“Use your words.” I heard a mom say this to a young child, who in their frustration cried, “No words left.” I find myself now understanding that feeling. I have no words left when it comes to the recent shocking public death of George Floyd. I know my brethren also have no words left because this has come on the tails of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor and a long string of similar cases. The frustration and anger have caused a spiral of damage and disunity.
For the nation and especially for brothers and sisters of color, I grieve with you and lament the sin of racism. I pray for healing, revival and unity. I pray for the safety of the residents of communities that have unrest, and I lament the deep hurt that provokes actions that perpetuate more hurt and division. As a Christian school leader, I feel compelled to acknowledge these events, to seek an end to these injustices, and provide a commitment toward growth in our own school community.
The events I am speaking of show themselves in different details, but all have a root cause in sin, specifically the sin of racism in our country, which has shown itself historically in slavery, Jim Crow laws, established forms of discrimination and so much more which promotes evil in our world. I am all too aware, from friends who experience it first hand, that African-Americans are treated differently in our country. This practice disregards the biblical command to love one another, and ignores a central teaching of “Imago Dei” – that we are all created in the image of God and thus all have divine value and worth.
These times are not new, and this only increases the current frustration. Something needs to change. As my life’s goal is to make disciples I have been asking myself, “How does this national sin of racism affect my calling?” “What do our students think?” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his writing “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” called believers to action: “But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If the church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. I meet young people every day whose disappointment with the church has risen to outright disgust.” This danger is still true today.
According to 2 Chronicles 7:14, “If my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” This is a reminder that God’s people are the first to be called to a role: humility, prayer, godliness and repentance. We have to do better, I have to do better. Another statement from Dr. King was, “We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.” Let us as followers of Christ be willing to speak up in love and truth.
Lord show us your mercy, teach us, heal us, revive us.
