Tabasco and Dr. King

The following column has been edited to correct the location of Avery Island.

Avery Island, Louisiana, is known for one thing: Tabasco sauce.

The sauce is made from Tabasco peppers harvested locally and produced by the McIlhenny Co., an enterprise established in 1868. It's still family-owned and operated and is one of the few U.S. companies under royal warrant to do business with Queen Elizabeth II's Buckingham Palace.

This column isn't about the McIlhenny family, although that's a worthy tale. Nor is it really about Tabasco sauce.

It's about the feeling you get when you find something wrong just under the surface of something else entirely.

Visiting Avery Island a decade or so ago, I happened into the McIlhenny gift shop on the premises. Of course, you could buy Tabasco sauce there as well as many other trinkets featuring the company name and logo. I decided on some vanilla ice cream. Maybe I should have paid closer attention. Within a few bites of the confection, my throat got hot. What in the world? It seems the ice cream was spiked with Tabasco! If I had been more careful, it would have been clear that the company was not intentionally trying to dupe patrons with some cruel practical joke. There was the sign proclaiming that all flavors came with a touch of the company's special hot sauce; I just hadn't seen it. I probably should have known better.

With a flushed face, I left, feeling "taken in" after finding something wrong just under the surface of something else entirely.

I had a similar sensation Sunday night while watching much of Super Bowl LII. A commercial came on for Ram Trucks, and the narrator was none other than Martin Luther King, Jr., a personal hero. Why is King's voice, taken from a message preached 50 years ago, being used to shill for a gas-guzzling, carbon-footprint-expanding truck? Although the civil rights leader's words were uplifting, something was wrong here, although at first it wasn't clear. (By the way, my apologies in advance to all Ram Truck dealers and owners who I have offended by this point.) It didn't take long before media watchdogs sniffed it out.

Yes, the ad used some of the Baptist clergyman's words from his "Drum Major Instinct" sermon. To wit: "Recognize that he who is greatest among you must be your servant. That's the new definition of greatness. By giving that definition of greatness, it means everybody can be great ... you only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love."

Even a cursory look at the New Testament will tell you that the fabled minister was echoing the words of Jesus: "The greatest among you will be your servant." (Matthew 23:11) In continuing to read Jesus' words, though, he goes on the attack in that same passage, condemning scribes and Pharisees, calling them hypocrites and blind fools.

In seminary, we're encouraged to avoid the tempting preacher's sin of eisegesis, or reading into the biblical text just what we want to find there. Eisegesis is for lazy preachers. There are famous, well-regarded preachers who commit eisegesis regularly, but not King. True to the spirit of Matthew 23, King goes on the offensive in the very same sermon where we hear his uplifting words about greatness and service -- words Fiat Chrysler, owner of the Ram Truck brand, found so appealing. King deals faithfully with the "woe to you" portion of the passage, words the auto giant would not have liked, as he uttered these words Feb. 4, 1968:

"Gentlemen of massive verbal persuasion ... 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. And before you know it, you're just buying that stuff."

It's hard to imagine MLK going along with that Ram Truck ad, given his evident disdain for mass media advertising, including car commercials. But the King estate did approve the use of a tiny portion of that sermon, committing a sort of advertising eisegesis by its acquiescence. Why did the estate allow it? I have my notions but no evidence, so I'll not go further on that point. The King Center and King's daughter Bernice opposed the ad language, identifying a fissure among the heirs to King.

A week after the Super Bowl, I've still got Ram Trucks on my mind. Never paid the brand any mind at all before. And maybe, just maybe, that was the whole point.