"The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life"
 Rev. Dr., Martin Luther King. Jr.

I want to use as the subject from which to preach: "The Three
Dimensions of a Complete Life." (All right) You know, they used to tell us in
Hollywood that in order for a movie to be complete, it had to be
three-dimensional. Well, this morning I want to seek to get over to each of us that if
life itself is to be complete, (Yes) it must be three-dimensional.



Many, many centuries ago, there was a man by the name of John who
Found himself in prison out on a lonely, obscure island called Patmos.
(Right, right) And I've been in prison just enough to know that it's a lonely
experience. (That's right) And when you are incarcerated in such a
situation, you are deprived of almost every freedom, but the freedom
to think, the freedom to pray, the freedom to reflect and to meditate.
And while John was out on this lonely island in prison, (That's right) he
Lifted his vision to high heaven (All right, He did) and he saw, descending
out of heaven, a new heaven (All right) and a new earth. (That's right) Over
in the twenty-first chapter of the book of Revelation, it opens by saying,
"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. (All right) And I John saw the holy
city, the new Jerusalem, (All right) coming down from God out of heaven."
(Oh yeah)



And one of the greatest glories of this new city of God that John saw
Was its completeness. (That's right) It was not up on one side and down on
The  other, (All right) but it was complete in all three of its dimensions.
(Yes) And so in this same chapter as we looked down to the sixteenth verse,
John says, "The length and the breadth (He did, he did) and the height of it
Are equal." (Yes, sir) In other words, this new city of God, this new city
Of ideal humanity is not an unbalanced entity, (No) but is complete on
All sides. (Yes) Now I think John is saying something here in all of the
symbolism of this text and the symbolism of this chapter. He's saying
at bottom that life as it should be and life at its best (Yeah) is a life
that is complete on all sides. (That's right)



And there are three dimensions of any complete life to which we can
Fitly give the words of this text: length, breadth, and height. (Yes) Now
The length of life as we shall use it here is the inward concern for one's
Own welfare. (Yes) In other words, it is that inward concern that causes
one to push forward, to achieve his own goals and ambitions. (All right) The
breadth of life as we shall use it here is the outward concern for the
welfare of others. (All right) And the height of life is the upward
reach for God. (All right) Now you got to have all three of these to have a
complete life.



Now let's turn for the moment to the length of life. I said that this
is the dimension of life where we are concerned with developing our inner
powers.
(Yeah) In a sense this is the selfish dimension of life. There is such
a
thing as rational and healthy self-interest. (Yeah) A great Jewish
rabbi,
the late Joshua Leibman, wrote a book some years ago entitled Peace of
Mind.
And he has a chapter in that book entitled "Love Thyself Properly." And
what
he says in that chapter, in substance, is that before you can love
other
selves adequately, you've got to love your own self properly. (All
right)
You know, a lot of people don't love themselves. (That's right) And
they go
through life with deep and haunting emotional conflicts. So the length
of
life means that you must love yourself.

And you know what loving yourself also means? It means that you've got
to
accept yourself.



(All right) So many people are busy trying to be somebody else.
(That's
right) God gave all of us something significant. And we must pray every
day,
asking God to help us to accept ourselves. (Yeah) That means
everything.
(Yeah) Too many Negroes are ashamed of themselves, ashamed of being
black.
(Yes, sir) A Negro got to rise up and say from the bottom of his soul,
"I am
somebody. (Yes) I have a rich, noble, and proud heritage. However
exploited
and however painful my history has been, I'm black, but I'm black and
beautiful." (Yeah) This is what we've got to say. We've got to accept
ourselves. (Yeah) And we must pray, "Lord, Help me to accept myself
every
day; help me to accept my tools." (Yeah)



I remember when I was in college, I majored in sociology, and all
sociology
majors had to take a course that was required called statistics. And
statistics can be very complicated. You've got to have a mathematical
mind,
a real knowledge of geometry, and you've got to know how to find the
mean,
the mode, and the median. I never will forget. I took this course and I
had
a fellow classmate who could just work that stuff out, you know. And
he
could do his homework in about an hour. We would often go to the lab or
the
workshop, and he would just work it out in about an hour, and it was
over
for him. And I was trying to do what he was doing; I was trying to do
mine
in an hour. And the more I tried to do it in an hour, the more I was
flunking out in the course. And I had to come to a very hard
conclusion. I
had to sit down and say, "Now, Martin Luther King, Leif Cane has a
better
mind than you." (That's right) Sometimes you have to acknowledge that.
(That's right) And I had to say to myself, "Now, he may be able to do
it in
an hour, but it takes me two or three hours to do it." I was not
willing to
accept myself. I was not willing to accept my tools and my
limitations.
(Yeah)



But you know in life we're called upon to do this. A Ford car trying to
be a
Cadillac is absurd, but if a Ford will accept itself as a Ford, (All
right)
it can do many things that a Cadillac could never do: it can get in
parking
spaces that a Cadillac can never get in. [laughter] And in life some of
us
are Fords and some of us are Cadillacs. (Yes) Moses says in "Green
Pastures," "Lord, I ain't much, but I is all I got." [laughter] The
principle of self-acceptance is a basic principle in life.



Now the other thing about the length of life: after accepting ourselves
and
our tools, we must discover what we are called to do. (Oh yeah) And
once we
discover it we should set out to do it with all of the strength and all
of
the power that we have in our systems. (Yeah) And after we've
discovered
what God called us to do, after we've discovered our life's work, we
should
set out to do that work so well that the living, the dead, or the
unborn
couldn't do it any better. (Oh yeah) Now this does not mean that
everybody
will do the so-called big, recognized things of life. Very few people
will
rise to the heights of genius in the arts and the sciences; very few
collectively will rise to certain professions. Most of us will have to
be
content to work in the fields and in the factories and on the streets.
But
we must see the dignity of all labor. (That's right)



When I was in Montgomery, Alabama, I went to a shoe shop quite often,
known
as the Gordon Shoe Shop. And there was a fellow in there that used to
shine
my shoes, and it was just an experience to witness this fellow shining
my
shoes. He would get that rag, you know, and he could bring music out of
it.
And I said to myself, "This fellow has a Ph.D. in shoe shining."
(That's
right)



What I'm saying to you this morning, my friends, even if it falls your
lot
to be a street sweeper, go on out and sweep streets like Michelangelo
painted pictures; sweep streets like Handel and Beethoven composed
music;
sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry; (Go ahead) sweep streets
so
well that all the host of heaven and earth will have to pause and say,
"Here
lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well."

If you can't be a pine on the top of a hill

Be a scrub in the valley-but be

The best little scrub on the side of the hill,

Be a bush if you can't be a tree.

If you can't be a highway just be a trail

If you can't be the sun be a star;

It isn't by size that you win or fail-

Be the best of whatever you are.

And when you do this, when you do this, you've mastered the length of
life.
(Yes)

This onward push to the end of self-fulfillment is the end of a
person's
life. Now don't stop here, though. You know, a lot of people get no
further
in life than the length. They develop their inner powers; they do their
jobs
well. But do you know, they try to live as if nobody else lives in the
world
but themselves? (Yes) And they use everybody as mere tools to get to
where
they're going. (Yes) They don't love anybody but themselves. And the
only
kind of love that they really have for other people is utilitarian
love. You
know, they just love people that they can use. (Well)



A lot of people never get beyond the first dimension of life. They use
other
people as mere steps by which they can climb to their goals and their
ambitions. These people don't work out well in life. They may go for
awhile,
they may think they're making it all right, but there is a law. (Oh
yeah)
They call it the law of gravitation in the physical universe, and it
works,
it's final, it's inexorable: whatever goes up can come down. You shall
reap
what you sow. (Yeah) God has structured the universe that way. (Yeah)
And he
who goes through life not concerned about others will be a subject,
victim
of this law.



So I move on and say that it is necessary to add breadth to length. Now
the
breadth of life is the outward concern for the welfare of others, as I
said.
(Yeah) And a man has not begun to live until he can rise above the
narrow
confines of his own individual concerns to the broader concerns of all
humanity. (All right)



One day Jesus told a parable. You will remember that parable. He had a
man
that came to him to talk with him about some very profound concerns.
And
they finally got around to the question, "Who is my neighbor?" (All
right)
And this man wanted to debate with Jesus. This question could have
very
easily ended up in thin air as a theological or philosophical debate.
But
you remember Jesus immediately pulled that question out of thin air
and
placed it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. (He did,
he
did) He talked about a certain man who fell among thieves. (Right) Two
men
came by and they just kept going. And then finally another man came, a
member of another race, who stopped and helped him. (Oh yeah) And that
parable ends up saying that this good Samaritan was a great man; he was
a
good man because he was concerned about more than himself. (Oh yeah)



Now you know, there are many ideas about why the priest and the Levite
passed and didn't stop to help that man. A lot of ideas about it. Some
say
that they were going to a church service, and they were running a
little
late, you know, and couldn't be late for church, so they kept going
because
they had to get down to the synagogue. And then there are others who
would
say that they were involved in the priesthood and consequently there
was a
priestly law which said that if you were going to administer the
sacrament
or what have you, you couldn't touch a human body twenty-four hours
before
worship. Now there's another possibility. It is possible that they
were
going down to Jericho to organize a Jericho Road Improvement
Association.
That's another possibility. And they may have passed by because they
felt
that it was better to deal with the problem from the causal source
rather
than one individual victim. That's a possibility.



But you know, when I think about this parable, I think of another
possibility as I use my imagination. It's possible that these men
passed by
on the other side because they were afraid. You know, the Jericho Road
is a
dangerous road. (That's right) I've been on it and I know. And I never
will
forget, Mrs. King and I were in the Holy Land some time ago. We rented
a car
and we drove from Jerusalem down to Jericho, a distance of about
sixteen
miles. You get on that Jericho road-I'm telling you it's a winding,
curving,
meandering road, very conducive for robbery. And I said to my wife,
"Now I
can see why Jesus used this road as the occasion for his parable."
(Yes)
Here you are when you start out in Jerusalem: you are twenty-two
hundred
feet above sea level, and when you get down to Jericho sixteen miles
later-I
mean you have sixteen miles from Jerusalem-you're twelve hundred feet
below
sea level. During the days of Jesus that road came to the point of
being
known as the "Bloody Path." So when I think about the priest and the
Levite,
I think those brothers were afraid. (All right)



They were just like me. I was going out to my father's house in Atlanta
the
other day. He lives about three or four miles from me, and you go out
there
by going down Simpson Road. And then when I came back later that
night-and
brother, I can tell you, Simpson Road is a winding road. And a fellow
was
standing out there trying to flag me down. And I felt that he needed
some
help; I knew he needed help. [laughter] But I didn't know it. I'll be
honest
with you, I kept going. [laughter] I wasn't really willing to take the
risk.
(That's right)



I say to you this morning that the first question that the priest asked
was
the first question that I asked on that Jericho Road of Atlanta known
as
Simpson Road. The first question that the Levite asked was, ''If I stop
to
help this man, what will happen to me?" (That's right) But the good
Samaritan came by and he reversed the question. Not "What will happen
to me
if I stop to help this man?" but "What will happen to this man if I do
not
stop to help him?" This was why that man was good and great. He was
great
because he was willing to take a risk for humanity; he was willing to
ask,
"What will happen to this man?" not "What will happen to me?" (All
right)



This is what God needs today (Yes): Men and women who will ask, "What
will
happen to humanity if I don't help? (Oh yeah) What will happen to the
civil
rights movement if I don't participate? (Yes) What will happen to my
city if
I don't vote? (Oh yeah) What will happen to the sick if I don't visit
them?"
This is how God judges people in the final analysis. (Oh yeah)



Oh, there will be a day, the question won't be, "How many awards did
you get
in life?" Not that day. (Yeah) It won't be, "How popular were you in
your
social setting?" That won't be the question that day. (Yeah) It will
not ask
how many degrees you've been able to get. (All right) The question that
day
will not be concerned with whether you are a "Ph.D." or a "no D."
(That's
right) It will not be concerned with whether you went to Morehouse or
whether you went to "No House." (Yes) The question that day will not
be,
"How beautiful is your house?" (That's right) The question that day
will not
be, "How much money did you accumulate? How much did you have in stocks
and
bonds?" The question that day will not be, "What kind of automobile did
you
have?" On that day the question will be, "What did you do for others?"
(That's right)



Now I can hear somebody saying, "Lord, I did a lot of things in life. I
did
my job well; the world honored me for doing my job. (Oh yeah) I did a
lot of
things, Lord; I went to school and studied hard. I accumulated a lot
of
money, Lord; that's what I did." It seems as if I can hear the Lord of
Life
saying, "But I was hungry, and ye fed me not. (That's right) I was
sick, and
ye visited me not. I was naked, and ye clothed me not. I was in prison,
and
you weren't concerned about me. So get out of my face. What did you do
for
others?" (That's right) This is the breadth of life. (Oh yeah)



Somewhere along the way, we must learn that there is nothing greater
than to
do something for others. And this is the way I've decided to go the
rest of
my days. That's what I'm concerned about. John, if you and Bernard
happen to
be around when I come to the latter-days and that moment to cross the
Jordan, I want you to tell them that I made a request: I don't want a
long
funeral. In fact, I don't even need a eulogy (No) more than one or two
minutes. (All right) I hope that I will live so well the rest of the
days-I
don't know how long I'll live, and I'm not concerned about that-but I
hope I
can live so well that the preacher can get up and say, "He was
faithful."
(Yes) That's all, that's enough. (That's right) That's the sermon I'd
like
to hear: "Well done my good and faithful servant. You've been
faithful;
you've been concerned about others." (That's right) That's where I want
to
go from this point on the rest of my days. (Oh yeah) "He who is
greatest
among you shall be your servant." I want to be a servant. (Yes) I want
to be
a witness for my Lord, to do something for others.



And don't forget in doing something for others that you have what you
have
because of others. (Yes, sir) Don't forget that. We are tied together
in
life and in the world. (Preach, preach) And you may think you got all
you
got by yourself. (Not all of it) But you know, before you got out here
to
church this morning, you were dependent on more than half of the
world.
(That's right) You get up in the morning and go to the bathroom, and
you
reach over for a bar of soap, and that's handed to you by a Frenchman.
You
reach over for a sponge, and that's given to you by a turk. You reach
over
for a towel, and that comes to your hand from the hands of a Pacific
Islander. And then you go on to the kitchen to get your breakfast. You
reach
on over to get a little coffee, and that's poured in your cup by a
South
American. (That's right) Or maybe you decide that you want a little tea
this
morning, only to discover that that's poured in your cup by a Chinese.
(Yes)
Or maybe you want a little cocoa, that's poured in your cup by a West
African. (Yes) Then you want a little bread and you reach over to get
it,
and that's given to you by the hands of an English-speaking farmer, not
to
mention the baker. (That's right) Before you get through eating
breakfast in
the morning, you're dependent on more than half the world. (That's
right)
That's the way God structured it; that's the way God structured this
world.
So let us be concerned about others because we are dependent on others.
(Oh
yeah)



But don't stop here either. (No, sir) You know, a lot of people master
the
length of life, and they master the breadth of life, but they stop
right
there. Now if life is to be complete, we must move beyond our
self-interest.
We must move beyond humanity and reach up, way up for the God of the
universe, whose purpose changeth not. (Right)



Now a lot of people have neglected this third dimension. And you know,
the
interesting thing is a lot of people neglect it and don't even know
they are
neglecting it. They just get involved in other things. And you know,
there
are two kinds of atheism. Atheism is the theory that there is no God.
Now
one kind is a theoretical kind, where somebody just sits down and
starts
thinking about it, and they come to a conclusion that there is no God.
The
other kind is a practical atheism, and that kind goes out of living as
if
there is no God. And you know there are a lot of people who affirm the
existence of God with their lips, and they deny his existence with
their
lives. (That's right) You've seen these people who have a high blood
pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds. They deny the existence of
God
with their lives and they just become so involved in other things.
They
become so involved in getting a big bank account. (Yeah) They become
so
involved in getting a beautiful house, which we all should have. They
become
so involved in getting a beautiful car that they unconsciously just
forget
about God. (Oh yeah) There are those who become so involved in looking
at
the man-made lights of the city that they unconsciously forget to rise
up
and look at that great cosmic light and think about it-that gets up in
the
eastern horizon every morning and moves across the sky with a kind of
symphony of motion and paints its technicolor across the blue-a light
that
man can never make. (All right) They become so involved in looking at
the
skyscraping buildings of the Loop of Chicago or Empire State Building
of New
York that they unconsciously forget to think about the gigantic
mountains
that kiss the skies as if to bathe their peaks in the lofty
blue-something
that man could never make. They become so busy thinking about radar
and
their television that they unconsciously forget to think about the
stars
that bedeck the heavens like swinging lanterns of eternity, those stars
that
appear to be shiny, silvery pins sticking in the magnificent blue
pincushion. They become so involved in thinking about man's progress
that
they forget to think about the need for God's power in history. They
end up
going days and days not knowing that God is not with them. (Go ahead)



And I'm here to tell you today that we need God. (Yes) Modern man may
know a
great deal, but his knowledge does not eliminate God. (Right) And I
tell you
this morning that God is here to stay. A few theologians are trying to
say
that God is dead. And I've been asking them about it because it
disturbs me
to know that God died and I didn't have a chance to attend the funeral.
They
haven't been able to tell me yet the date of his death. They haven't
been
able to tell me yet who the coroner was that pronounced him dead.
(Preach,
preach) They haven't been able to tell me yet where he's buried.



You see, when I think about God, I know his name. He said somewhere,
back in
the Old Testament, "I want you to go out, Moses, and tell them 'I Am'
sent
you." (That's right) He said just to make it clear, let them know that
"my
last name is the same as my first, 'I Am that I Am.' Make that clear. I
Am."
And God is the only being in the universe that can say "I Am" and put
a
period behind it. Each of us sitting here has to say, "I am because of
my
parents; I am because of certain environmental conditions; I am because
of
certain hereditary circumstances; I am because of God." But God is the
only
being that can just say, "I Am" and stop right there. "I Am that I Am."
And
He's here to stay. Let nobody make us feel that we don't need God.
(That's
right)



As I come to my conclusion this morning, I want to say that we should
search
for him. We were made for God, and we will be restless until we find
rest in
him. (Oh yeah) And I say to you this morning that this is the personal
faith
that has kept me going. (Yes) I'm not worried about the future. You
know,
even on this race question, I'm not worried. I was down in Alabama the
other
day, and I started thinking about the state of Alabama where we worked
so
hard and may continue to elect the Wallaces. And down in my home state
of
Georgia, we have another sick governor by the name of Lester Maddox.
(Yes)
And all of these things can get you confused, but they don't worry me.
(All
right) Because the God that I worship is a God that has a way of saying
even
to kings and even to governors, "Be still, and know that I am God." And
God
has not yet turned over this universe to Lester Maddox and Lurleen
Wallace.
Somewhere I read, "The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof, and
I'm
going on because I have faith in Him. (Oh yeah) I do not know what the
future holds, but I do know who holds the future. (Yes) And if He'll
guide
us and hold our hand, we'll go on in.



I remember down in Montgomery, Alabama, an experience that I'd like to
share
with you. When we were in the midst of the bus boycott, we had a
marvelous
old lady that we affectionately called Sister Pollard. She was a
wonderful
lady about seventy-two years old and she was still working at that
age.
(Yes) During the boycott she would walk every day to and from work. She
was
one that somebody stopped one day and said, "Wouldn't you like to
ride?" And
she said, "No." And then the driver moved on and stopped and thought,
and
backed up a little and said, "Well, aren't you tired?" She said, "Yes,
my
feets is tired, but my soul is rested." (All right)



She was a marvelous lady. And one week I can remember that I had gone
through a very difficult week. (Yes) Threatening calls had come in all
day
and all night the night before, and I was beginning to falter and to
get
weak within and to lose my courage. (All right) And I never will forget
that
I went to the mass meeting that Monday night very discouraged and a
little
afraid, and wondering whether we were going to win the struggle. (Oh
yeah)
And I got up to make my talk that night, but it didn't come out with
strength and power. Sister Pollard came up to me after the meeting and
said,
"Son, what's wrong with you?" Said, "You didn't talk strong enough
tonight."




And I said, "Nothing is wrong, Sister Pollard, I'm all right."

She said, "You can't fool me." Said, "Something wrong with you." And
then
she went on to say these words, "Is the white folks doing something to
you
that you don't like?"



I said, "Everything is going to be all right, Sister Pollard."

And then she finally said, "Now come close to me and let me tell you
something one more time, and I want you to hear it this time." She
said,
"Now I done told you we is with you." She said, "Now, even if we ain't
with
you, the Lord is with you." (Yes) And she concluded by saying, "The
Lord's
going to take care of you."



And I've seen many things since that day. I've gone through many
experiences
since that night in Montgomery, Alabama. Since that time Sister Pollard
has
died. Since that time I've been in more than eighteen jail cells. Since
that
time I've come perilously close to death at the hands of a demented
Negro
woman. Since that time I've seen my home bombed three times. Since that
time
I've had to live every day under the threat of death. Since that time
I've
had many frustrating and bewildering nights. But over and over again I
can
still hear Sister Pollard's words: "God's going to take care of you."
So
today I can face any man and any woman with my feet solidly placed on
the
ground and my head in the air because I know that when you are right,
God
will fight your battle.



"Darker yet may be the night, harder yet may be the fight. Just stand
up for
that which is right." It seems that I can hear a voice speaking even
this
morning, saying to all of us, "Stand up for what is right. Stand up for
what
is just. Lo, I will be with you even until the end of the world." Yes,
I've
seen the lightning flash. I've heard the thunder roll. I've felt
sin-breakers dashing, trying to conquer my soul. But I heard the voice
of
Jesus saying still to fight on. He promised never to leave me, never
to
leave me alone. No, never alone. No, never alone. He promised never to
leave
me, never to leave me alone. And I go on in believing that. Reach out
and
find the breadth of life.



You may not be able to define God in philosophical terms. Men through
the
ages have tried to talk about him. (Yes) Plato said that he was the
Architectonic Good. Aristotle called him the Unmoved Mover. Hegel
called him
the Absolute Whole. Then there was a man named Paul Tillich who called
him
Being-Itself. We don't need to know all of these high-sounding terms.
(Yes)
Maybe we have to know him and discover him another way. (Oh yeah) One
day
you ought to rise up and say, "I know him because he's a lily of the
valley." (Yes) He's a bright and morning star. (Yes) He's a rose of
Sharon.
He's a battle-axe in the time of Babylon. (Yes) And then somewhere you
ought
to just reach out and say, "He's my everything. He's my mother and my
father. He's my sister and my brother. He's a friend to the
friendless."
This is the God of the universe. And if you believe in him and worship
him,
something will happen in your life. You will smile when others around
you
are crying. This is the power of God.



Go out this morning. Love yourself, and that means rational and
healthy
self-interest. You are commanded to do that. That's the length of life.
Then
follow that: Love your neighbor as you love yourself. You are commanded
to
do that. That's the breadth of life. And I'm going to take my seat now
by
letting you know that there's a first and even greater commandment:
"Love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, (Yeah) with all thy soul, with all
thy
strength." I think the psychologist would just say with all thy
personality.
And when you do that, you've got the breadth of life.



And when you get all three of these together, you can walk and never
get
weary. You can look up and see the morning stars singing together, and
the
sons of God shouting for joy. When you get all of these working
together in
your very life, judgement will roll down like waters, and righteousness
like
a mighty stream.



When you get all the three of these together, the lamb will lie down
with
the lion.

When you get all three of these together, you look up and every valley
will
be exalted, and every hill and mountain will be made low; the rough
places
will be made plain, and the crooked places straight; and the glory of
the
Lord shall be revealed and all flesh will see it together.



When you get all three of these working together, you will do unto
others as
you'd have them do unto you.



When you get all three of these together, you will recognize that out
of one
blood God made all men to dwell upon the face of the earth.



When you get all three of these together...







Delivered at New Covenant Baptist Church, Chicago, Illinois, on 9
April
1967.