Greetings Mt. Vernon Family,

In a Sermon entitled “Going forward by Going Backward,” Dr. Martin Luther King says, “If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values – that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.”[1] The sermon was based on Luke 2:41-45, where Mary and Joseph left Jesus behind in Jerusalem after attending the festival of Passover. They assumed Jesus was in the group that traveled with them. Mary and Joseph had to go back to Jerusalem to get Jesus before they could go forward to Nazareth. Dr. King suggests in his message that the world's problems is not that we do not know enough. He states, “Our problem lies in the fact that our material and intellectual advances have outrun our moral progress.”[2] If we are to move forward, we must first go back and remember those precious values. We must remember that right and wrong are not relative to our tastes or customs or what the majority of people are doing.[3] Whatever works does not mean it is right.[4] The survival of the slickest is not a good philosophy to live by, nor is the eleventh commandment, thou shalt not get caught.[5] Dr. King says we must go back and rediscover that God is behind the process of life and He has supreme control over all creation.[6] We must not become so distracted by the world that we leave Jesus behind. In the words of the Black National Anthem, “Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us. Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.” It was faith in Jesus that got us through our dark past and it is faith in Jesus that gives us hope today.

AMEN!

Pastor Deborah Giles