Teamwork Makes The Dream Work
Sixty-three years ago today, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave one of the most stirring speeches of the 20th Century. Delivered on August 28, 1963 to more than 250,000 people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., he proclaimed:
“I say to you today, my friends, though, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. … I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. … I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. … Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi, from every mountainside. Let freedom ring… When we allow freedom to ring – when we let it ring from every city and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last, Free at last, Great God a-mighty, We are free at last’.”
Within five years, Dr. King was dead – murdered by an assassin. Also dead, and also murdered by assassins, were President John Kennedy and his brother, Bobby Kennedy.
The dream had not died, but the bodies of its prophets were falling in a nightmare of anger and hatred.
Fast forward to 2026, and the dream is still a dream.
Anger and hatred still abound in America.
Divisions based on color, religion, and politics still haunt us.
Real freedom – freedom in Jesus Christ – still eludes us.
When we look around us sixty-three years later, the sadness can be overwhelming – until we journey back in time almost 2,000 years ago to a small town in ancient Galilee. The Word of God describes the events that day:
Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him. He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:14-21, NIV)
When Dr. King gave his famous “I have a dream” speech, he was speaking of the future – of what could be.
When Jesus of Nazareth spoke in the synagogue in the town in which He was raised, He was speaking of the present – of what was fulfilled that very day.
Two thousand years later, however, the poor are still poor, the prisoners are still imprisoned, the blind are still without sight, the oppressed are still captive, and the Lord’s favor seems unreachably far away.
Was Dr. King wrong to dream his dream?
Was Jesus wrong to proclaim what He proclaimed?
Not at all on either count – and especially not when you see things from God’s perspective.
For Martin Luther King, Jr., he needed to dream. Just as importantly, America needed to hear his dream. And most of all, we today need to revisit his dream and work to make it a reality.
For the Son of God, He knew exactly what He was saying as He read from what is now known as the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. The prophecy was fulfilled supernaturally that day, just as Jesus said. However, we must now work together as Christians to make His supernatural reality an earthly reality as well. By doing so, the Kingdom of God becomes both “then and there” and “here and now.”
Today, dream God’s dream. As Christians, we must be at the forefront of social justice and do our part to reconcile warring factions who would exploit physical characteristics or political or religious differences for their own gain. As Dr. King begged us, “Let freedom ring… When we allow freedom to ring – when we let it ring from every city and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, [even Democrats and Republicans,] will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last, Free at last, Great God a-mighty, We are free at last’.”
When we as Christians leave the safety of our churches, roll up our sleeves, and enter the world (“in the world but not of the world”) in order to work together, we will see the dream of Dr. King realized and the Kingdom of God fulfilled on this earth.
We will show the world that teamwork, in and through Jesus Christ, really does make the dream work.
-- Dr. John Morris