audience, and then, reflecting on the threats to his life swirling amid the rancor of the strike, he wonders what might happen if those death threats came to fruition. And thus he closes his address with a memorable prophecy: “Well, I don’t know what will happen with me now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go to the mountaintop. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. ‘Mine eyes have seen the coming of the glory of the Lord.’”. . . . . . Twenty-four hours later-gone.

Now why that extensive excursion into modern American history? Why that visionary, apocalyptic address delivered by a Black American? I will tell you why. That address by Martin Luther King, Jr., smacks of the prophet whose images we read about a few moments ago. St. John the Divine, the composer of Revelation, himself exiled by Roman imperial decree to a prison Island in the Agean named Patmos-exiled because of his refusal to bend to the rules of supposedly good imperial citizenship-John writes a letter to be read during the worship of churches, churches themselves threatened by exhaustion, risking sell-out, on the edge of defeat and collapse of their faith in face of the overpowering inducements and corrupting influences of Roman culture, and even more satanic, the outright persecution of the Roman state to those who express loyalty to anyone or anything other than Caesar. The media, the police, the mainline religious organizations, the civil magistrates seek to crush loyalty to an executed Jewish criminal the churches consider the true ruler of the world and history. “Subversive!” “Traitorous!” “Followers of the big lie,” trumpet those who would smash those loyal Asian churches. And John- Oh, God love him!-when his churches come to the end of their ropes, when their loyalties to Christ’s world begin to wear thin, their priorities in ministry and mission lose their edge, their worship focuses on everything but the promises of God and the world God wants for us, then John composes this fabulous letter, this image-rich address to his churches, discouraged and hanging on by their fingernails.

How now, you ask? What do these gross and disgusting images John splashes throughout his address have to do with hope? What is this language? What are these allusions most of us would hesitate to use in a locker room, much less church?

For instance, this Babylon, this city, this Rome: “mother of whores.” What a brutal picture. My soul, what is John talking about? What does he point to? From his vantage point at the top of the mountain, if you will, like Dr. King, where he sees the promised land, the holy city, John describes in contrast to God’s promised city waiting for us, John describes the seduction of a prevailing culture, its adornments, its distractions, its capacity to draw us into its subtle, persuasive and alluring web. He sees churches giving in, losing their focus, fudging their purpose. He tells us how we get confused about what is most important in life. He shows us our values distorted, our priorities askew, our worship-what we take to be most important in life-blundering down the wrong road. He pictures our tendency to corrupt the truly sacred.

. . .to corrupt the truly sacred. Just an illustration: I don’t know how many of us saw or read about the FOX-TV show “Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire.” Friends, 23 million people tuned into that program where a multimillionaire from behind a screen chooses from a among some women who make themselves available for marriage to a man they have never met, a man who comes with the simple claim that he possesses millions and that on the program they may get their fifteen minutes of fame and a ton of money besides. St. John has got us cold. He knows what saps our energy and interest. He knows what turns our priorities inside out. He would tell us this program, “Who Wants to Marry A Millionaire?” lies about the most precious fact of life, the grace, the beauty, the sacrament of marriage. The truth of marriage is that the love undergirding and surrounding marriage is divine gift, that it entails abiding friendship, that it commands fidelity, that it carries commitment “in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow in sickness and health as long as we both shall live.” That television program-and scores of others like it-lies about life’s deepest, most profound and lovely relationship. It turns marriage into a tasteless and cheap game show; it insists the myriad dimensions of love and fidelity are irrelevant and meaningless, that a human being, in this case a woman, is up for sale, a commodity, an item on the market and that the man brings nothing, not character, not understanding, not affection, not respect, not generosity, not magnanimity, not a sense of service, or loyalty-nothing but the requisite cash.

You see, the problem here is not sexual immorality. It is trashed religion. What we see demeans the things of greatest value, distracts our loyalties, inverts our priorities, diverts our proper worship. John sees that risk bedeviling good church people.

Do you recall those laments from the merchants and sea traders as they witnessed the demise of the great city, in this morning’s lesson? One commentator writes, “in the equivalent of whore-worship they got everything they wanted, their lives overflowed with things, and now it is gone, wasted, up in smoke. They are bereft of everything they were promised and invested in and enjoyed. It is not their businesses that have collapsed, it is their religion-a religion of self indulgence, of getting. Now it is gone, salvation by checkbook is gone, god on demand is gone, meaning by money is gone. They are left with nothing but themselves, who after a lifetime of buying, selling, dealing, marketing, as Oscar Wilde remarked, ‘know the price of everything but the value of nothing.’” John knows how living the Christian life can seem futile in this world of ours, and how we might just surrender to the priorities wooing us constantly from Vanity Fair, the tube, the windows up and down Newbury and Boylston Streets, confusing, distorting, misdirecting-what?-our proper worship, our table of priorities.

But John not only sees priorities confused by that powerful and corrupting culture, he sees the power and seduction of the state as no less a serious twister of our priorities. He understands the subtle attractiveness of nationalism, the lure of patriotism. John recognizes the divine claims of the emperor with his temples, his police forces, his civil servants, his sycophants as running directly counter to the One he believes truly rules the world, the slain Lamb, the crucified Christ, the Lord of lords, the King of kings, the Ruler of all world history.

I think John has his finger on something. I think he warns us against the possibility of a priority run awry, worship misplaced. Again, an illustration: Last New Year’s Eve when we completed the First Night musical program here at Old South I came down here to the front of the sanctuary to talk with Gregory Peterson, the musicians and to greet some of the hundreds of revelers who attended. One of them approached me and asked a question. “Are you really an American patriot? If this church is patriotic,” he asked, “where is the American Flag? Shouldn’t there be one here in the front of the church?” And then he gave me a wise grin and was off.

Thank heaven. He would not have liked my answer. Reverence for the flag and reverence for the Cross are not the same thing. The one stands for nationalism, in many cases, for my country, right or wrong. To be sure, the flag stands for many vital and important things like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to assemble, to picket, to protest, to avoid unreasonable searches and seizure, to go to the polls with a choice, confident our votes will be counted accurately and that persons in power who may lose the election will step down gracefully and transfer power to the new regime. Surely a wonderful legacy, fought and died for over two hundred-twenty-five years.

But we know as well, in the minds and experience of millions across the world, indeed, many in our own country, the meaning of our flag spells economic exploitation, military occupation, political arrogance. For some it represents not the dream of equality and democracy, it represents everything that has sustained racism, militarism, and global ecological disaster. It still means arms races, the support of undemocratic regimes, an antagonism not so much between East and West, but north and south, the rich and the poor, the white-skinned versus the darker-skinned of God’s world-and none of us is innocent in this ambiguous and troubled global mix. No, the flag can divert our worship to Caesar, the very reverence of whom John considers demonic and self destructive. Our priorities and our hope must lie elsewhere.

And here we return to Dr. King. For like John of Patmos he looks from beyond the present. He sees the promised land, he knows that even in the middle of a furious sanitation strike, one side wielding the power of the state with its auxiliaries of media and instruments of coercion, he knows finally that kind of political and economic hegemony collapses, that the beast clamoring for our admiration, our respect, our worship will topple.

Martin and John envision the failure and crash of empires claiming our first loyalties, they sing “Alleluias” to the ultimate victory, not of the likes of Caesar, or Napoleon, or Hitler or Valdimir Putin or Bill Clinton, but to the likes of the slain lamb-the crucified and risen Christ. Their indefatigable hope promises those of us who would witness in our own time, like those driven into the paddy wagons, the jails, and prisons in behalf of human rights, justice and human equality, that we too, in our witness, can sing with hope hymns radiant with trust, courage and vision, confident, with the Saints of every age, our God reigns-yea, we shall overcome.

Do you believe it? I beg you: do! This faith, this hope will reorient your true worship. It will recast your priorities. It will enable abiding, courageous witness to the promised realm of Jesus Christ.