We’ve Been to the Mountain Top

It was a cold and rainy night in Memphis, Tennessee.  As the sanitation workers were given no provision to get out of that weather, two Black workers had taken refuge in the bin at the back of their truck. 

Inadvertently, they were crushed to death when the compactor mechanism was triggered.

It was that incident and the strike that followed that prompted Dr. King to head to that troubled city.  Many of his followers had advised against the trip, but Dr. King resolutely set his face to Memphis.  Why, for just a bunch of garbage collectors?  Why?  King set his face for Memphis in steely resolve despite their counsel.

That night, after his arrival, a congregation gathered at the Mason Temple.  It was a hot, sweltering crowd that packed the sanctuary as Dr. King addressed the congregation.  We should all remember that stirring line that came towards the end of his sermon.  “I’ve been to the Mountaintop.”  I’ve been to the Mountaintop.

This, it so happened. would be the culmination of that marvelous life, for in the morning a shot would ring out at the Lorraine Motel as Dr. King stood on a balcony for some fresh air and conversation with colleagues.

In his witness to the dignity of all people, he not only made it to the mountaintop, but he took this nation with him.

I had the experience of hearing him talk in person.  It was in Lincoln Nebraska at a conference for some 5000 United Methodist students and pastors from all across the U.S.  He was the keynote speaker for the last day of that event.

I didn’t know that much about him at the time.  I did know he was famous and he had led a bus boycott in the south.

But when I heard him that evening, he took me to the mountaintop.  I said to myself, if this is the church, INCLUDE ME IN. 

It was a rebirth of my faith.  It made all those lessons in my early Sunday school years come to life – cohere into a faith I could claim as a young college student.  King opened up an entire new world for me.

I grew up in a very conservative, prejudiced family.  Cloistered in an upper-middle class neighborhood of Long Beach, California.  My parents made very clear to me who “our people” were and who they weren’t.

They weren’t blacks, though that’s not what my father called them. They weren’t Mexicans.  They weren’t Jews.  On my mother’s side, in addition to all these, they also weren’t Okies and Arkies.

These last two had come into the San Joaquin Valley in the 20s, fleeing the desperation of the Oklahoma Dust Bowl.  They are the characters of Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, the Joad family, poor as dirt.

The struggle for economic and racial equality in Black theology is grounded in Moses’ experience in a wasteland when a burning bush catches his eye.

The message of God to him, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters…So come, I will send you to Pharoah to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.’”

“Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt’s land,
tell old Pharaoh: Let my people go.”

The image of Dr. King’s mountaintop in his final sermon in Memphis comes out of the Book of Deuteronomy.   God told Moses, “This is the land I promised… I have let you see it with your own eyes, but you will not cross into it”   Moses from the top of Mount Nebo could overlook that Promised Land, but would not make it himself, but his people would.

Dr. King had been to the mountaintop.  Though he was not sure if he would make it to that promised land of equality, opportunity and respect, he had absolute faith that God would lead his people, and by extension all people to that land.

Yes, the promises of our creeds and Constitution had not been fulfilled.

My dad, a dentist had a number of Black patients, but in the way he spoke of them, it was clear to me he didn’t respect them.  Somewhere in the category of the Cadillac Welfare Queen.

BUT, BUT, BUT…the transformation King wrought over my lifetime was nothing I could have imagined.  Our entire nation (or at least a lot of us) were taken to that mountaintop of brotherly and sisterly love – and something had happened in my dad’s heart.

Late in life, he began to realize that if this nation didn’t work for everybody, it wasn’t going to work for much of anybody.  That included his former Black patients. 

One morning when I showed up at the office when I was working with him to run our family construction company, he greeted me, “John, how’s Al Gore doing?” 

“What do you care about him,” I responded.  Puzzled that this life-long Republican cared a wit about this Democratic candidate.”

“I always thought, as a dentist running a small business that the Republicans were the party of small business.  They don’t give a damn about small business, nor much of anyone else unless they have a ton of money. It’s all about the money.  And Bush is an idiot – he’s destroying the country.” 

An EPIPHANY! 

He went for quite a bit more of a rant about how the Republicans were ruining the country and everybody was getting poorer and poorer.

My father had had an entire change of heart and mind about who counted in America.  It was the “little people” – people like him and many of his patients on welfare.  He was even now okay with unions.  They’re the only ones standing up for the average worker.

Dr. King has indeed taken this entire nation to the mountaintop and we have seen a shining promised land of harmony and opportunity for all.

I also realized a moment of closure.  In our “nice” – read “white” –neighborhood a Black dentist and his family had purchased a house down the street from us.  I still remember moving day when I and some of my playmates went down to see what was happening as the van unloaded furniture and lots of boxes.

The mother served us up some cups of lemonade.  Their boy seemed like he’d fit into our group.

Several weeks later, while they were on a vacation, one of their neighbors ran their garden hose through the second floor and turned on the water.  It must have run for almost a week, completely ruining the house.  Shortly afterward, they moved out.

There was only some hush-hush talk about what had happened.  This to my young mind seemed so unfair.  Completely contrary to what we had learned in Sunday school about Jesus.  AND our church said absolutely NOTHING.  NOTHING!

For me, Dr. King brought some resolution to the guilt and pain I had felt over that incident.  Things would not be perfect, but I could now see a time coming when this hateful act would be condemned.  Publically condemned.  And some of our white neighbors would rally around this anguished family.

The memory of that incident was front and center in my first ministry out of seminary.  I and another seminarian founded a fair housing organization in the San Gabriel Valley, a suburb of Los Angeles.  We and our committee of volunteers would work against injustice in the housing and apartment market.  And irony of ironies, our first client?  He was an Italian man.  This one landlady hated Italians. 

Yeah, we got him his apartment once she knew the consequences of violating California’s fair housing law.

As we now have government ICE goons beating and shooting people in Minnesota, we must rise up against a new Pharoah.  We must march together, sing together, pray together.  It will be a long struggle against the most vindictive president this nation has ever had.

But, as in Memphis, we can see a way ahead.  We will take care of one another.  Ada Limón reminds us, “Caring for each other is a form of radical survival that we don’t always take into account.”

With Dr. King, we have all – America has been to the mountaintop and looked over.  That evening at the conclusion of his sermon, this was Dr. King’s message:

“Well, I don’t know what will happen now.  We’ve got some difficult days ahead.  But it doesn’t matter with me now.  Because I’ve been to the mountain top.  And I don’t mind.  Like anybody, I would like to ive 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 up to the mountain.  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 glory of the coming of the Lord.”[1]

Amen.

---

[1] Martin Luther King, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” delivered at Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee, April 3, 1968.

January 11, 2026

Epiphany 2
Martin Luther King Sunday

Exodus 3:7-12; Psalm 77:11-20
Letter from a Birmingham Jail; Gospel: Luke 6:27-36

“We’ve Been to the Mountain Top”