The disparities have always been there: the inequities in health care, education, housing, city services, job opportunities, and the injustices of the criminal justice system. In the year 2020, many Whites were awakened to these realities by the reporting of disparities in infections and deaths from COVID-19 among communities of color, and by the video of the death of George Floyd at the hands of a White police officer. But the disparities and injustices have always been there. Ignorance has been there as well.
At this end of 2020 and as we make plans for 2021, let us make the commitment to address the disparities and injustices. This will mean that we acknowledge our ignorance of what others suffer and are open to change.
Scripture is revealing in the way it treats ignorance. Ignorance is an aspect of a broken humanity and society in which we all share (Ezekiel 45:20). It is an expression of our alienation from God and is coupled with hardness of heart (Ephesians 4:18). Ignorance is not only a lack of knowledge but an act of ignoring what we ought to pay attention to. It comes from the breakdown in our relationship with God. We ignore God and God’s will. We are distant from what is on the heart of God for humanity. We are self-absorbed and do not see what God sees.
God said to Moses, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians.” Then God engaged Moses in God’s work of deliverance. As with Moses, God continues to call us to turn from our self-centered ways and observe what God observes, and then to let God engage us in God’s work of liberation and justice.
This means that we repent from ignoring the experience of others (the others who are not kin or friend or “like us”). It means that we get to know how others are affected by our attitudes, decisions, priorities, and the kind of policies and legislation we vote for and work to get implemented. How do our actions affect the lives of others, especially those who have been marginalized by racism, poverty, or incarceration? With the help of God, we can repent and turn to what we have ignored and become intent on getting to know the lives of those who have been largely out of sight and out of mind because of our ignorance. Because we have ignored them.
As we enter 2021, let us do so in prayer, turning our hearts to God to see the way God sees, with the love of God poured into our hearts by the Spirit. And let us hear again God’s call to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly. Let us surrender our lives to God and to the leading of the Spirit for the concrete actions that God calls us to take, each of us with our individual abilities and ways of serving. Let us turn from ignorance to understanding and action, so that in the freedom of God’s love we work to make right what is wrong.