Will We Yet Be Weighed, Measured, And Divided?

“Then from his presence the hand was sent, and this writing was inscribed. And this is the writing that was inscribed: mene, mene, tekel, and parsin. This is the interpretation of the matter: mene, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; tekel, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting; peres, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”

Daniel 5:24-28

This passage from the Book of Daniel is where we get the pop-culture cliche of “the handwriting on the wall.” Just as Daniel informed King Belshaz′zar, its meaning is that one’s doom is set, and one’s fate sealed.

The handwriting was a prophecy, that Belshaz′zar would be overthrown. He would be killed and his kingdom would be conquered. At the end of the chapter, we are told that Belshaz′zar was indeed assassinated, while Darius The Mede conquered his Kingdom of Babylon.

When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his “Three Evils Of Society” address to the National Conference on New Politics in 1967, he spoke of the handwriting being on the wall for the United States, of how people were gathering at that conference because they had seen the nation “weighed in the balance of history and found wanting.”

For Dr. King, the great promise of the Civil Rights Movement and the successes of the early 1960s had been pushed aside by America’s deepening involvement in Vietnam. Even as issues of poverty and injustice remained within the United States, he saw the war in Vietnam as a futile waste of precious blood and treasure.

Dr. King’s “Three Evils Of Society” speech was presented as a call to action, not just for the enduring civil rights movement he himself had helped bring into existence, but for all people. His speech was a call to action to confront those three evils: racism and bigotry, materialism, and militarism. He presented the ongoing struggles for civil rights as a struggle against all three.

Under the banner of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Dr. King organized not just protests and marches, but literacy programs and jobs programs. In Chicago he spearheaded housing reform. In Dr. King’s vision of a more just America, not only would all people stand as equals regardless of skin color or any other arbitrary immutable feature, but all people would be gainfully employed, able to work towards their own greater prosperity. In Dr. King’s vision of a more just America, everyone would be economically empowered and able to pursue the work they felt called to do, not compelled to take some menial throwaway job with little opportunity for growth or much of a future.

Tomorrow is Martin Luther King, Jr., Day—a recognized holiday set aside to honor the man and celebrate all that he accomplished.

It is fitting, therefore, that we pause and look not just at Dr. King’s life and works, but at ourselves, and the society we are building today.

Are we still standing against the evil of racism, bigotry, and prejudice? Do we still oppose the idea that any man can be judged on the color of his skin, or his ethnicity, his ancestry, or even his economic circumstance?

I have no doubt most if not all people would want to say “yes” to this—but is that really true?

When the Assistant Fire Chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department says that people want their first responders to be “…someone…that looks like you….”, are we quite certain such modern ideas do not, as Dr. King powerfully articulated in his “Letter From A Birmingham Jail”, still relegate people to the status of things?

When we look at the poor, or the homeless, or any who are less fortunate than we, do we see individuals—flesh and blood human beings?

Do we see instead the nondescript “poor”, or the “homeless”?

Are we quite certain that we are not still being seduced by the evil of materialism?

When inflation and declining work hours reduce people’s real wages, are we quite certain that we are truly working towards ending the exploitation of the poor? When the proportion of our population counted as being wholly out of the labor force is steadily growing, are we truly working towards the full employment goal Dr. King viewed as fundamental towards ending poverty and ending the exploitation of poor people?

Do we instead place material things ahead of human beings?

Are we quite certain that we are not still being seduced by the evil of militarism?

When Russia and Ukraine are locked in a seemingly endless war of attrition that is killing the people of both countries, and when the nations of the world see fit to encourage both nations to continue their horrific bloodletting, even at the expense of the own people’s wellbeing, are we truly working towards overcoming the evil of militarism?

Do we instead choose to sow a wind of war in the world, knowing that we must reap a whirlwind of perpetual war?

It was Dr. King’s belief in 1967 that, unless people made different choices, and moved away from racism and bigotry, moved away from materialism and the exploitation of the poor, and moved away from the militarism that produces endless wars and endless bloodshed, we, like Belshaz′zar in the Book of Daniel, would be numbered, weighed, measured and ultimately divided. Dr. King believed that unless people made different choices, we would be overthrown.

Was he wrong?

If he was not wrong, are we as a society actually moving away from racism and bigotry, actually moving away from materialism and the exploitation of the poor, and actually moving away from militarism and endless wars? Are we on a path that will lead us away from being yet numbered, weighed, measured, and divided? Or are we instead heading towards our eventual overthrow?

This much is certain: if we as a society are not moving away from bigotry and prejudice, if we as a society are not moving away from materialism and the exploitation of the poor, if we as a society are not moving away from militarism and endless wars, then we as individuals must make some radically different choices. To change the direction of this or any country, we must first change our choices.

We may be equally certain that we can change our choices. We can choose to honor God’s commandment to love our neighbor even as we love ourselves. We can choose to help people find work, or get the skills needed for them to take on more challenging work. We can choose to stand for peace and not for war everywhere in the world.

These things we can choose. These things we can choose today.

My prayer for us all, on this the eve of Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, that each of us will seek to honor the man by making precisely those choices. My prayer for us all is that each of us will choose to work toward realizing in full his dream of a more just society. My prayer for us all is that each of us will embrace that dream and make it our own.

The handwriting on the wall was for Belshaz′zar a prophecy of unavoidable doom.

Dr. King believed the handwriting on the wall was for us a warning. Dr. King believed for us the doom is quite avoidable. If we will continuously strive to make good choices, righteous choices, better choices, Dr. King believed doom will be avoided.

I believe Dr. King was right.