The Drum Major Instinct – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I am doing some research and preparation for my sermon this Sunday. The passage is Mark 10:35-45. The disciples/brothers James and John ask Jesus to essentially promote them above the other disciples by giving them the right and left hand seats in glory. This is the passage that Dr King preached from in his last sermon, “The Drum Major Instinct.”

Here is a brief quote from that sermon: And the other thing is that it [the drum major instinct] causes one to engage ultimately in activities that are merely used to get attention…. They don’t feel that they are getting enough attention through the normal channels of social behavior, and others turn to anti-social behaviors in order to get attention, in order to feel important… And then the final great tragedy of the distorted personality is the fact that when one fails to harness this instinct, he ends up by trying to push others down in order to push himself up.” (I Have A Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World, p. 185)

Some food for thought as I prepare to preach and as I consider the political and social climate I am experiencing today.