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Vigils Reading

April 1

A TOUGH MIND

AND A TENDER HEART

From a sermon by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.3

◊◊◊

Toughmindedness without tenderheartedness is cold and detached, leaving

one’s life in a perpetual winter devoid of the warmth of spring and the gentle heat of

summer. What is more tragic than to see a person who has risen to the disciplined

heights of toughmindedness but has at the same time sunk to the passionless

depths of hardheartedness?

The hardhearted person never truly loves. He engages in a crass

utilitarianism which values other people mainly according to their usefulness to

him. He never experiences the beauty of friendship, because he is too cold to feel

affection for another and is too self-centered to share another’s joy and sorrow. He

is an isolated island. No outpouring of love links him with the mainland of

humanity. The hardhearted person lacks the capacity for genuine compassion… He

passes unfortunate men every day, but never really sees them. He gives dollars to a

worthwhile charity, but he gives not of his spirit…

Jesus reminds us that the good life combines the toughness of the serpent

and the tenderness of the dove. To have serpentlike qualities devoid of dovelike

qualities is to be passionless, mean, and selfish. To have dovelike qualities without

serpentlike qualities is to be sentimental, anemic, and aimless. We must combine

strongly marked antitheses…

The greatness of our God lies in the fact that he is both toughminded and

tenderhearted. He has qualities both of austerity and of gentleness. The Bible,

always clear in stressing both attributes of God, expresses his toughmindedness in

his justice and wrath and his tenderheartedness in his love and grace. God has two

outstretched arms. One is strong enough to surround us with justice, and one is

gentle enough to embrace us with grace. On the one hand, God is a God of justice

who punished Israel for her wayward deeds, and on the other hand, he is a

forgiving father whose heart was filled with unutterable joy when the prodigal

returned home.

I am thankful that we worship a God who is both toughminded and

tenderhearted… At times we need to know that the Lord is a God of justice. When

slumbering giants of injustice emerge in the earth, we need to know that there is a

God of power who can cut them down like the grass and leave them withering like

the green herb. When our most tireless efforts fail to stop the surging sweep of

oppression, we need to know that in this universe is a God whose matchless

strength is a fit contrast to the sordid weakness of man.

But there is also times when we need to know that God possesses love and

mercy. When we are staggered by the chilly winds of adversity and battered by the

raging storms of disappointment and when through our folly and sin we stray into

some destructive far country and are frustrated because of a strange feeling of

homesickness, we need to know that there is Someone who loves us, cares for us,

understands us, and will give us another chance. When days grow dark and nights

grow dreary, we can be thankful that our God combines in his nature a creative

synthesis of love and justice which will lead us through life’s dark valleys and into

sunlit pathways of hope and fulfillment.

 

3 Martin Luther King Jr. Strength to Love. New York: Harper & Row, 1964. 5-9.7

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Date:
April 1