Blog Posts
It Takes a Village, or Perhaps a Nation, to End this Epidemic of Gun Violence
This post was included in a collection we shared several weeks ago in response to the tragic shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX. We share it now as a stand alone piece in the hope that it will spark dialogue as our nation continues to wrestle with the epidemic of gun violence.
Yet another mass shooting in a long list of massacres that have marked an epidemic of gun violence in the U.S. Can anything be done to end this cycle of violence, and who has the power to do it? As with many other issues, Americans have been responding to these questions in vastly different ways.
Many have been insisting, rightly so, that our elected officials have the power to tame the gun lobby and limit people’s access to deadly weapons. Many politicians who have been refusing to act are quick to suggest that the blame lies elsewhere: mental illness, lax security, our failure to arm more people, etc. So much deflection, but really, who has the power to end this crisis?
The story of John the Baptist in Luke 3 offers some insights. John was ministering in the context of a very different crisis—extreme poverty in the first century—and encountered people who professed a desire to alleviate the crisis even as they were likely perpetuating it to varying degrees. They collectively asked John, “What then should we do?” The question assumes that they didn’t know what needed to be done, or that they might lack the agency to resolve the crisis.
John places the onus solely on them and highlights their agency in remedying the crisis. He asks some to give away one of their shirts or share food, others to not collect any more than what they absolutely had to, and yet others to not abuse their power in order to accumulate wealth. John’s point is that remedying a major crisis is not about making grand, abstract commitments, but about committing to specific, concrete steps.
John also suggests that everyone has agency to varying degrees. Even as John critiques people in power, he called upon individuals to undertake changes at the individual and community level. And he offers specific suggestions they can undertake within their contexts.
Many of us are rightly angry with politicians who seemingly express a commitment to end the gun violence but deflect blame during each crisis only to continue with business as usual once the public outrage abates. We should certainly hold them accountable for their failures in preventing the epidemic of gun violence, but we should also focus on our own potential complicity in perpetuating a culture of gun violence.
Specifically, there is the rampant ethos of violent imagination that stems from a culture of violence and in turn perpetuates a culture of gun violence. And we have become a nation that encourages, or at least, condones violent imagination at an early age. Recently, I was at a birthday party for my son who is eight. Many kids were passionately discussing a violent video game called Fortnite. At one point, when a kid used a cuss word, many parents were appalled but none of them, myself included, said a word about the violent imagination in which the kids were engaged.
We cannot normalize violent imagination at age eight and hope that none of it will translate into lethal violence at age eighteen. We should perhaps actively explore ways of stigmatizing anything related to gun violence. What if we respond with disgust and horror at the very mention of violent video games just as we do when we hear of a shooting incident?
While our elected officials have a moral obligation to enact stringent anti-gun laws, the rest of us too have the power to make a difference. May we not become numb to a culture of violence. May we cringe and be disgusted when we hear the words “guns” and “shooting” at birthday parties, schoolyards, and playdates.
Yes, it takes a village, or perhaps a nation, to end this epidemic of gun violence.
Dr. Raj Nadella
Raj Nadella is the Samuel A. Cartledge Associate Professor of New Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary. His research and teaching interests include postcolonial biblical interpretation, migration and New Testament perspectives on economic justice and their ethical implications for the Church and society. He is the author of Dialogue Not Dogma: Many Voices in the Gospel of Luke (T&T Clark, 2011) and an area editor for Oxford Bibliographies Online: Biblical Studies. He is the co-author of Postcolonialism and the Bible and co-editor of Christianity and the Law of Migration, both forthcoming in 2021. He has written for publications such as the Huffington Post, Christian Century and Working Preacher.
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
Uvalde: Church Anew Writers Respond
Photo by Jose Alonso on Unsplash
Following the horrific shootings at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX we invited our contributors to share their thoughts and wrestle with the continuing epidemic of mass shootings in America. We pray their words guide you in your own lament and push us all to consider how we might be part of writing a new more peaceful future.
Sincerely,
The Church Anew Team
Acts 1:1-11 in Uvalde
Eric D. Barreto
Associate Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary
I wonder how the disciples felt.
They walked with their friend and heard him bless the poor, saw him heal the sick.
They found themselves confounded by his hard teachings about a kingdom of the weeping and stories about an unjust judge. They were uplifted by the words he spoke.
And so they had hoped. They had hoped he would deliver them from the weight of grief and death and loss and conquest and demonic forces. They had hoped for life in the midst of death. They had hoped for freedom in the shadow of an empire.
And then their hopes were dashed. Their friend was arrested and killed. Empire flexed its muscles and its most terrible weapon. Their hope was no more. Their hope died on a Roman cross, a sacrifice to empire’s arrogant power.
I wonder how they felt.
When he was with them once again. When his scars matched their grief. When they felt their hopes rising again, though perhaps more tentatively than before. Maybe this time things will be different, they might have thought
I wonder how they felt.
When they saw him lifted into the skies. When he promised they would receive a gift from God.
But, most of all, I wonder how they felt when he told them they would be his witnesses to the ends of the earth.
I worry that too many of us have made a mistake: a witness is not a spectator. There is a difference between bearing witness and looking on to a scene as an onlooker. There is a difference between the kind of witness that enters the pain of a hurting world and a spectator who gawks from a distance.
Witness is a high calling; often it is a burden. For witnesses to the ends of the earth will see stunning instances of God’s expansive grace but also crushing visions of death’s cruel rule.
I wonder how they felt.
I wonder how they felt when their feet were pointed out to the ends of the earth, about to strive through an unjust world, a world riven by empire and warfare and death. I wonder how they felt when only 120 of them were called to proclaim a kingdom that promises to set right an upside-down world.
I wonder if it felt like a hard-won hope, a hope honed by the realities of death and loss, a hope that had been dashed over and over again, a hope that persists not because we choose to be naive but because God has made a promise. And because God has made a promise then we cannot stay in one place gazing into the heavens waiting for Jesus to return. No, we are called to be witnesses to a kingdom we can barely begin to imagine, one where death and violence and grief are no more. One where the weapons of war give way to the generosity of God’s grace.
I wonder how they felt. I wonder how they felt taking that first step into a world so familiar yet so strange.
Perhaps they wondered if they could really believe that this time would be different. Perhaps they wondered if life would once and for all conquer death. They had seen it happen once before.
Could it really happen again?
A Little Life After a School Shooting, a Mother’s Prayer
Angela Denker
Minnesota Pastor and Veteran Journalist
God,
He came from you to me.
Tiny, writhing, mouth open wide in a primal scream.
I remember the first time he blinked.
Eyes staring up into mine.
“I’m here.”
“I need you.”
Instinct merged with anxiety
Those first long hours
Then days
And chaotic, screaming nights
Exhaustion curled up together on the dark green couch
He fit next to me cozily, molded against my stomach like clay
Where he once had all he needed
I couldn’t put him back in
He got bigger
Huge
2 then 4 then 6 then 8
Big snow boots stomping off
Kindergarten and recess
And COVID lockdowns
He gave me morning hugs
He ate so many little bags of Goldfish crackers
I sent him back gingerly
He leapt onto the football field
He dashed around the playground
He laughed uproariously with his friends
He ate three pieces of pizza
The torn-up toes of his worn shoes flapped in the wind
The snow melted and the rain fell
He pulled up his hood and walked to school, unafraid
He’s only 21 inches taller
Than an AR-15, stood on its end
A little life can’t outlast
A little bullet
Propelled by the latest technology
And a country’s bloodlust
And our leaders’ cold calculations
Of little lobbyists and big donations
So many little bullets
Sprayed out over little lives
Little lives that are no more
No more backpacks or books
No more school drop offs or pickups
Just casings on the ground
All we have left
Of little lives
I wanted him to make 3-pointers
I wanted to go to his piano recital
I wanted to send him to college
And cry alone under the covers when he was gone
Proud. So proud.
I wanted to dance with him, poorly, on his wedding day.
To music I didn’t know.
And smile as he laughed again.
Mostly, though.
I wanted the little things.
End-of-school picnics.
Slip-n-slides.
Popsicles melting down his chin.
Letting me smooth petroleum jelly on his scrapes.
Hugging me.
With two arms.
Ma .. ma
Mama
Mommy
Mom
Mom
Mom
I wanted so much for him
And so little
A childhood
Books
Games
Gloves
Tests
Tennis shoes
Lemonade
Long legs
A little life
A little boy
Please, God
Let him grow old
Let him have
His little life
AMEN
Poem inspired by John 10:10
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
I Believe the Children
Luke Powery
Dean, Duke University Chapel and Associate Professor of Homiletics at Duke Divinity School
“I believe the children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside
Give them a sense of pride to make it easier
Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be”—from “Greatest Love of All,” sung by Whitney Houston
We don’t believe the children are our future when we kill them in the present in their elementary schools, robbing them of innocent laughter and flourishing lives. When we live in one nation under guns, we can’t see the beauty inside the victims nor victimizers. This violent, virulent ugliness is not of God but reveals how many bow at the throne of the trigger and inhumane evil at the expense of others, especially children.
This is nothing new. At the time of the New Testament, children of the Greco-Roman world were held in low esteem, lacking status, being vulnerable, and socially and physically powerless. Some estimates are that half of 1st century ancient near eastern children died before their 16th birthday. They were there but not there for long in presence, voice or perspective.
Even the disciples of Jesus are dismissive towards children because we learn in the Gospel of Mark that when “people were bringing the little children to [Jesus] in order that he might touch them,” “the disciples spoke sternly to them” (Mark 10:13). Sometimes, many times, followers of Jesus miss the mark, too, when it comes to the role of children in the world. To scold the people who bring children to Jesus for a blessing is a sign of how we can dismiss children. It’s not enough that we never hear their voices in the Gospel of Mark or that we sometimes get antsy if they make too much noise in a church service, the disciples have to scold the constructive attempt to bless them.
In contrast to the mores of his day and also the impulses of his own disciples, Jesus says, “Let the children come” (Mark 10:14). Jesus is a child advocate extraordinaire. He responds to his followers and doesn’t want the children to stop coming to him. He welcomes them and holds them up as models for the kingdom. Jesus then goes one step further. “He took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them” (Mark 10:16). Jesus literally, “blesses fervently.” It’s an intense force signifying his intense love for children. One translation says Jesus “hugged the children.” If so, his hugging is a form of holy resistance to hate-filled violence against children.
We need to follow the way of Jesus. He embraces children as a sign of his own self-identification with the least of these (Mark 9:33-37). He reveals that how we treat children is an indication of what we think about God and who God is and how close we are to God.
We need to imagine and re-imagine what it means to be a child because welcoming children is a way of welcoming the Christ Child into our midst. We need to “Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be,” as Whitney Houston sings, or as poet Michael Coffey writes, “Take our sticky adult minds and thin our thick thoughts until our flowing childhood wonder returns at every cricket and we are moved by every chocolate kiss…”
Our treatment of children is a test of the truth of our faith—a faith in the God who came into the world as a child. If we hate and kill children, we hate God and our life is a lie.
It Takes a Village, or Perhaps A Nation, to End this Epidemic of Gun Violence
Raj Nadella
Associate Professor of New Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary
Yet another mass shooting in a long list of massacres that have marked an epidemic of gun violence in the U.S. Can anything be done to end this cycle of violence, and who has the power to do it? As with many other issues, Americans have been responding to these questions in vastly different ways.
Many have been insisting, rightly so, that our elected officials have the power to tame the gun lobby and limit people’s access to deadly weapons. Many politicians who have been refusing to act are quick to suggest that the blame lies elsewhere: mental illness, lax security, our failure to arm more people, etc. So much deflection, but really, who has the power to end this crisis?
The story of John the Baptist in Luke 3 offers some insights. John was ministering in the context of a very different crisis—extreme poverty in the first century—and encountered people who professed a desire to alleviate the crisis even as they were likely perpetuating it to varying degrees. They collectively asked John, “What then should we do?” The question assumes that they didn’t know what needed to be done, or that they might lack the agency to resolve the crisis.
John places the onus solely on them and highlights their agency in remedying the crisis. He asks some to give away one of their shirts or share food, others to not collect any more than what they absolutely had to, and yet others to not abuse their power in order to accumulate wealth. John’s point is that remedying a major crisis is not about making grand, abstract commitments, but about committing to specific, concrete steps.
John also suggests that everyone has agency to varying degrees. Even as John critiques people in power, he called upon individuals to undertake changes at the individual and community level. And he offers specific suggestions they can undertake within their contexts.
Many of us are rightly angry with politicians who seemingly express a commitment to end the gun violence but deflect blame during each crisis only to continue with business as usual once the public outrage abates. We should certainly hold them accountable for their failures in preventing the epidemic of gun violence, but we should also focus on our own potential complicity in perpetuating a culture of gun violence.
Specifically, there is the rampant ethos of violent imagination that stems from a culture of violence and in turn perpetuates a culture of gun violence. And we have become a nation that encourages, or at least, condones violent imagination at an early age. Recently, I was at a birthday party for my son who is eight. Many kids were passionately discussing a violent video game called Fortnite. At one point, when a kid used a cuss word, many parents were appalled but none of them, myself included, said a word about the violent imagination in which the kids were engaged.
We cannot normalize violent imagination at age eight and hope that none of it will translate into lethal violence at age eighteen. We should perhaps actively explore ways of stigmatizing anything related to gun violence. What if we respond with disgust and horror at the very mention of violent video games just as we do when we hear of a shooting incident?
While our elected officials have a moral obligation to enact stringent anti-gun laws, the rest of us too have the power to make a difference. May we not become numb to a culture of violence. May we cringe and be disgusted when we hear the words “guns” and “shooting” at birthday parties, schoolyards, and playdates.
Yes, it takes a village, or perhaps a nation, to end this epidemic of gun violence.
Lamentations in the Night
Char Rachuy Cox
Program Director for Congregational Thriving at St. Olaf College
Like many of you,
I found myself unable to sleep last night.
My heart literally ached within my chest.
My thoughts could not be stilled.
The images in my mind’s eye
Played like an unending,
Ever-expanding reel -
On repeat.
The news images from Uvalde
Intermingled in my memory
With those of Buffalo
And Parkland
And George Floyd
And Mother Immanuel
And Sandy Hook
And Breonna Taylor
And San Bernardino
And Aurora
And Ahmaud Arbery
And on, and on and on …
An idolatrous love of violence
That invades
And pervades
And degrades.
In the deep of the night,
I recalled another time of
Tragedy
And violence
And loss –
That time it was poignant and personal –
Painful in its particularity -
Holding my dearest friend in my arms
As the sobs rose from within her
Like bitter incense
When her son was murdered by police –
And last night,
In remembering that night -
I felt again her sorrow,
And I wondered who was holding
The parents of murdered children
Amid the strangling sobs of this night.
I found myself hoping –
And wanting to trust –
But not completely believing that it was so –
Hoping –
That the Spirit was indeed interceding
And pleading
Amid the bleeding
And the grieving
But wondering –
Wondering –
If perhaps,
Amid our own collective, cultural obstinance
That the Spirit has taken a sabbatical,
Turned God’s back -
And left us to live with –
And continue to die with –
Our choices,
Our idolatry,
And our inaction.
But then,
I believe –
(statement of faith) –
That the Spirit whose presence –
And providence –
I was questioning,
Prompted me to turn
To the only place within our Sacred text
That my heart –
In the deepness of the night,
In the depth of despair –
Was open to both
Voicing and hearing,
Uttering and understanding –
Lamentations.
While I know that these words
First arose from a past-tense-time
And amid a past-tense
Profound circumstance
And need –
They both spoke to me
And for me –
Amid this present-tense sorrow.
How lonely sits the city…
She weeps bitterly in the night,
with tears on her cheeks….
When her people fell into the hand of the foe,
and there was no one to help her,
the foe looked on mocking
over her downfall….
O Lord, look at my affliction,
for the enemy has triumphed….
Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?
My children are desolate,
for the enemy has prevailed.
On and on I read,
And as I read,
My tears
And my anger
And my sorrow
And my helplessness
Mingled with the generations
Upon generations
Of voices
that rise in lamentation
and supplication
amid that which is beyond
comprehension,
beyond control,
beyond consolation.
And as I found
Not necessarily comfort –
But shadows on the edges of solidarity –
In the echoes of these ancient words,
I came once again
And anew
Upon an assurance that
Has sustained me at other times
Of confusion,
Sorrow,
Grief
And disbelief:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
God’s mercies never come to an end;
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness….
Therefore I will hope.
God is faithful;
Therefore, I will hope.
I.
Will.
Hope.
I will hope in the comfort of God
For all who grieve.
I will hope in the strength of God
For all who suffer.
I will hope in the restoring power of God
For all who are despairing.
And I will hope for the people of God
To take up space on this earth
That does not destroy,
But that gives life.
I will hope that the fire of the Spirit
Will fall again from heaven –
Fill us,
Move us to repentance,
Stir us from our complacency,
Blow through us
On the rush of a mighty wind –
And provoke us to act.
I will hope that prayers will rise up
In an embodied defiance
Of words-become-deeds
That value life more than weapons of war.
I will hope that God –
The Author and Giver of Life –
Will compel in us
A will
And a resolve
To cast out
Faux outrage
And cast off
Fear –
So that
Hope becomes more than wish.
Peace becomes more than a possibility.
And life abundant edges out
A resignation that
The way things are
Is the way things have to be.
Because we do
Trust and believe
(statement of faith)
That Jesus does make all things new.
God is faithful;
Therefore,
I will hope.
I.
Will.
Hope.
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
Images of Love, Hope, and Unity Surround Kenosha
'Love is the answer' painted on plywood walls in Kenosha, Wisconsin, photographed by Veronica King.
Ugly tan plywood appeared on windows around the city of Kenosha in the aftermath of the shooting of Jacob Blake on August 23, as the city braced for protests and potential damage to property. In response, a group called Kenosha Creative Space came up with the idea of encouraging residents of the city to paint the plywood with the themes of Love, Hope, and Unity, and soon, what was an idea became a reflection of a city grappling with violence responding in a way that did not diminish the pain, but insisted on a better future.
Veronica King was one Kenosha resident who loved the result. As King drove around the city, she noticed how many of the images contained scripture passages and she began to photograph them and share them on Facebook as part of her work with Congregations to Serve Humanity (CUSH), an Interfaith organization in Kenosha where she is Vice President. “This is one way to help begin the healing of our community,” says King, describing the messages and images of hope.
Another part of healing came through an Interfaith prayers service held at Second Baptist Church of Kenosha on Sunday afternoon outside of one of the churches that is a member of CUSH. On a sunny, warm afternoon, religious leaders from Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Episcopal Baptist, and other traditions gathered outdoors at a safe social distance to offer prayers of hope and show interfaith solidarity in this difficult time in their community.
CUSH is focused on love and healing but also on acknowledging the persistence of racism that afflicts the city. In a statement on their website they also insist that prayers are not enough and the time is now to act:
We know that hopes and prayers are not enough to stop a speeding bullet or to counteract centuries’ worth of systemic racism and the calculated oppression of our siblings of color so ubiquitous in this nation’s history that many of the privileged among us still do not recognize it even exists. We know that in addition to the hope of our hearts and the prayers of our souls we must act.
“We can live peacefully and safely if we work together, to work through our differences, get rid of systemic racism and have a strategic plan to move forward,” King further explained, emphasizing that CUSH is working with the Mayor’s office along with the Chief of Police and other community leaders to help bring the faith voice, and increased diversity to the committees that are being formed to address racism and to heal the city.
Veronica King brings her own history as a community leader to the effort as the former local NAACP chapter president, as well as her history as a social worker, a profession she decided upon when she was 10 years old and had a dedicated social worker who would check on her monthly at her foster home. King’s work with faith communities started with her own foster parents who were active in their church who offered her “Footing and my grounding."
Even as people come from the outside, eager to disrupt with a rhetoric of division and acts of violence, Veronica King and so many other residents in the Interfaith and artistic communities are working hard to fight against racial injustice and heal Kenosha with hope, love, and unity.
This post originally appeared on IFYC.org, September 1, 2020, and is used with permission.
Religious leaders of diverse faiths offer prayers and reflections at the CUSH Interfaith prayer service held at the Second Baptist Church of Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Messages of peace painted on walls around Kenosha, Wisconsin
Messages of hope painted on walls around Kenosha, Wisconsin
#KenoshaStrong painted on a banner hangs over the ruins of a building, and another painted wall portrays a message from scriptures.
An MLK quote and messages of peace and love are painted on walls around Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Scriptures quoted on walls around Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Scripture quotes and message of strength and resilience painted around Kenosha, Wisconsin
Paintings of Love, Unity, Justice, painted on brick walls around Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Paintings of love and hope around Kenosha, Wisconsin
Black Lives Matter and messages of unity painted on plywood walls around Kenosha, Wisconsin
Paintings of love and peace around Kenosha, Wisconsin
Paintings of love and equality on plywood walls around Kenosha, Wisconsin
Messages of the power of love painted on plywood walls across Kenosha, Wisconsin
Paul Raushenbush
Paul Raushenbush is Senior Advisor for Public Affairs and Innovation at IFYC (Interfaith Youth Core) promoting a narrative of positive pluralism in America, while researching and developing cutting edge interfaith leadership. He is the Editor of Interfaith America.
Facebook | @raushenbush
Twitter | @raushenbush
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
We Are Not Samaritans
We’re less effective when we imagine ourselves as heroes helping others rather than building accountable relationships.
How the Good Samaritan parable challenges privilege and promotes authentic relationships.
All our lives, we’ve “known” what the parable of the Good Samaritan means: followers of Jesus are called to help our neighbors. All our neighbors. We are to observe the Samaritan, then “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10:37).
Of course we should help our neighbors, and without discrimination. But our familiar way of understanding the Samaritan has its problems. It overlooks basic elements of the famous parable and carries spiritual dangers.
Several aspects of the parable should point us away from putting ourselves in the Samaritan’s place. First, the parable occurs in a larger passage, Luke 10:25-37. The scene presents an interchange between Jesus and a lawyer, presumably someone especially well-trained in the law of Israel, perhaps even a professional scribe. The conversation is hostile. The lawyer does not seek wisdom from Jesus. Instead, Luke tells us, he wants to “test” or “examine” Jesus: “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Second, Jesus perceives what kind of conversation he’s in. He does not answer the lawyer’s question but turns the question back on the lawyer: “You know the law. What do you think?” When the lawyer replies that we are to love God with our whole selves and our neighbor as ourselves, Jesus affirms his answer. Things should be fine now.
But things are not fine. Jesus has just embarrassed the lawyer by exposing his insincerity. His question was hostile. “Seeking to justify himself,” we’re told, the lawyer can’t leave things alone. He seeks to save face: “So who is my neighbor?”
Remember that Jesus did not answer the lawyer’s first question. He won’t answer the second either. Instead, Jesus tells a story in which “a certain man” – could be any one of us – falls victim and lies in dire need of help. Neither a priest nor a Levite stops to help, but a Samaritan does. Scholars debate how much animosity we should read into the relationship between Jews and Samaritans. It might not matter. The point is, the help came not from a Jew but from a potential adversary with questionable worship practices. The “certain man” – could be any one of us – needed help, and it came from a (clutches pearls) Samaritan.
Jesus springs the trap, again rejecting the lawyer’s question. Jesus tosses a second question to the lawyer: “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” (10:36). Jesus has reversed the terms of the conversation. The lawyer thought of a neighbor as someone who needed help. Jesus tells a story about a neighbor who does the helping. Grudgingly, the lawyer acknowledges defeat: the neighbor is the one who showed mercy. Now Jesus closes the conversation: “Go and do likewise.”
Our standard take on the Samaritan is dangerous because it puts us in the lawyer’s seat, the seat of assumed privilege. Like the lawyer, we also ask: “Who is my neighbor?” We mean well, but our question assumes that we’re always the ones who can help, and we know what kind of help to give. If we’re honest, we’ll confess that asking to whom we’re obligated helps reflects an assumption of social superiority.
Notice how Jesus’ response to the lawyer rejects that assumption. It puts Jesus’ hearers in the position of the man who needed help. “A certain man” was headed down the road, attacked by bandits, and left to die. If we could see ourselves as that “certain man,” we’d be glad for any neighbor we could get.
These days lots of us white people are wanting to help. The killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, followed by protests in the streets and ensuring political turmoil, has pricked our consciences and moved us to action. I can’t speak for you, but the weight of our racial history and of my privilege weighs heavily on me. I want to know what I can do.
Unguided, an urgent desire to help can lead us out of line. Last week Chad Sanders, who is black, wrote “I Don’t Need Love Texts from My White Friends: I Need Them to Fight Anti-Blackness.” Having sent four such text messages to friends last week, and not knowing for sure how my friends felt about it, I felt the sting.
At a recent protest here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, my family and I noticed something odd. Certain white people boldly confronted the police, taking vocal and up-front roles. I’m sure they meant well, but I wonder if those white people had asked their black and brown neighbors how they might best support the protests, whether their provocative behavior endangered other protesters, and how much their behavior was calling attention to themselves rather than to the cause.
The message comes from all corners: when it comes to race, those of us who are white help best by showing up, listening, and doing what we’re asked. Showing up means more than simply checking in at events. It means entering into relationships of accountability, eating and playing together, building the kinds of friendships where someone will tell us the truth about ourselves when it’s called for. More than anything else, our society needs authentic solidarity, not just transactional participation.
Dan Jurman is executive director of the Office of Advocacy and Reform in Pennsylvania and a doctoral student at Lancaster Theological Seminary. Dan’s research shows the churches want to help poor people, but we do it transactionally. We ask them to come to our buildings and our charities where they receive food, clothing, or other kinds of support. What really builds the bridge out of poverty, Dan argues, are long-term relationships, the kinds congregations build when they help resettle refugees. We’re less effective when we imagine ourselves helping other people rather than building accountable relationships.
Should Christians help people who are hurting? Of course. But the Good Samaritan parable is designed to prevent us from imagining ourselves as the heroes of the story. If we can flip the script, acknowledging that we need neighbors rather than discerning whom to bless with our kindness, we’ll be far more prepared to “Go and do likewise.”
Greg Carey
Greg Carey is Professor of New Testament at Lancaster Theological Seminary and an active layperson in the United Church of Christ. His books include studies of apocalyptic literature, the parables, the Gospel of Luke, and the ethics of biblical interpretation. His most recent books are Stories Jesus Told: How to Read a Parable and Using Our Outside Voice: Public Biblical Interpretation. In addition to serving on multiple editorial boards, Greg chairs the Professional Conduct Committee of the Society of Biblical Literature and serves on the Leadership Team of the Open and Affirming Coalition of the United Church of Christ.
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Photo submitted by George Carey
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
Injustice after Injustice
Coronavirus and violence are not just one thing after another for anyone, but especially for people of color.
People are hurting. George Floyd’s murder. COVID-19 deaths. Violence. What does all of this mean?
Just as the national coronavirus death toll passes 100,000, with workers and small business owners at the brink of ruin, the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers sparks massive protests around the country. White nationalists infiltrate the protests, and shocking violence erupts.
Some of us, especially we who are white, experience it as a one-two punch. As if a pandemic and violence against black people have nothing to do with one another. As if we are massively unlucky.
People are sure enough hurting. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll suggests that half of Americans say the pandemic is harming their mental health, while calls to a federal emergency hotline spiked 1000 percent in April. In response to the killing, the protests, and the violence we might say, “It’s just one thing after another.”
But didn’t Jesus say something about demons coming in packs?
“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but it finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ When it comes, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So will it be also with this evil generation.”
(Matthew 12:43-45, NRSV)
What if the coronavirus and violence against African Americans are demonic teammates? What if it’s not just “one thing after another,” but a revelatory moment?
Coronavirus statistics are notoriously slippery, but it’s beyond doubt that black and brown Americans suffer disproportionately from the pandemic. African Americans are dying from the coronavirus at nearly twice the rate of other Americans. And it’s not just health: African Americans are disproportionately hurt by the economic fallout. They’re more likely to have lost jobs or businesses in the past few months.
The coronavirus is “a racial pandemic within a viral pandemic,” in the words of Ibram X. Kendi. The coronavirus is new, but adverse health outcomes for black and brown people are not. The life expectancy gap between neighboring communities can range over thirty years, a discrepancy often tied to race. The pandemic’s effects on black and brown communities uncover a violence woven into the fiber of our society.
Likewise, George Floyd’s death reminds us of the violence our culture inflicts upon black and brown people. “This is nothing new,” the Rev. Dr. Melvin Baber told Friendship Baptist Church in York, PA, this past Sunday. If we’re alarmed by violence in Minneapolis and other cities like the one where I live, Dr. King would remind us: the violence was here long before people took to the streets. For those of us who don’t suffer racialized violence, the protests bring to our attention a deep violence long present. Truly, the violence is nothing new.
Michael Curry, the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, drew the connection between one demon and another in a Sunday column.
I look at searing images of racialized violence across our country—against the backdrop of the disproportionate number of Covid-19 victims who are black, brown and native—and I cannot help but notice love’s profound and tragic absence.
Let’s face it. Jesus’s warning about packs of demons jars our modern ears. We may or may not believe in literal demons. I don’t pretend to understand the whole of Jesus’ logic. But I’m a natural problem solver, and not in a good way. Faced with a painful situation, I look for a quick fix: a pithy response or a simple change of perspective. It’s taken most of my life to see this in myself. And anyone close to me can tell you I haven’t overcome the tendency.
Quick fixes rarely hold for long. The structural racism that has shaped our culture and continues to inflict violence upon black and brown people amounts to a whole knotty pack of vicious demons. All the things are related. The housing, the educational opportunities, the policing and the courts, and the health care system, even the zoning codes—the demonic infests all these systems in murderous ways.
Many of us, most of us white, want the quick fix. If we could just cast out the demon of George Floyd’s murder, maybe we can limp ahead another day or another week until the next thing pops up. That’s the voice of privilege that fails to account for racism’s systemic violence. We’ve gone beyond single exorcisms.
Jesus’ strange saying concludes with sociopolitical commentary. “So will it be also with this evil generation.” Day by day, year by year, generation by generation, we have inflicted grievous wounds upon ourselves and especially upon African Americans and other minorities. At times we’ve all but blown the society apart. Yet somehow the opportunity remains for a massive exorcism. That’s the situation that confronts “this evil generation” today.
Greg Carey
Greg Carey is Professor of New Testament at Lancaster Seminary. His publications include numerous studies on the Book of Revelation and ancient apocalyptic literature, rhetorical analysis of the New Testament, and investigations of early Christian self-definition.
Greg serves as co-chair of the Rhetoric and the New Testament Section of the Society of Biblical Literature, and he has appeared in documentaries on the BBC, Discovery Channel, and National Geographic Channel, and most recently the 2011 BBC One documentary, "The Story of Jesus."
Facebook | @gregc666
Twitter | @Greg_Carey
Facebook | @LancasterTheologicalSeminary
Twitter | @LancSem
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.