We celebrate the birth of the Christian Church this weekend
with Pentecost, when the fire of the Holy Spirit fell from Heaven and thousands
were added to the number of those who followed the Risen Savior. Usually this
is a celebration, a happy time for us to reflect on the power of God’s love in
sending the Holy Spirit as our helper. Instead, today, we grieve and mourn. We
lament.
Hear this, the Word of the Lord: Psalm 13:1-2 “How long, O
Lord? Will you forget me forever? How
long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted
over me?”
Just two weeks ago, we prayed for the family of Ahmaud
Arbery, who, while out jogging, unarmed, was murdered by two white men in
Georgia.
We went to bed last night with heavy hearts praying for the
grieving Floyd family, the grieving African American community, and for the
safety of protestors.
We saw Friday morning on TV as a black CNN reporter was
arrested live while reporting. A black reporter was arrested before any of the
police officers who killed George Floyd Tuesday.
We read a tweet from the President who calls protestors ‘thugs’
and warns of the Army coming to lock things down in Minneapolis stating, ‘when
the looting starts, the shooting starts.’
All this as we grieve the loss of 100,000 American lives to
the COVID-19 virus.
George Floyd was murdered by a white police officer Tuesday,
an officer who sat with his full body weight on George, his knee square down on
the base of his neck. All of America, the entire country, is quarantined at
home, and nearly everyone has seen the terrible video of George Floyd’s last
moments on earth. Seemingly everyone is expressing outrage and seeking justice,
because the truth is before our eyes. George Floyd was murdered, period.
Conversations are being had about race. Families are
starting to take stock of where their own hearts are on this issue. That’s a
good thing, but it’s not enough.
Minnesota is a special place to me. Three hours from where
George Floyd was murdered, God called me into ministry at Presbyterian
Clearwater Forest in Deerwood, Minnesota. My heart hurts, along with the
country, at the grave injustice and gross abuse of power we watched on Tuesday.
We as a country watched a child of God murdered, and now, we as a country
grieve, and we as a country must rise up and cry out for justice to be done, in
the words of Dr. King, “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness
like a mighty stream.”
The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. also said, “It is
appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is eleven o'clock
on Sunday morning." And it was Dr. King, too, who said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” We are
facing injustice in our country right now, and we’ve faced it for 300 years,
turning a blind eye to those whom we deemed as “less than,” those we legally
validated as 3/5 of a white person, those we depend on for labor but refuse to
pay a living wage.
But I want to share some words from George Floyd, too. In a
video, speaking to black youth, pleading with them to turn from violence, he
says, “Come on home, man. One day it’s gonna be you and God. You got one way to
go, you’re going up or you’re going down. You know what I’m saying? That’s
going to be it.” - George Floyd was a follower of Jesus, a fellow Christian. I
didn’t know him, but I know I’ll be able to meet him in Heaven one day and
throw my arms around him and give him a huge hug. George Floyd is now praising
God with all the saints in Heaven. He is right- there’s one way to go, up or
down, and one day it will just be you and God.
Jesus couldn’t breathe, either. Jesus was a minority killed
by the state. Crucifixion causes the subject, while hanging suspended from
hands and feet nailed to wooden beam to eventually lose energy and strength,
causing asphyxiation. Just like Eric Garner and George Floyd, Jesus couldn’t
breathe, and He died, murdered by the state, those in power, another minority
put to death by the majority in power.
Thankfully for us who follow Jesus, who know the salvation
and redemption of Christ, our last breath on earth will be our first breath in
Heaven. George Floyd is now breathing that Heavenly air, full and free, justice
delivered.
Issues in our country stem from racism and abuse of power.
Slavery, then Jim Crow laws, African Americans have only legally been permitted
the same rights and liberties of whites for 50 years in this country.
There is no quick fix. There is no instant solution. This
problem has existed since time began. God created diversity as beauty. The
serpent in the garden implored Eve to eat of the fruit forbidden because they
would die if they did and the serpent urges, “But the serpent said to the
woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your
eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” God
created difference because it was good, it was necessary for life to flourish,
and yet, the serpent sowed the first seeds of distrust because of difference.
“It’s not okay for you to be human, you have to be like God.”
Differences are good. Diversity is good. We are all created
in the very image of God. Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in
his own image, in
the image of God he created him; male and female he
created them.”
And yet, Dr. King speaks to our
self-segregation on Sunday mornings at 11:00 A.M. as we gather separately.
Justin and Catherine Gonzales, in The Liberating Pulpit say, “In a white racist
society, the ‘average’ human being is depicted as white. In a sexist society,
male domination seems normal.”
Author Toni Morrison says, “In this
country, American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.”
I’m not the right person to speak out here,
but I have a platform and so, I speak out against racism and violence and
injustice here. I am part of the majority- white and male and middle class. I
am the one in power. I am the one with privilege. I’ve been pulled over a few
times before, generally for speeding violations, but even when an officer
approached my vehicle with his hand on his service weapon, I’ve never felt
afraid, because I am white and I am male. I was afraid of how much the speeding
ticket would set me back and if I would have to take a day off to go to traffic
court.
I’ve never been afraid that I would not
make it home when confronted by police, that I might be arrested and taken to
jail, or worse, killed outright because of the color of my skin. But I’ve heard
and seen my friends cry as they spoke about having to have hard conversations
with their black sons and daughters, their Latino sons and daughters about what
to do when stopped by police, to be respectful and follow orders completely and
totally comply. George Floyd did all this though, and he still ended up dead.
We all saw George Floyd, an 11 minute video
of him doing everything perfectly, obeying every command, never resisting, put
in handcuffs and forced to the ground and held in place by an officer who
murdered him in broad daylight on the street, slowly crushing the life from
George’s body by a knee to the neck as George laid prone on the ground in
handcuffs, not moving, repeatedly asking for help, crying out, “I can’t
breathe.”
George Floyd was arrested because he paid
for groceries and was suspected of having a counterfeit $20.00 bill. The clerk
called police who arrived and arrested him. I mistakenly told my wife, “It’s
just a misdemeanor, they should have given him a ticket and let him go face the
charges in court.” Because it doesn’t seem like a big deal. Anyone might have a
counterfeit piece of money and not know it. But doing some research made me
even madder- the actual charge of using counterfeit money is a felony, a
federal crime, punishable by up to $15,000 dollar fine or 15 years in prison.
The Secret Service was created for this very purpose- to investigate charges of
fraud and counterfeiting. America created an entire branch of law enforcement
completely designated to police fake money in 1865, even as black people were
still considered property. If you don’t see the issue here, you’re not
listening- what does America value more?
In 1776 and 1865 and now in 2020, it is
certainly not the lives of people of color. Period.
What about Jesus? What would Jesus say,
what did Jesus do? Jesus when traveling to Galilee from Judea made the decision
to pass through Samaria. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, but Jews and Samaritans
were enemies. Jews considered Samaritans unclean, and even setting foot into
Samaritan land made one ritually unclean. Yet, John 4:4 says, “He had to pass
through Samaria.” I thank my father-in-law for bringing this to my remembrance-
the easy, straight path from Judea to Galilee was a simple journey through
Samaria, but because of their hatred, their racism, Jews traveled all the way
around the Samaritan lands, adding days to their journey.
Jesus had to pass through Samaria because
the people in Samaria were the same people He came to liberate from sin. Jesus
had to pass through Samaria because the people there were His sheep just like
the Jews in Israel just like the Gentiles of Rome and Greece. And it was here
in a village in Samaria where Jesus spoke to a woman at a well and offered her
living water. Jesus knew all His children were made in His image. There were
none clean or unclean. There were His sheep, and He is our Good Shepherd.
Praise God, there won’t a ‘Whites only’ entrance to the gates of Heaven! Christ
came to bring liberation and reconciliation, liberation from sin and
reconciliation to the Father, the Creator of all life.
What to do, then? In our grief, in our
sorrow, in our lament, how do we proceed?
The big answer is, “End racism.” “Embrace
equity and equality.” “End injustice in all forms.” “Embrace one another as
brothers and sisters.” “Appreciate our different cultures and the beauty of
that uniqueness.”
We’re not there yet. We’re not even close.
So let’s start with the tiniest of baby steps.
3 John 4:11 says, “Beloved, do not imitate
evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not
seen God.” Do good. Start with doing good by not using terms like colored or
the n-word or other epithets to describe people of color.
Do good by calling
out those who use this offensive language. Do good by calling out those who
perpetrate stereotypes which characterize people of color in negative light. Do
good by being friendly to the person who doesn’t look like you. Try saying
“Hello,” or “How are you?” Those two work wonders with every human being.
Do
good by educating yourself about what is happening to our brothers and sisters
in the African American community, in the Hispanic community, in any community
that doesn’t look like you. Do good by refusing to call people of color “Them.”
Try, try really hard to think of people of color as “Us.” Try to understand why
people of color are angry when week after week we see white people killing
black people throughout our country.
Stop equating the falsehood of “All Lives
Matter” with terrible logic. If All Lives Matter, then surely and certainly
Black Lives Matter.
This is the very least we can do, period.
John Wesley said, “Do no harm, do all the
good you can, and stay in love with God.” I have failed to do no harm through
my silence in the face of injustice, and I have failed to do all the good I can
by not standing with my brothers and sisters of color as they fight, in my own
fear of speaking truth to power.
Ezekiel 34:15-16 says this: “I myself will
be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the
Lord God. I will seek the lost, and
I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will
strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed
them in justice.”
I may not be a good enough Wesleyan, but I
understand Jesus clearly. Jesus says, “Love God, love your neighbor, and make
disciples.” We love God best when we love one another totally and completely,
accepting and embracing all the differences that make us all a part of God’s
image, that beautiful Holy mosaic.
God promises that justice is coming. We
continue to pray for that justice to come.
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