This week as I was whipping through things I wanted to read as I was waiting for this or that to take place. In one article I was moved by this comment about Black Lives Matter. It was in response to how many folks try to turn the phrase to what is considered - by some - the more inclusive statement: All Lives Matter. The comment was as simple and profound as this, "Black Lives Matter in a particularly urgent way." Yes, you matter - Yes, your heritage matters - Yes, your economic situation matters - Yes, the lose of your status as majority is bugging you - BUT, in a particularly urgent way, we must stand up as people who do not tolerate the systemic injustice that still rules the core of our culture.
As a white man - no, let me say it like this - as a follower of Jesus whose skin happens to be light in a society that has long decided that light is right - I am being called to ask questions about the life around me. Why can I go most anywhere and never be harassed for being a 'senior' looking European guy? Why do I know of so many stories of African American males who have been pulled over while driving - no wrong doing - no complaints - just pulled over for driving or walking with a skin color and a hair texture that is not like mine? Why can European-Americans carry guns so freely within the limits of the law and yet if you carry - under those same limits - and you are an African-American - well, that may just be your demise? How many of your children are afraid to go out of the house because they are afraid of the police in their neighborhood? Yes, they may be afraid of other young people in the neighborhood - but to be afraid of the police...never happened to me.Why is it that every African-American parent I know has had to have 'the talk' (and I don't mean birds and bees) with their children?
In the name of the Christ - the Messiah of God - the Reign of God, the centrality of our humanity must lead us into lives that not only sustain - but also insist on - a plurality of people within our lives. When we step back - when we attempt to hold on to life as we have had it or want it - when our minds are consumed with how much we might lose - when we have notions of what is great based on a greatness sustained through bias and preference and legislative actions, we need to ask some questions of the world around us. I think it would help us in those moments to consider: what did Jesus do - with whom did Jesus sit and eat - who were those other two on the crosses alongside Jesus - with whom did Jesus side within the systems of his day? In a particularly urgent way Jesus stepped into a world of people who held no power and were often consider less-than-welcome/worthy and he stayed there to take on the brunt of what would come from an established reign in which some folks were able to fit in - by birth - by ability - by knowledge - by physical attributes.
In a particularly urgent way there was no waiting for another day. In fact, that day was at hand and it was a day in which there would be no distinctions - no partiality. Having said that, we must be willing to see that we live in just such a day. Some things do not change in regard to systems that brew fear and insist on whipping up demons among us. We still have a propensity to find people who can become those people who we are able to tag in whatever manner will make us shine with a righteous glow. It is urgent for all of us who say we are followers of Jesus to get off of the high horse of privilege that has infected the very root system of the church and our culture. When we ride that horse, we do not even associate with the real world around us. Instead we ride away from it - we attempt to secure ourselves from its - we come up with well-formed strategies of serving those who are far away rather than living alongside and within the diversity of our own neighbors.
To be honest, somethings really are quite black and white. Some divides are indeed like great chasms over which no one can leap. There are topics we have called untouchable and people we insist must be untouchable as well. There is privilege that is so much a part of our lives we will not take a second look at our own lives with a critical eye. AND YET, we must.
Within this time - within our daily lives - within the words we speak - within each breath we take - we have been invited to turn the world upside down with a love that seeks the well-being of all - even if we think they do not deserve it. For as that takes place - as we enter into a life in which we question and make ourselves see the injustices of the day - as we listen and abide with and walk alongside those not like us - we may feel the breath of new life - the spirit of God - that is endlessly creating the peaceable Reign of God in a particularly urgent way among us.
TRRR
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