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 tenth chapter
as recorded by Saint Mark.
Beginning with the thirty-fifth 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?’
And 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 ye 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 withal 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 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 chiefest, 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 rule the world.
And they thought of Jesus as this kind of
king.
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
your 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 and John, and we would say they were
selfish.
Why would they make such a selfish request?
But before we 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 there is deep down within all of us an
instinct.
It's a kind of drum major instinct—a desire
to be out front, a desire to lead the parade,
a desire to be first.
And it is something that runs the 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.
Sigmund Freud 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 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 bid for 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 a little bundle of ego.
And they have innately the drum major impulse
or 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 toward somebody
else.
(That’s right) But everybody likes to be
praised because of this real drum major instinct.
Now the presence of the drum major instinct
is why 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 get names that give them that impression.
So you get your groups, and they become the
"Grand Patron," and the little fellow 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, overjoin really, that
we think that we will find that recognition
in.
Now the presence of this instinct explains
why we are so often taken by advertisers.
You know, those gentlemen of massive verbal
persuasion.
And they have a way of saying things to you
that kind of gets you into buying.
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.
(Make it plain) In order to be lovely to love
you must wear this kind of lipstick or this
kind of perfume.
And you know, before you know it, you're just
buying that stuff.
(Yes) That's the way the advertisers do it.
I got a letter the other day, and it was a
new magazine coming out.
And it opened up, "Dear Dr. King: As you know,
you are on many mailing lists.
And 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 you said all of that and explained me
so exactly, of course I wanted to read it.
[laughter]
But very seriously, it goes through life;
the drum major instinct is real.
(Yes) And you know what else it causes to
happen?
It often causes us to live above our means.
(Make it plain) It's nothing but the drum
major instinct.
Do you ever see people buy cars that they
can't even begin to buy in terms of their
income?
(Amen) [laughter] You've seen people riding
around in Cadillacs and Chryslers who don't
earn enough to have a good T-Model Ford.
(Make it plain) But 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 five thousand
dollars, your car shouldn't cost more than
about twenty-five hundred.
That's just good economics.
And if it's a family of two, and both members
of the family make ten thousand dollars, they
would have to make out with one car.
That would be good economics, although it's
often inconvenient.
But so often, haven't you seen people making
five thousand dollars a year and driving a
car that costs six thousand?
And they wonder why their ends never meet.
[laughter] That's a fact.
Now the economists also say that your house
shouldn't cost—if you're buying a house,
it shouldn't cost more than twice your income.
That's based on the economy and how you would
make ends meet.
So, if you have an income of five thousand
dollars, it's kind of difficult in this society.
But say it's a family with an income of ten
thousand dollars, the house shouldn't cost
much more than twenty thousand.
Well, I've seen folk making ten thousand dollars,
living in a forty- and fifty-thousand-dollar
house.
And you know they just barely make it.
They get a check every month somewhere, and
they 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 just live their lives trying to outdo
the Joneses.
(Amen) They got to get this coat because this
particular coat is a little better and a little
better-looking than Mary's coat.
And 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.
(Amen) I know a man who used to live in a
thirty-five-thousand-dollar house.
And other people started building thirty-five-thousand-dollar
houses, so he built a seventy-five-thousand-dollar
house.
And then somebody else built a seventy-five-thousand-dollar
house, and he built a hundred-thousand-dollar
house.
And I don't know where he's 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.
(Make it plain) And that's where I want to
move now.
I want to move to the point of saying that
if this instinct is not harnessed, it becomes
a very dangerous, pernicious instinct.
For instance, if it isn’t harnessed, 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 isn't harnessed, 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.
(Amen) And they just boast and boast and boast,
and that's the person who has not harnessed
the drum major instinct.
And then it does other things to the personality.
It causes you to lie about who you know sometimes.
(Amen, Make it plain) There are some people
who are influence peddlers.
And in their attempt to deal with the drum
major instinct, they have to try to identify
with the so-called big-name people.
(Yeah, Make it plain) And if you're not careful,
they will make you think they know somebody
that they don't really know.
(Amen) They know them well, they sip tea with
them, and they this-and-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 major
instinct.
They don't feel that they are getting enough
attention through the normal channels of social
behavior, and so they turn to anti-social
behavior in order to get attention, in order
to feel important.
(Yeah) And so they get that gun, and before
they know it they robbed a bank in a quest
for recognition, in 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, (Glory to God) he
ends up trying to push others down in order
to push himself up.
(Amen) 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 are trying to pull
them down in order to push yourself up.
(Make it plain) And 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.
It leads to snobbish exclusivism.
(Make it plain) 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 everybody can't
get in this fraternity.
So it ends up, you know, a very exclusive
kind of thing.
And you know, that can happen with the church;
I know churches get in that bind sometimes.
(Amen, Make it plain) I've been to churches,
you know, and they say, "We have so many doctors,
and so many school teachers, and so many lawyers,
and so many businessmen in our church."
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 sometimes
will go all through that—they say that as
if the other people don't count.
(Amen)
And the church is the one place where a doctor
ought to forget that he's a doctor.
The church is the one place where a Ph.D.
ought to forget that he's a Ph.D. (Yes) The
church is the one place that the school teacher
ought to forget the degree 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 come" doctrine is a dead, cold
church, (Yes) and nothing but a little social
club with a thin veneer of religiosity.
When the church is true to its nature, (Whoo)
it says, "Whosoever will, let him come."
(Yes) And it does not supposed to satisfy
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, sir) And a recognition grows out of
this—that all men are brothers because they
are children (Yes) of a common father.
The drum major instinct can lead to exclusivism
in one's thinking 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.
And that's the uncontrolled, perverted use
of the drum major instinct.
Now the other thing is, that it leads to tragic—and
we've seen it happen so often—tragic race
prejudice.
Many who have written about this problem—Lillian
Smith used to say it beautifully in some of
her books.
And she would say it to the point of getting
men and women to see the source of the problem.
Do you know that a lot of the race problem
grows out of the drum major instinct?
A need that some people have to feel superior.
A need that some people have to feel that
they are first, and to feel that their white
skin ordained them to be first.
(Make it plain, today, ‘cause I’m against
it, so help me God) And they have said over
and over again in ways that we 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 charter member means
that everybody who's in that has a kind of
divinity, a kind of superiority.
And think of what has happened in history
as a result of this perverted use of the drum
major instinct.
It has led to the most tragic prejudice, the
most tragic expressions of man's inhumanity
to man.
The other day I was saying, I always 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 cell to talk about the race
problem.
And they were showing us where we were so
wrong demonstrating.
And they were showing us where segregation
was so right.
And they were showing us where intermarriage
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 the second or third day—to talk about
where they lived, and how much they were earning.
And when those brothers told me what they
were earning, I said, "Now, you know what?
You ought to be marching with us.
[laughter] You're just as poor as Negroes."
And I said, "You are put in the position of
supporting your oppressor, because through
prejudice and blindness, you fail to see that
the same forces that oppress Negroes in American
society oppress poor white people.
(Yes) And all you are living on is the satisfaction
of your skin being white, and the drum major
instinct of thinking that you are somebody
big because you are white.
And you're 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."
Now that's a fact.
That the poor white has been put into this
position, where through blindness and prejudice,
(Make it plain) he is forced to support his
oppressors.
And the only thing he has going for him is
the false feeling that he’s superior because
his skin is white—and can't hardly eat and
make his ends meet week in and week out.
(Amen)
And 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.
(Yeah) 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 somebody'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, this can happen
within a matter of seconds.
(Amen) They have twenty-megaton bombs in Russia
right now that can destroy a city as big as
New York in three seconds, with everybody
wiped away, and every building.
And we can do the same thing to Russia and
China.
But this is why we are drifting.
And we are 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."
(Preach it) 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,
because 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 it, preach it) God didn't call America
to engage in a senseless, unjust war as the
war in Vietnam.
And we are criminals in that war.
We’ve committed more war crimes almost than
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.
(Amen) The God that I worship has a way of
saying, "Don't play with me."
(Yes) He has a way of saying, as the God of
the Old Testament used to say to the Hebrews,
"Don’t play with me, Israel.
Don't play with me, Babylon.
(Yes) 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' Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
And when I come and look at America, I say
to myself, the parallels are frightening.
And we have perverted the drum major 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 are out of your place.
You are selfish.
Why would you raise such a question?"
But that isn't what Jesus did; he did something
altogether different.
He said in substance, "Oh, 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.
(Amen) 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 mine
to give, they belong to those who are prepared."
(Amen)
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.
(Amen) 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.
(Amen) You don't have to have a college degree
to serve.
(All right) You don't have to make your subject
and your verb agree to serve.
You don't have to know about Plato and 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.
(Amen) You only need a heart full of grace,
(Yes, sir, Amen) a 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) because he was a great one.
And he just went about serving.
He was born in an obscure village, (Yes, sir)
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 thirty years old.
(Amen) Then for three 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.
(Yes) He never owned a house.
He never went to college.
He never visited a big city.
He never went two hundred 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 only thirty-three when the tide of
public opinion turned against him.
They called him a rabble-rouser.
They called him a troublemaker.
They said he was an agitator.
(Glory 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 irony of it all is that his friends
turned him over to them.
(Amen) 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.
(Lord help him) When he was dead he was buried
in a borrowed tomb, through the pity of a
friend.
Nineteen centuries have come and gone and
today he stands as the most influential figure
that ever entered human history.
All of the armies that ever marched, all the
navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments
that ever sat, and all the kings that ever
reigned put together (Yes) have not affected
the life of man on this earth (Amen) as much
as that one solitary life.
His name may be a familiar one.
(Jesus) But today I can hear them talking
about him.
Every now and then somebody says, "He's King
of Kings."
(Yes) 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."
(Yes) 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.
(Amen) He just went around serving and doing
good.
This morning, you can be on his right hand
and his left hand if you serve.
(Amen) It's the only way in.
Every now and then I guess we all think realistically
(Yes, sir) about that day when we will be
victimized with what is life's final common
denominator—that 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.
And every now and then I ask myself, "What
is it that I would want said?"
And I leave the word to you this morning.
If any of you are around when I have to meet
my day, I don’t want a long funeral.
And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy,
tell them not to talk too long.
(Yes) And every now and then I wonder what
I want them to say.
Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel
Peace Prize—that isn’t important.
Tell them not to mention that I have three
or four hundred other awards—that’s not
important.
Tell them not to mention where I went to school.
(Yes)
I'd like somebody to mention that day that
Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his
life serving others.
(Yes)
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 war question.
(Amen)
I want you to be able to say that day that
I did try to feed the hungry.
(Yes)
And I want you to be able to say that day
that I did try in my life to clothe those
who were naked.
(Yes)
I want you to say on that day that I did try
in my life to visit those who were in prison.
(Lord)
I want you to say that I tried to love and
serve humanity.
(Yes)
Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum
major, say that I was a drum major for justice.
(Amen) Say that I was a drum major for peace.
(Yes) I was a drum major for righteousness.
And all of the other shallow things will not
matter.
(Yes) 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.
(Amen) 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 or 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 ought,
If I can bring salvation to a world once wrought,
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, (Yes) 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 in
justice and in truth and in commitment to
others, so that we can make of this old world
a new world.
