This morning I would like to use as a subject from which to preach the drum major Instinct the drum major Instinct and our text for the morning is taken from a very familiar passage in the 10th chapter as recorded by St Mark beginning with the 35th verse of that chapter we read these
Words and James and John the sons of Zebedee came unto him saying Master we would that thou shouldest do for us whatsoever we shall desire and he said unto them what would ye that I should do for you they said unto him Grant unto us that we may
Sit one on thy right hand and the other on thy left hand in thy Glory but Jesus said unto them ye know not what ye ask can you drink of the cup that I drink of and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with and they said unto him we
Can and Jesus said unto them ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of and with the baptism that I am baptized with all shall ye be baptized but to sit on my right hand and on my left hand is not mine to give but it shall be given to
Them uh for whom it is prepared and then Jesus goes on toward the end of that passage to say but so shall it not be among you but whosoever will be great among you shall be your servant and whosoever of you will be the chief is shall be servant of
All the setting is clear James and John are making a specific request of the master they had dreamed as most of the Hebrews dreamed of a coming king of Israel who would set Jerusalem free and establish his kingdom on Mount Zion and in righteousness ruled the
World and they thought of Jesus as this kind of King and and they were thinking of that day when Jesus would reign supreme as this new king of Israel and they were saying now when you establish a kingdom let one of us sit on the right
Hand and the other on the left hand of your throne now very quickly we would automatically condemn James in John and we would say they were selfish why would they make such a selfish request but before we dim condemn them too quickly let us look calmly and honestly at ourselves and we will
Discover that we too have those same basic desires for recognition for importance that same desire for attention that same desire to be first of course the other disciples got mad with James and John and you could understand why but we must understand that we have some of the same James and John
Qualities and that is deep down within all of us an instinct it’s a kind of drum major intin Instinct a desire to be out front a desire to lead the parade a desire to be first and it is something that runs a whole gamut of life and so before we condemn them let
Us see that we all have the drum major Instinct we all want to be important to surpass others to achieve distinction to lead the parade Alfred Adler the great psychoanalyst contends that this is the dominant impulse Sigman frud used to contend that sex was the dominant impulse and Adler
Came with a new argument saying that this Quest for recognition this desire for attention this desire for distinction is the basic impulse the basic Drive of human human life this drum major Instinct and you know we begin early to ask life to put us first our first cry as a
Baby was a big fought attention and all through childhood the drum major impulse or instinct is a major Obsession children ask life to grant them first place they are little bundle of ego they have [Applause] innately the drum major impulse of the drum major Instinct now in adult life we still have
It and we really never get by it we like to do something good and you know we like to be praised for it now if you don’t believe that you just go on living life and you will discover very soon that you like to be praised everybody likes it as a matter of
Fact and somehow this warm glow we feel when we are praised or when our name is in print is something of the vitamin A to our ego nobody is unhappy when they are praised even if they know they don’t deserve it and even if they don’t believe it the only unhappy people about
Praise is when that praise is going too much towards somebody else but everybody likes to be praised because of this real drum major Instinct now the presence of the drum major instinct is why uh so many people are joiners you know there are some people who just join
Everything and it’s really a quest for attention and recognition and importance and they names that give them that impression so you get your groups and and they become the grand Patron and uh and the little fell who is henpecked at home needs a chance to be the most
Worthy of the most worthy of something it is the drum major impulse and longing that runs the gamut of human life and so we see it everywhere this quest for recognition and we join things uh overdrawn really that we think that we will find that recognition in as a presence of this Instinct
Explains why we are so often taken by advertisers you know uh those gentlemen of massive verbal persuasion and they have a way of saying things to you that kind of get you in the bind in order to be a man of Distinction you must drink this whiskey
In order to make your neighbors envious you must drive this type of car in order to be lovely to love you must wear this kind of uh lipstick or this kind of perfume and you know before you know it you’re just buying that stuff that’s the way the advertisers do
I got a letter the other day and uh it was a magazine coming out and opened up opened up dear Dr King as you know you are on many mailing lists and uh you are categorized as highly intelligent Progressive a lover of the Arts and the
Sciences and I know you will want to read what I have to say of course I did after he said all of that and explained me so exactly of course I wanted to read it but very seriously it goes through life the drum major instinct is real and you know what else that
Happened or causes happen to happen it often causes us to live above our means make it make it there nothing but the drum Mage Instinct yeah you ever see people buy cars that uh they can’t even begin to buy in terms of their income you seen people riding around in
Cadillacs and Chrysler who don’t AR enough to have a good tea model forward but it refed it feeds a repressed ego you know economists tell us that your automobile should not cost more than half of your annual income so if you make an income of $5,000 your car shouldn’t cost more than about
2500 that’s just good economics and if it’s a family of two and both members of the family make $10,000 uh they they would have to make out with one car uh that would be good economics although it’s often inconvenient but so often haven’t you seen people making $5,000 a year and
Driv the car that cost 6,000 and they wonder why their ends never meet that’s the fact now the economists also say that your house shouldn’t cause if you buying a house it shouldn’t C cost more than twice your income that’s based on the economy and
How you would make ends meet so uh if you have an income of $5,000 it’s kind of difficult in this Society but say it’s a family with an income of $10,000 the house shouldn’t cost much more than 20,000 well I’ve seen folk uh making $10,000 living in40 and $50,000
House and you know that just barely make it they they get a check every month somewhere and they all owe all of that out before it comes in never have anything to put away for rainy days but now the problem is it is the drum major Instinct and you know you see
People over and over again with the drum major Instinct taking them over and they they just live their lives trying to outdo the Jones amen they got to get this coke because this particular coat is a little better and a little better looking than than Mar’s
Coat I got to drive this car because it’s something about this car that makes my car a little better than my neighbor’s car I know a man who used to live in a $35,000 house and other people started building $35,000 houses so he built a $75,000 house and then up somebody else
Built A7 ,000 house and he built a $100,000 house and I don’t know where he going to end up if he’s going to live his life trying to keep up with the Joneses there comes a time that the drum major Instinct can become destructive and that’s why I want to move
Now I want to move to the point of saying that if this instinct is not harest it becomes a very dangerous pernicious Instinct for instance if it didn’t harest it causes one’s personality to become distorted I guess that’s the most damaging aspect of it what it does to the personality if it didn’t
Harest you will end up day in and day out trying to deal with your ego Problem by boasting have you ever heard people that you know and I’m sure you’ve met them that really become sickening because they just sit up all the time talking about themselves and they just boast and boast
And boast and that’s a person who has not harnessed the drum Mage Instinct and then it does other things to the personality it causes you to lie about who you know sometime make it PL it there are some people who are influence Peters and in that attempt to deal with the drum major
Instinct they have to try to identify with the so-called bigname people make it PL and if you’re not careful they will make you think they know somebody that they don’t really know they know them well they sip tea with them and they this and that that that happens to people and the other
Thing is that it causes one to engage ultimately in activities that are merely used to get attention criminologists tell us that some people are driven to Crime because of this drum uh major Instinct they don’t feel that they’re getting enough attention through the normal channels of social behavior
Behavior and so they turned to antisocial behavior in order to get attention in order to feel important and so they get that gun and before they know it they rob the bank in a quest for recognition and a quest for importance and then the final great tragedy of the distorted
Personality is the fact that when one fails to harness this Instinct he ends up trying to push others down in order to push himself up and whenever you do that you engage in some of the most vicious activities you will spread evil vicious lying gossip on people because you try to pull
Them down in order to push yourself up the great issue of life is to harness the drum major Instinct now the other problem is when you don’t harness the drum major Instinct this uncontrolled aspect of it is that it leads to snobbish exclusivism what that it leads to snobbish
Exclusivism and you know this is the danger of Social Clubs and fraternities I’m in a fraternity I’m in two or three for sororities and all of these I’m not talking against them I’m saying it’s the danger the danger is that they can become forces of classism and exclusivism where somehow you get a
Degree of satisfaction because you are in something exclusive and that’s fulfilling something you know that I’m in this fraternity and it’s the best Fraternity in the world and and here everybody can’t get in this fraternity so it ends up you know a very exclusive kind of thing and you know
That that can happen with the church I know church is get in that bind sometimes they it play I’ve been to churches you know and they they say you uh we have uh so many doctors and so many school teachers and so many lawyers and uh so many businessmen
In our church and and that’s fine because doctors need to go to church and lawyers and businessmen teachers they ought to be in church but they say that even the preacher sometime will go all through the they say that as if the other people don’t count the church is the one
Place well the doctor ought to forget that he’s a doctor the church is the one place where the PhD ought to forget that he’s a PhD the church is the one place that the school teacher ought to forget the degrees she has behind her name the
Church is the one place where the lawyer ought to forget that he’s a lawyer and any church that violates the whosoever will let him conductr is a dead Co and nothing but a little with a of religiosity church is true to it so it will let him yes and whosoever will let him
Come and it does not supposed to satisy the perverted uses of the drum major Instinct it’s the one place where everybody should be the same standing before a common master and savior yes and a recognition grows out of this that all men of brothers because they’re children yes of a common
Father inct lead to inclusive in think and can lead one to feel that because he has some training he’s a little better than that person who doesn’t have it or because he has some economic security that he’s a little better than that person who doesn’t have it that’s the uncontrolled perverted use
Of the drum major Instinct now the other thing is that it leads to tr iic and we’ve seen it happen so often tragic race Prejudice this recording is briefly interrupted at this point you see with our own eyes in fact not too long ago a man down in
Mississippi said that God was a charter member of the White Citizens Council and so God being the Char of remember means that everybody who’s in that has a a kind of divinity a kind of superiority and think of what has happened in history as as a
Result of this perverted use of the drum Mage instinct is led to the most tragic Prejudice the most tragic expressions of man’s inhumanity to man the other day I was saying always and try to do a little converting when I’m in jail and when we were in jail in Birmingham the other
Day the white wardens and all enjoyed coming around the sell to talk about the race problem and they were showing us where we were so wrong demonstrating and and uh they were showing us where uh segregation was so right and uh they were showing us where uh inter marriage was so
Wrong so I would get to preaching and we would get to talking calmly because they wanted to talk about it and then we got down one day to the point that was a second or third day to talk about uh where they lived and how much they were
Earning and when old brothers told me what they were earning I said now you know what you ought to be marching with us you you just as poor as [Applause] negro and I said you are put in the position of supporting your oppressor it through Prejudice and blindness you fail
To see that the same forces that oppress Negroes in American society oppress poor white people and all you are living on is the satisfac ction of your skin being white and the drum major Instinct of thinking that you are somebody big because you’re white and you so poor you can’t send
Your children to school you ought to be out here marching with every one of us every time we have a March and that’s the fact that the poor white has been put into this position where through blindness and Prejudice he is forced to support his oppressors and only the thing he has
Gone for him is the false feeling that he’s Superior because his skin is white and can hardly eat and make his ends meet weak in and weak out now not only does it stop mean not only does this thing go into the racial struggle it goes into the struggle between
Nations and I would submit to you this morning that what is wrong in the world today is that the nations of the world are engaged in a bitter colossal contest for Supremacy and if something doesn’t happen to stop this trend I’m sorely afraid that we won’t be here to talk
About Jesus Christ and about God and about Brotherhood too many more years if somebody doesn’t bring an end to this suicidal thrust that we see in the world today none of us are going to be around because some body’s going to make the mistake through our senseless blunderings of dropping a nuclear bomb
Somewhere and then another one is going to drop and don’t let anybody fool you Jes this can happen within a matter of second they have 20 Megaton bombs in Russia right now that can destroy a city as big as New York in 3 seconds with everybody wiped away in every building
And we can do the same thing to Russia and China but this is why we aded and we drifting there because nations are caught up with the drum major Instinct I must be first I must be Supreme our nation must rule the world and I am sad
To say that the nation in which we live is the Supreme culprit and I’m going to continue to say it to America cuz I love this country too much to see the drift that it has taken God didn’t call America to do what she’s doing in the world now
Preach itach it God didn’t call America to engage in a senseless unjust War as a war in Vietnam and we are criminals in that war we’ve committed more war crimes almost in any nation in the world and I’m going to continue to say it and we won’t stop
It because of our pride and our arrogance as a nation but God has a way of even putting nations in their place the god that I worship has a way of saying don’t play with me he has a way of saying as the god of the Old Testament
Used to say the Hebrews don’t play with me isra don’t play with me Babylon amen be still and know that I’m God and if you don’t stop your Reckless course I’ll rise up and break the backbone of your power yes and that can happen to America yes every
Now and then I go back and read gibbons’s Decline and fall of the Roman Empire and when I come and look at America I say to myself the parallels are frightening we have perverted the drum maage in uh Instinct but let me Rush on to my conclusion because I want you
To see what Jesus was really saying what was the answer that Jesus gave these men it’s very interesting one would have thought that Jesus would have condemned them one would have thought that Jesus would have said you out of your place you’re selfish why would you raise such a
Question that is what Jesus did he did something allog together different he he said in substance all I see you want to be first you want to be great you want to be important you want to be significant well you ought to be if you’re going to be my disciple you must
Be but he reordered priorities and he said yes don’t give up this Instinct it’s a good Instinct if you use it right yes it’s a good Instinct if you don’t distort it and pervert it don’t give it up keep feeling the need for being important keep feeling the need for being
First but I want you to be first in love I want you to be first in moral Excellence I want you to be first in generosity that is what I want you to do and he transformed the situation by giving a new definition of greatness and
You know how he said it he said now Brethren I can’t give you greatness and really I can’t make you first this is what Jesus said to James and John you must earn it true greatness comes not by favoritism but by Fitness and the right hand and the left are not mind to
Give they belong to those who are prepared and so Jesus gave us a new Norm of greatness if you want to be important wonderful if you want to be recognized wonderful if you want to be great wonderful but recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your
Servant that’s a new definition of greatness and this morning the thing that I Like About It by giving that definition of greatness it means that everybody can be great everybody because everybody can serve you don’t have to have a college degree to serve right you don’t know you don’t have to make your
Subject and your verb agree to serve you don’t have to know about Play to an Aristotle to serve you don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve you don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve you only need a heart yes sir full of
Grace yes sir yes Soul generated by love yes and you can be that servant I know a man and I just want to talk about him a minute and maybe you will discover who I’m talking about as I go down the way yeah cuz he was a great one
And he just went about serving he was born in an obscure Village yes yes the child of a poor peasant woman and then he grew up in still another obscure village where he worked as a carpenter until he was 30 years old then for 3
Years he just got on his feet and he was an itinerant preacher and he went about doing some things he didn’t have much he never wrote a book he never held an office he never had a family he never owned the house he never went to College he never visited a big
City he never went 200 miles from where he was born he did none of the usual things that the world would associate with greatness he had no credentials but himself he was on when the of public opinion turned against him called they turned against him they called him a Rabel
Rous they call him a troublemaker they said he was an agitator GL to God he practiced Civil Disobedience he broke injunctions and so he was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial and the the the the irony of it all is that his friends turned him
Over to them one of his closest friends denied him another of his friends turned him over to his enemies and while he was dying the people who killed him gambled for his clothing the only possession that he had in the world when he was dead he was buried in a bar of
Tomb through the pity of a friend 19 centuries have come and gone today he stands as the most influential figure that ever entered human history all the armies that ever marched all the Navies that ever sail all that ever all that not put together have not affected the life of man on this
Earth as much as that one solitary life his name may be a familiar one but today I can hear him talking about him every now and then somebody said he’s king of kings and again I can hear somebody saying he’s Lord of lords somewhere else I can hear somebody
Saying in Christ there is no East nor West and then they go on and talk about in him there’s no North and South but one Great Fellowship of love throughout the whole wide world he didn’t have anything he just went around serving yes and doing good this morning you can be
On his right hand and his left hand if you serve it’s the only way in every now and then I guess all think ristic about that day when we will be victimized with what is life’s final common denominator that’s something that we call death we all think about it and every
Now and then I think about my own death and I think about my own funeral and I don’t think of it in a morbid sense every now and then I asked myself what is it but I would once said and I leave the word to you this
Morning if any of you around when I have to meet my day I don’t want a long funeral and if you get get somebody to deliver the eulage and tell them not to talk too long and every now and then I wonder what I want him to say tell him not to
Mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize that isn’t important tell them not to mention that I have three or 400 other Awards that’s not important tell them not to mention where I went to school I’d like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King Jr tried to give his life servant
Others I’d like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King Jr tried to love somebody I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the wall question I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the
Hungry I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to Cloe those who were naked I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison I want
You to say that I tried to love and save Humanity yes if you want to say that I was a drum major say that I was a drum major for justice say that I was a drum major for peace I was a drum major for righteousness and all of the other
Shallow things will not matter I won’t have any money to leave behind I won’t have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind but I just want to leave a committed life behind and that’s all I want to say if I can help
Somebody as I pass along if I can cheer somebody with a word of song If I can show somebody he’s traveling wrong then my living will not be in vain if I can do my duty as a Christian or if I can bring Salvation to a world once rought
If I can spread the message as the master taught then my living will not be in vain yes Jesus I want to be on your right or your left side not for any selfish reason I want to be on your right or your left side not in terms of
Some political Kingdom or ambition but I just want to be there in love and iny Justice and in truth and in commitment to others so that we can make of this old world a new world
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