Love Cannot Look Away

When the girls were two, strapped into the front of my grocery cart, there was an interaction that left me deeply feeling the pain that my children would be hated by some because of the color of their skin. I blinked back my tears and tried to focus on food choices but I remember my heart’s cry, “There only babies and you don’t even know them!”.

As I saw the news unfold from Charlottesville, my response was shock at the absurdity of the whole thing. To point out that unless someone was born American Indian, crossed over from a Canadian first nation tribe or walked up from a Latin American nation, each of the men who were screaming at others to “get back on a boat” had ancestors who arrived on USA soil by boat. Also, Hitler as hero?!

Then came fear about what this kind of public display means for a family like mine, means for every person of color in the USA, every Jew, every immigrant. And then just loads of sorrow. 

I don’t write today because I have something poignant to say. Other great writers and theologians have written. I only write today because as I pray about this, I know I cannot be silent. I also know words without action are empty, so writing brings heaps of accountability. 

“There comes a time when silence is betrayal. Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” -MLK Jr. 

Because we are human, we are fallen and in each of our hearts, we harbor prejudice. It’s easy to condemn the actions of those white supremacist in Charlottesville and I know many in attendance are atheist, denying the Creator and as Christians, we cry out, “That is wrong! There is no room for this kind of hate!” As we watch people revive a Nazi salute, in angry consternation, we must stand and reject history repeating itself. We stand against racism * in all it’s forms just as we stand against abortion, God has created each person and bequeathed them with a soul.

Can we take it a step further? For most of us, it’s not overt but let us not kid ourselves we are free from racism*. There is talk about being “color-blind” as some gold standard of arriving in our struggle against prejudice. Let me propose that God didn’t create us to be color blind because we can’t be. He created us to see color and appreciate the mosaic of life and the beauty of differences He has delighted in, knitting us together in our mother’s wombs. The story of racial prejudice plays out repeatedly in the Bible and we see Jesus (a not lily-white Middle Eastern, Jew) interact in very counterculture ways, breaking social norms to intentionally minister to Samaritans, a group the Jews hated. Strategically, in His parable of the “Good Samaritan”, He chose the most hated protagonist to show up the holy men and be the hero. 

It seems the polarization in the USA, not just along racial* lines, is running deeper and more divisive by the day. It’s not as bad as it’s ever been as we can look back on our history at our Civil War, an incredibly tumultuous division in our nation. Yet, I’m sitting up at 3:04 am, heart heavy and praying, “What’s to be done?” I shouldn’t be shocked. The roots are there and often glossed over though felt in thousands of little ways. May God use such a disgusting display for good and may the church be roused as we can’t ignore the ugliness of the sin of supremacy. It’s my prayer for my family today, “God, may we see evil for evil and truth for truth and may we not be deceived!" We can let our hearts be moved and not stand quietly by or ignore the sin issues in our own hearts in regards to not loving others as ourselves. 

“Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” 1 John 2:9-11

An article was posted from the Preemptive Love Coalition (I recommend it in its entirety) contained the following excerpt:

"When hate is loud, love cannot be silent. Love cannot look away. Because the frontline aren’t just ‘over there.’ The frontline are where we live, and it’s time we show up to wage peace where others wage war.”

Finally, a poem written by German Lutheran pastor, Martin Niemoller. 

(many versions have been translated, this is the one displayed in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. There are versions that involve communist, sick incurables, Catholics…fascinating )

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out-Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionist, and I did not speak out-Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me-and there was no one left to speak for me.”

 

*I am using racism/racial here to be clearly understood but I don’t like the word. The Bible clearly lays out that human beings are ONE race, every human that has ever been born, a descendant of Adam and Eve. Here’s a great sermon on this, “Table of Nations, Are There Many Races or One?” by Voddie Baucham.