Our hearts are heavy.
Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor these are the names that have risen to the forefront of the media exposing the evil that continues to exist in our world today. These are not all of the names we could list, but their murders force us to see change must come. And then, there is David Dorn who was killed protecting a storefront during a recent protest. Just like the unjust deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, David Dorn is not the only police officer who has been killed in the last few months.
This is why our hearts are so heavy.
As a secular journalist now turned radio preacher I struggle with how to respond to these events in light of the gospel. In 2014, I went on the radio to report a similar event in Ferguson, MO. I thought I had fairly covered both sides of the story but then I received this response from a listener:
I pray that you white men would step out of your whiteness just long enough to let your Christian heart be the filter for your comments. Invariably, you seem to assume that the white version is the right and CHRISTIAN version of a situation. How long?
When I read this I was brought to my knees. Lord, could I possibly be a racist? I don’t know if I’m a “racist” but I know I have blind spots. As a believer I need to understand what life is like for someone like Mila Edmondson:
My wife has to beg me (a grown 37-year-old-man) not to go out to Walmart at night, not because she’s afraid of the criminal element, but because she’s afraid of the police element. Because she knows that when the police see me they aren’t going to see … (the) pastor of New City Fellowship Presbyterian church. When they see me, they aren’t going to see Mika Edmondson, PhD in systematic theology. When they see me, what they’re going to see is a black man out late at night. She knows we’re getting stopped at 10 times the rate of everybody else, arrested at 26 times the rate of everybody else, and killed at 5 times the rate of everybody else.
Reading this reminded me again that I have blind spots. I live in a different world than Mika Edmondson and I was deeply grieved for those who live in this reality every day and for my country where such injustice exists.
But it doesn’t mean I have to take sides.
I equally grieve for the police officer who takes on his difficult job every day and puts his life on the line to protect others. I can weep for the officers who are protecting protestors throughout our country and are being shot down in the line of duty.
We don’t have to take sides because it’s the taking of sides, the divides, the hostility, the us-against-them that’s destroying our world. We must stand up for what is right.
We can weep with all those who weep and mourn with all those who mourn and then pray against the enemy of us all — not as last resort, but as the only hope for the world we live in. Only the Lord can wipe away our tears and reconcile us to each other. Every day the headlines prove we can’t do it ourselves. We are defeated again and again.
Only Jesus can heal our deep divides.
Psalm 13
How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing the Lord’s praise,
for he has been good to me.
As the leader of the Haven Ministries, Charles Morris is always thinking of ways to lead Christians and non-Christians to Christ—hence the familiar slogan, “Telling the great story … it’s all about Jesus.” Charles is a former secular journalist, who has worked for United Press International, and as a press secretary for two former U.S. senators. He began working in the Christian world after seminary, becoming the fourth speaker of Haven in 2000. He and his wife, Janet, have written several books, including Missing Jesus.
5 Comments
Excellently put.
True. We don’t have to choose sides. Or post a reaction to every event on social media. It’s okay to be silent.
Another thing we don’t have to do is feel guilty about things that are completely out of our control. I’m weary. I’m weary of all that’s wrong in the world. I’m also weary of people trying to make me feel responsible and guilty for all that’s wrong in the world. It’s enough. There is nothing I could have done to prevent a man I’ve never met from driving a truck into a crowd of innocent people in a place I’ve never been. All the world is not mine to fix.
You are so right to share this tragic climate of racism/hate/revenge.
thank you, as always.
Remembering that people need the Lord. We as Christians are the light of the world to lead them to the light.
Thank you for your thoughts on this issue. Many times I forget to pray for all families involved. I lift up the police officers but I forget that African Anerican families are hurting too. The world we live in is fast becoming more violent. May God continue to bring us as Christians, peace in the midst of the storm.
If we are ever going to see change for the good we all , all of us together as so called Christains need to take responsibility for our own actions and stop making excuses for what we know is wrong .
Deuteronomy 6:6-7
These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearths. Impress them on children.
Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.