The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and will save
those whose spirits are crushed. Psalm 34:18
And
really, even though I was such a nice girl whose favorite book was To Kill a Mockingbird and who was in the
first stream of white middle school kids bussed into McMinnville City School
buried in the middle of the black shanty part of town and who drank from the
brand new aluminum chilled water fountains
standing next to the rust-stained white porcelain spigots
with-barely-any-water-trickling-out labeled “colored” with paper signs and duct
tape and who even roller-skated with a black boy at the school dance once, I
never really even edged into seeing until a few years ago when I stood
next to some kiddos and parents and their
teachers in a school parking lot at
South Sixth and Drexel Road and wept.
And I forget what the
kid did, whether he shoplifted from the Circle K or talked back to the janitor
or had drugs in his backpack, but I sure saw what happened afterwards. And he
was silently hunched and handcuffed and still the cop would not let up, but
kept shoving him against the patrol car and kept yelling in his face and then
the girlfriend came running up crying and she got shoved and yanked and cuffed we
all watched. We watched and I knew that this was systematic injustice and degradation
and that this was a lecture in a long series of lectures for all of my kiddos
standing there and their mothers and fathers who already knew what is what. A
public service announcement about the way things work here in America, land of
the free.
And I saw it again and
again, once I crossed over the invisible line that runs down 22nd
Street in Tucson. And I don’t care how many cops are my friends and how kind
they are and sacrificial and willing to step into danger for community safety,
I know that there is systemic injustice and degradation.
And I hear Pastor Leonce Crump’s
prayer and plea…I want to believe that
you will rise to our
aid, and that you would agree that a silent Christian who avoids applying the
gospel to issues of injustice—though those issues may be uneasy, unclear or
politicized—upholds the very structures that purport and perpetuate injustice.
And once again I
marvel over the world net, tossed over all humanity and pulling us in together.
There are some good words that two or three of us gathered together can share
in the presence of the Almighty.
Defender of
the weak, open our eyes to the poor and marginalized in our midst. Teach us to
not just to serve the poor, but to see the poor. And may we too become poor, as
you became poor, that we all might be filled with the riches of heaven. –Jeff
Hanaan
Yeah, the world needs peacemakers tonight, Lord, who let the
broken bits of our heart fill in all the cracked pieces & places in the
world. The world needs prayer warriors who don’t see prayer as the least
we can do but the most we can do — and then literally get down on their
knees & pray us through. The world needs us to belong to each other,
to hear each other, to hurt with each other, to be kind to one
another. Kindle us with kindness, Lord, keep us with kindness, kiss us with
kindness. Please, resurrect us all with a courageous kindness that heals wounds
with a Brave Love. –Ann
Voskamp
An article
in Christianity Today quotes Crump’s
blog: I am 6’5”. I
weigh 270 pounds. I’ve been called imposing. The police have stopped me, both
walking and driving, nearly once a year since I was 15 years old. Though I have
been asked to leave my vehicle, thrown to the ground and against my vehicle,
interrogated, frisked, and cuffed on these occasions, I’ve not been cited. Not
once.
Until you feel the humiliation of this moment, particularly
as a “decent, civilized, educated black,”—Yes, that’s an actual quote of how
someone referred to me once, behind my back of course—then you cannot say that
it is an anomaly. You cannot say that someone was “just doing his or her job.”
Beyond the
problem of racism, we must see the pain that injustice inflicts.
And Ed Stetzer finishes it up: So, we must acknowledge our faults, confess our sins, repent to those
we harm, and seek reconciliation in the grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Listen, understand, acknowledge, and come along the side of those who are
hurting, bearing their burdens in love. Might we love in such a way that others see the
unconditional love of Jesus.
In our system of justice, the law has spoken. Officer Wilson
will not be charged by this grand jury, yet I hurt for the family of Michael
Brown and for many others hurting in the African American community. And,
coming from a family of NYC police and civil servants, I pray for the police
there, including Officer Wilson and his family.
There are no winners here.
Now, this moment will pass. This case will fade. Yet, real
issues still remain.
For many, this is about an incident. Yet, for many African Americans, it's about a system. It's worth listening to why
people are responding differently to the situation in Ferguson.
That's what I hope to remind us (including myself) of today.
And this
morning I can thank God for my already broken heart, very tender and gentle in
it tenderness. For our hearts must break, because our Savior’s heart breaks as
he stands on the overlooking hill, longing to gather us up in His extended arms.
And we must
join the chainbreakers and peacemakers.
And those who pray.
A literally
get down on my knees prayer.
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