The title of my blog today is a familiar word, “Let us now praise famous men.” It is the beginning of a passage in The Wisdom of Sirach. The entire sentence is, “Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us”.
In a recent blog I talked about Elvis Presley. His birthday was Jan. 8, and thousands of visitors came to our city visiting Graceland, his Memphis residence. January15 is the birthday of another famous man, Martin Luther King. His birthday is a national holiday, and we have been remembering and celebrating…grateful for his tremendous contribution.
Because of who I am—a Christian and a United Methodist minister—and because we are celebrating Dr. King’s birthday, and thinking about Elvis Presley, I want to name and praise another “famous man,” John Wesley, father of the Methodist Movement. Millions of people around the world are Christians in churches that trace roots back to the “revival” ignited by John Wesley in the mid 1700s.
The practical message of Wesley needs our attention today. He was clear and passionate in his conviction that A Christian who is interested only in his personal salvation is only half a Christian. That word may come as a shock, but the truth is Christianity has always had a dual thrust: a personal religious experience and a conscience sensitively alive—concern about the implication and impact of our political, social, and economic systems
In his book, The March of Eleven Men, Frank S Mead wrote of the ministry of John Wesley:
He wrote and preached in the wreck-strewn wake of the Industrial Revolution and made his way into the heart England. He knew that personal faith had its social results. He actually made the best men of England wonder if they were not responsible, themselves, for the condition of the worst men of England. He blazed out at the slave holders and made them see the ethical consequences of their religion. He championed everywhere the rights of labor against the cruelties of industrialism, lending capital for small enterprises, founding free labor bureaus, giving to the modern labor movement a spiritual quality. He founded medical dispensaries and orphanages, and he became the real father of popular libraries for the poor. He awoke England socially by first awakening her spiritually.
On every page of Christianity’s history, when the church has risen to her true heights, she has involved herself in the affairs of men and has stirred the conscience of the world. In some periods, Christians have lost this aspect of their being and have been less sensitive than in others. Today may be such a period. But when we have been truest to our faith, we have seen our task as one of redemption and reconciliation in every area of human relations.
Let us now praise famous men. As we remember Dr. King’s birthday this week, let’s also remember his death here in Memphis and the causes for which he lived and died. He reminded us that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Let us also pay attention to Wesley and not grow weary in acting/living our Christian faith. Change, the bending of the arc of justice, takes a long time, but it does happen.
Let us now praise famous men. Thank you, Dr. King and Father John. Called by God and inspired by you, may we keep our social conscience sensitively alive.