Today's teaching text is in the song of songs, Chapter 1 verses 5 through 6.

Dark am I yet lovely, daughters of Jerusalem, dark like the tense of Qadar, like the

tense of Solomon. Do not stare at me because I am dark, because I am darkened by the

sun. My mother's sons were angry with me and made me take care of the vineyards. My

own vineyard I had to neglect. And then move over to Chapter 4 verse 7. You are all together

beautiful, my darling. There is no flaw in you. This is the Word of the Lord.

In his autobiography, constructed from his old journals and letters, Martin Luther King,

Junior tells the story of a knight when a brick was thrown through the window of his home

and a bomb threat was put on his own family. And that particular knight, he stayed up all

nights sitting at his kitchen table drinking coffee and talking to God, just saying, this

is too much. I can endure anything that they throw at me, but not my children. Let them

come after me, sure, but not where my baby sleep. If you are going with me, God, then

I will go, but I need to know that it's you, Lord. I need to hear from you again tonight,

right here in the thick of this mess to know that it's you that I'm walking with. And

as the sun rose on an all-nighter of anxiety-ridden heart-rending prayer, he knew that God was

leading him, and so he kept on going. And that knight says, Dr. King, was the defining

moment in the whole of the Civil Rights Movement. Not Selma, not the Birmingham jail, not the

bus boycott, not even the I have a dream speed. It was that night alone in prayer. And that's

something like what Exodus 33 is. It's another liberation journey and another leader having

that same experience. Moses is praying, but this prayer is different. This conversation

with God becomes the defining moment in the entire liberation journey. It's not the

Red Sea, it's not the Ten Plagues, it's not the pillar of fire, it's not the Man of

...