Our response to injustice.
As we confront the reality of systemic racism in our country white people are rightly being encouraged to start by listening and learning. (Especially learning from our brothers and sisters of color)
We are being challenged to not stop there, but to move to action.
Some are protesting and at the protests we are being challenged not to stop there either.
I can feel my white brothers and sisters still sincerely wrestling with the question of, “What do I do now?”
“I hear you. I agree. I am ready. I will do those things. But then what?”
We can’t outsource the deep work of figuring out the answer to this question ourselves.
We must become a different kind of____________
When Peter encountered Jesus on the shore he dropped everything to follow Jesus. He had been a fisherman by trade and he left that in order to devote his life to being a disciple of Jesus. Some will do that now too. Some will leave their current careers and devote their professional life to explicitly working to dismantle systemic racism. Most will not. Most of us will respond like Zaccheus who, upon encountering Jesus, remained a tax collector but became a different kind of tax collector. (Luke 19:1-10) A more just, more humane tax collector. Going so far as to pay reparations to those who he had cheated.
I am challenging each of my white brothers and sisters to scrutinize every existing role in your life and figure out how you can work for justice in that sphere of influence you already have.
We must become a different kind of…
Teacher.
Son.
Daughter.
Neighbor.
Lawyer.
Businessperson.
Minister.
Public servant.
Consumer.
Chrisitan.
Friend.
Citizen.
Fill in the blank___________
A few examples:
My close friend and role model Casey Crouse is a distance runner on the side of being a husband, father, employee and more. Casey decided to run 1000 miles in 100 days in every neighborhood in Indianapolis to tell the story of the people in those communities. He is using his platform built on having a ridiculous number of friendships and his love of running to give dignity to people in communities that are often avoided and stigmatized. You can see more at onethousandonecity.com
My brother Jeff has a televised nightly talk show in Springfield, Missouri. Crazy I know. He wanted to do something and then realized that he had an audience in an especially racially divided part of the country. Over the last few weeks he has revamped his show to educate his loyal audience in part by sharing the microphone with Black residence in his community. You can see more here
Babynames.com remains a website that expectant parents go to when choosing a name for their babies, but they became a different kind of baby name website when they shared the names of Black people who have been killed by police officers with the powerful statement; “Each one of these names was somebody’s baby.”
We must go out of our way
In John chapter 4 commentators tell us that Jesus did not travel the most direct path to his eventual destination but instead went out of his way to encounter a Samaritan woman. There is a lot going on in this story, in this case I am simply encouraging us to follow the example of Jesus by going out of our way to encounter people different than us who are being oppressed.
Most of us. Nearly all of us organize our lives in a way that leads to comfort at every opportunity.
If we actually care about racial justice this will have to change.
I promise you I am looking in the mirror when I type this.
We must go out of our way to experience the realities that marginalized and oppressed people experience daily.
We can’t be allies from the comfort of our current realities. We must find new ways to be involved in this fight. This could involve policy engagement, or supporting minority run non profits, and minority owned businesses. It might involve volunteering or new friendships. I don’t know your answer but we must go out of our way.
We must give at a cost.
In John chapter 6 Jesus feeds the 5000 with only 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish and had food left over. (John 6: 1-14) The five loaves and two fish came from a little boy who saw the problem and offered up his sack lunch. Surely he knew it wouldn’t be enough, but he offered it anyway. He trusted that Jesus could make it more than enough.
The scripture doesn’t tell us this, but I can’t imagine that this boy held any back for himself. Surely he didn’t have 6 loaves and 4 fish… We must be fully committed to this work. We must not hold back. There must be a cost to us, our families, our organizations, our businesses, our comfort. If we care about this we must give it our all, including our power.
I confess this is challenging me.
This listening, learning, changing, giving is ongoing sacred, beautiful, painful, joyful, work that I hope to continue for life.
References:
These thoughts are not all my own, but have been deeply influenced by others.
Skye Jethani has spoken on the need for us to not outsource our discernment
Steve Sherwood has impacted all of the thoughts in my life… in this case he helped me understand this story in John 6.
I would guess others have written about Zaccheus as a different kind of tax collector but I first read it from Shane Claiborne in “Irresistible Revolution”
Trevor Noah shared the story of babynames.com on The Daily Show