No Justice, No Peace.
- Joel Foster
- Jun 3, 2020
- 6 min read
Between the World and Me by Ta Nehisi Coates [Book]
13th [Documentary]
Slavery by Another Name [Documentary]
Collective works of Toni Morrison [Book]
The Breakdown - Shaun King [Podcast]
The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James Cone [Book]
I felt that it was more appropriate to start with others' works and words rather than my own. There are so many posts right now with incredible resources, but here are just a few of the ones that I have found impactful in the last few years, and have come back to in the last few weeks. Black Lives Matter.
May 14, 2020
Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. [Amos 5:23-24]
Emmett Till. Trayvon Martin. Michael Brown. Eric Garner. Philando Castille. Botham Jean. Atatiana Jefferson. Breonna Taylor. Ahmaud Arbery. And so many more...
These are names that you have probably heard or seen on the news, in the national dialogue, and surrounded by discussions and disagreements on the issue of race and violence in the United States. I am sitting down to write these words because my heart and body hurt for the black and brown mothers and fathers who have had to say goodbye to their sons and daughters unbelievably too early. I am sitting down to write these words because there are children who no longer have their fathers and mothers because they were killed in response to a “suspicion.” I am sitting down to write these words because as a white, straight, cisgender, and Christian male, I deeply long for people who match my identity to stand up and speak out and be allies alongside the people in our communities and cities who are weeping and beating their chests while relief and change seem just as far as ever. The white Church has never liked talking about race. From the formation of the Southern Baptist movement in response to the Civil War and northern churches condoning slavery, to churches condemning Dr. King and his call to civil disobedience, to the silence and apathy offered today by not expressing anything. America's white Church must repent of our sins in the past, as well as those we currently do.
If you have heard even an ounce of news beyond the rising number of COVID-19 cases and deaths (both globally and in the United States), then your probably have at least heard the name Ahmaud Arbery. The 25-year-old man who was murdered while out for a run. Actually, the thing that triggered the words on this page was a conversation with someone about this exact tragedy.
“Did you hear about the black guy who was killed because he punched a kid after the father tried to stop him from stealing from a construction site?” they said. “Wow, no. That seems a little crazy, but is death by a gun necessary?” I asked in return. “Probably not, but it was self-defense since he attacked this guys kid,” they responded.
To be honest, I thought this was an entirely new incident, something that happened this week, not February 23rd. I went home and looked into this story, I have to admit I was curious. Cue the Google page filled with the name that I had become familiar with a week earlier, “Ahmaud Arbery”. My blood boiled. I was furious. A kid?! He “assaulted” a kid?! Forgive me for being furious but in my book, a 34-year-old man with a shotgun, with his father in the back of a pickup truck is not a kid. The 25-year-old man shot while running, he is a kid. He is the one I mourn for. And so I thought, how did this story get so twisted? Is it just because I’m “progressive” or “liberal” and so I have the facts and the person I was talking to is “conservative” and therefore “lost”. If I think this way about another human, am I not just as “lost”? This moment reminded me of the willingness to listen to a twisted story to continue living in unaffected privilege. This moment reminded me that we allow ourselves to believe anything if it keeps us comfortable and lets us turn our face away from the pain, the conflict, the potential of being wrong. I am guilty of it in other areas, I know it.
This verse from Amos is above because I have always found it compelling when I think about what God really desires from the Church. The Hebrew word for justice is mishpat. It is the word used in reference to the Jewish law given to Moses and could be understood as God’s ordering of things for all people, to bring union and peace (shalom). Amos is seeing this “nation under God” putting profits above people, wealth above well-being, and concern for their pockets over concern for the poor; a situation not too far off from our own today. Through his prophetic message, he rejects their standard motions of worship in a critique of their lack of action. Their songs and words to God mean nothing when the people in their own cities and streets are being neglected, oppressed, and continually marginalized. Not only does Amos’ prophecy call for justice, but for righteousness as well, or tsedaqah. This righteousness is a movement into restored or right relationships, where they were previously broken and distorted. The American white Church today needs to listen to the Amoses of today. Your Sunday songs do nothing for God when you neglect the racism, sexism, and continued cycles of systemic oppression. Your prayers mean nothing when they are only about you, rather than those hurting and aching around you. Jesus invited us to pray to “our Father” not “my”. The hope, the prayer, is that we would all ache for the shalom of God to become reality, through the pursuit of justice for all, to restore our relationships with all. Especially to those who need it now more than ever.
I have always sat with this tension of “sharing” a hashtag or petition on social media, not out of fear from what my more conservative friends and family may say, but out of fear of overstepping what it means to give a voice to the voiceless. I did the #iRunwithMaud but I did not share it with anyone but myself. I wrestle with how far to step out before it is considered overstepping or white saviorism. Am I being an ally, or am I parading an attempt to be “woke” on current topics or issues? Heck, these words may not ever even reach a public platform… I do not know. But for now, I will use this space to vent, to think, to wrestle, and to hope.
Even as I finish these words there will be new names to learn, new names to say. There will be families who hurt. There will be excuses that will be made. People may desire to “see both sides of a story”, but I can assure you that there is only one side to the heart of justice. As people fill public spaces and cry out, “No Justice, No Peace!” I cannot help but think that this is true to the nature of God. A deep longing for the Peace of God, the Shalom of God to fill this world, must be met with a Justice, a Mishpat, for all people. I am eager for the day that the Fullness, the Resurrection, takes root and all things are made right. But, until that day, I hope and pray that at least the Church, centered on a suffering savior who then redeems violence and injustice, would step up and step out and say, “no more...no more…!” And so before, now, and every day after, I stand with my brothers and sisters of color and say: Yes, Black Lives Matter!
May 29, 2020
| the words that follow were added after the words above were typed out. The new name has been learned. And new names continue to need to be known. To be said. |
These words were finished and a new name was placed into focus: George Floyd. And his words echoed like Eric Garner's did six years ago, "I can't breathe...I can't breathe." And I wondered if the same thought went through the mind of Jesus of Nazareth as he hung on a cross, a form of execution designed to strip life away from people through taking their breath away. George Floyd, neck pressed into the pavement, cried out “I can’t breathe,” and I think that Jesus knew that pain exactly. The Cross of Christ was a state-sponsored suffering bearing down on love. The murder of our black brothers and sisters is the same thing. We have once again failed to care for our neighbor, to show love to our neighbor. Jesus is not loyal to the U.S., but the heart of Jesus is certainly broken because of us.
Grace and Peace.
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