Category: Grief

Israel, Palestine and What Makes for Peace

“As Jesus came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”

Luke 19:41-42

Jesus still weeps over Jerusalem and Palestine and the cities and nations of the world, weeps over our nation’s capital and our nation. If we only knew the things that make for peace, but they are hidden from us by our pridefulness and arrogance.

Join Jesus in weeping over Jerusalem and Palestine. That is a starting point for those of us distant from the horror, but who learn daily of the carnage and loss of life. Weep over the acts of terrorism in the slaughter of Israelis, men, women, and children. Weep over the ongoing slaughter of Palestinians, men, women, and children, and for the many children being traumatized, going hungry, exposed, and living in fear.

Then weep for ourselves and our warring ways, for our support for war as a solution. Weep for the wars fought in the name of God and for wars fought in the name of no God; for wars pitting one religion against another and for wars to end religion; for wars fought in the name of ideologies, fought in the name of democracy, or an autocratic ruler, or capitalism, or communism, or any of the many isms.

Weep for the poor and suffering and the violence added to their lives. Stand with those who suffer. Stand against oppression and brutality in whatever name it is exercised, whatever religion or ideology. Join Jesus in weeping over the world and then take up your own cross and walk in the way of peace. Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. Justice, mercy, and humility are the ways of peace.

“There can be no justice without peace. And there can be no peace without justice.”

Martin Luther King Jr.

These words of Pastor King are a statement of reality. Peace cannot be achieved without justice and justice cannot be achieved without peace.

Israel, in the end, will not know peace without doing justice, making right what is wrong in their relationship with Palestinians. War is not the answer. Justice is. “There can be no peace without justice.”

And the United States will not have helped Israel by continuing to arm it and refusing to call for a ceasefire and taking steps toward peace.

”Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.”

Jesus

This remains true. Violence begets violence.

And Palestinians will not achieve justice by violent actions, but rather injustice will be added to injustice. The Civil Rights Movement in the United States points to a way: peaceful, sustained, active resistance. “There can be no justice without peace.”

“Let us then pursue what makes for peace.”

St. Paul

Doing justice makes for peace. Love that takes up the cross (that enters into the suffering of others rather than adding to it) makes for peace.

In our commitment to dominate others, in our commitment to our own security over others, the United States, along with Israel and the other nations of the world will keep going to war. Throughout most of our history, the United States has been at war somewhere in the world. And we have spent trillions of dollars on armament, monies that could be used for peace and for the uplift of those in need and therefore for justice.

We remain blind to what makes for peace.

So, Jesus weeps over us: “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”

Filed under: Grief, Justice, Poverty, WarTagged with: , , , ,

Gracious God, You Know Daunte Wright

Gracious God, have mercy on us. Help us. You know Daunte Wright—another Black young man killed by a White police officer. He had been stopped for an expired registration tag. You know the pain of his family, today, and are with them in their grief. They join so many other families who have had a loved one snatched from them by the actions of those called to “serve and protect.”

Gracious God, you see how we treat one another, how we hurt, maim, and kill one another. You see our addiction to guns and our powerlessness over our addiction. We call our guns our “protection,” when you alone are our Protector. We put these guns in the hands of those we have called to “protect” us, without truly acknowledging the attitudes of White supremacy and bullying that are present. We refuse to see the racism that drives so many of our actions, lethal actions, police actions.

Gracious God, you see the racism embedded in our system of policing; you see the disregard for human life, for Black life. You see our blindness to this racism that is endemic to our society and its institutions. Help us, gracious God. Enlighten the eyes of our hearts, so that we get a glimpse of what you see of our sin, our brokenness, and our dehumanizing ways, and so that we might also come to know the lavishness of your grace that liberates and transforms us.

Help us, gracious God. Give us eyes to see and, then, free us from our bondage and inaction. Help us to turn from our idolatry of race to embrace each other as sisters and brothers of one human race. Break down the hardness of our hearts toward each other and toward you who are merciful and compassionate. Help us, gracious God, to surrender our lives to you who are Love, that we might love one another as you love us.

Free us and help us, gracious God, to work for change. Help us to dismantle what is destroying us and to build what brings life. In Christ, many of us have discovered the power of dying and rising (not only rising but also dying). Help us to die in order that we might live. Help us to let go of policing as we know it. Help us to envision a life-giving way to serve and protect. Help us to be willing to do what you called the prophet, Jeremiah, to do: “to pluck up and to pull down…, to build and to plant.” Guide us by your Spirit, the spirit of love, to make right what is wrong. Amen.

Filed under: Grief, Justice, Racism, SocietyTagged with: , ,

What White Grievance Looks Like

Something is being snatched from them and it’s not just money or jobs or security or even the White House. The common refrain is a fear of an America where white privilege is challenged and whiteness as the gold standard of beauty or power or value or provenance is no longer the automatic default.

Michele L. Norris, Washngton Post

The rioting in the Capitol building was not a surprise, though the lack of security was. The mob that breached security, trashed the halls of Congress, and brought death was not a surprise given the virulent White supremacy that has supported Donald Trump and has been incited by him. That there was a noticeable “Jesus Saves” sign among protesters was not a surprise either, given the blending of White nationalist values and culture with Christian rhetoric. If we let go of our rhetoric and actually follow Jesus, we may recognize our nation’s similarities to the Roman empire that crucified Jesus. As with the Roman empire of Jesus’ time, America’s empire-building tentacles reach out globally. America’s way of doing peace (maintaining order in the empire) is not so different from the “Pax Romana.” The followers of Jesus are called to proclaim God’s reign over against the empires of this world.

Much has been made of White grievance in the news, often without unpacking the nature of the grievance. Are we surprised by the ferocity of it? Are we blind to White supremacy, not merely as an ideology, but as an attitude, expectation, and aspect of White culture? As our nation becomes more diverse on its way to becoming a nation of minorities, are we surprised by the increasing backlash, given our racist ways?

White Americans do not have to claim White supremacy or understand themselves in those terms to be supremacist. All we have to do is to think that our view of ourselves, our nation, its history, and its values are who we are as a nation. When we are able to think of this nation as our nation without really thinking about anybody else but ourselves, we are White supremacists and are likely to think of ourselves as the real Americans. Then the history of this nation that we tell is the history of our ancestors—a White history of a White nation. The history that Native Americans and African Americans tell is quite different from the history of those of us who are of European descent, and yet it is real American history. And it fills in what a White-centered history leaves out. I grew up learning from history books that were grossly incomplete and slanted. Only in receiving the history of others have I found a corrective. We must provide our children with a true and diverse history of our nation, not downplaying its sin and brutality, while, at the same time, lifting up the powerful movements for justice that largely have come from those who have been oppressed.

I remind those who call themselves Christians and who are caught up in a White nationalism: Jesus came from a subjugated and minority people in the Roman empire, and he sided with outcasts. He did not attempt to be seen as one of the “winners.” He did not side with the elite, whether their elite status was in wealth or position or in an ethnic group (being Roman). He calls all to come down from whatever perch we have put ourselves on. He tells us to lose our lives, to let go, and to follow him as he leads us out of our false allegiances to live under God’s reign and be light in the world and to love others (even our enemies) with the love of God.

Those who stormed the Capitol had no real mission or purpose. They did not come with a vision for a “more perfect union.” They came to take back America for themselves. You could hear it in their words, “This is our house.” Never mind that representatives of a great diversity of United States citizens were gathered in that place.

St. Paul wrote of grief that is godly. Some grief or grievance is ungodly. Grief that is godly, is grief that brings repentance and change. It turns away from what demeans and destroys others and works for loving transformation. It does justice, loves mercy, and walks humbly with God.

Filed under: Grief, Justice, Racism

A Drive-by Shooting and Other Senseless Acts

There was a shooting on my block this week. A drive-by shooting. Three young adults were shot. A nineteen-year-old young man died of a gunshot wound to the head, an eighteen-year-old young woman was shot in the leg and another woman of the same age received a graze wound.

It is suspected that this shooting was related to a conflict between two gangs in my neighborhood. The victims, however, had no gang affiliation; two were not from this area but were visiting the third. One of them was a student at the community college at which my son teaches. Two had been spending the afternoon doing homework at a Starbucks.

There have been other shootings on this block and in this neighborhood. And my immediate feelings, in each case, are the same: grief and helplessness. I find myself praying for the victims and their families and the perpetrator; for the young couple across the street with the small child; for my neighbors, my neighborhood, and society.

I feel the senselessness of the act. I blurted out to my wife, “What is the point?” Of course, there is no point, no purpose to evil, no reason not to love. And there is always a reason to love. There is always a purpose to love. The unconditional love of God “poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit” gives us life and purpose and binds us together. Without love, our lives fall apart.

But “not loving” takes many forms. It is not only the act of a lost, confused youth with a gun. Not loving shows itself in:

Not listening to the cries and hurts of others.
Not turning from our prejudices, fears, and resentments to truly see the other.
Not turning from our inordinate focus on our comfort and pleasure.
Not doing justice and being merciful.
Not working for change in ourselves and our society.
Not being salt, light, and yeast in our society.

I ask myself what I am called to do. One thing, of which I am clear, is that if I work for justice, I will be addressing the issue of violence. It does not matter the focus of the justice work, for justice is simply making right what is wrong. There are numerous ways to do justice: Work for fairness in education—public schools in poor neighborhoods having the same level of resources as those in rich neighborhoods. Work for criminal justice reform, voter reform, economic justice. Address the easy flow of guns into the hands of lost youth. Reach out to these youth. All these actions address the issue of violence.

Christians, in particular, are to proclaim God’s governance, in which the first are last and the last first, and those who exalt themselves are humbled and the humble exalted. We are to call others back to God, the Source of life and love. We are to turn to the Source for ourselves.

Not loving takes many forms. Taking no action in the face of hurt and need is not loving. A phrase, in a confession of sins, used in many churches is: “I confess that I have sinned by what I have done and by what I have left undone.” It is what we do not do that most manifests our not loving. Love acts! Love acts for the sake of victim and perpetrator. Love acts to bring about change in our society toward support of families, support that encourages, educates, and provides just incomes. Love acts for the healing of mental and emotional illnesses and the uplift of the “least” among us. Love does not ignore the wounded but treats the wounds and addresses that which inflicts the wounds.

Filed under: Grief, Justice, LoveTagged with: , , ,