Sunday I preached on the good Samaritan and loving your neighbor.
This morning while taking my walk I crossed paths with a neighbor who has recently lost his wife. I already saw him right after she died, on my street, which was amazing as well. I had been wondering if he is still working in the cemetery where I walk, and today he was driving a tractor cleaning the roads. So that answered my question, and I was able to talk to him about his grief.
This encounter made me late to lunch with some supporters of Roger's ministry, but seemed like a good example of not passing by the person in need, as the priest does in the good Samaritan story.
Then on my way back from lunch I saw another neighbor from my church I have been meaning to text since Sunday but hadn't yet. Good timing because he was leaving town and I know to pray for his trip and we set up an appointment for Sunday.
Next I had to take a young woman from church to get her birth control shot. She needs this, she is already raising three children with no resources, and her current boyfriend is not their father. As I drove her to the appointment, I didn't realize we were going to Planned Parenthood.
I had kind of a visceral reaction to having to go in the building. Years ago I accompanied a friend for an abortion, and I'll never forget the MARRIED woman who after aborting her baby said, "That was easy, why does anyone have children?" Although I would have not chosen an abortion personally, I could understand my friend choosing one at that point in her young life, but I could not understand that people who were married would be irresponsible enough not to use birth control then to abort an inconvenient baby, and probably do it again.
Now here I was, across the hall from the "Surgical Center." Next to me in the clinic room lay magazines, in particular, Seventeen. How sad that so many teens are sexually active and either want abortions or require birth control. I prayed while sitting there, not quite sure why God put this experience in my day, but wanting to be obedient. May God use even this for God's glory.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Monday, July 15, 2013
My Stand
Saturday night when I went to bed I checked my phone and saw an email from the NAACP asking me to sign a petition related to the acquittal of George Zimmerman. That's how I found out. From there I logged onto Facebook and saw the proliferation of responses on my news feed. It took me awhile to get to sleep.
The next morning at church 86% of churches did not address this issue. I was one of those pastors. Not because I didn't want to talk about it, but because I still didn't know what to say. Yet this issue loomed in my heart all morning, and I appreciated worshiping with my more black than white church.
It's taken me a couple of days to process and decide what to say in response. In two weeks I am preaching on race, so while I'm behind, this will be addressed. I can't just ignore it.
When I look at my Facebook news feed, I get a pretty good picture of our nation on this. As someone else explained, black people take this as a pattern, while white people take it as an isolated incident, which is pretty much the difference between the races and justice issues all the time, as illustrated in Divided by Faith by Michael Emerson and Christian Smith.
Some of my white friends and family just don't get the problem, the defendant was acquitted, move on. Let me say that two years ago I sat on a jury for a young man accused of murders, two separate scenarios. Our jury found him guilty of one, and not of the other. In talking to the police afterward, they felt confident he committed both. But the evidence as presented left reasonable doubt, and they understood why we chose the way we did. The responsibility of deciding someone's fate feels pretty overwhelming. So unlike some folks, I won't vilify the jury, I don't think the case was presented clearly enough under the laws of Florida for them to make a good decision. We can't go back and fix that.
However we need to bring systemic changes to our system. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal about racial profiling in New York City shows that the NYPD stopped more young black males than live there. Books like Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow show that blacks have been criminalized for crimes to a level that means fewer black men can vote now that before voting laws changed. These are the realities that the black community lives with daily.
We just sent five teens and our youth worker on bicycles from Cincinnati to Niagara Falls. Yes, literally, they rode their bikes 550 miles. What an accomplishment! I couldn't be prouder of all of them. Yet these same young men could easily be racially profiled and fall victim to the same treatment Trayvon Martin and so many others have suffered.
Many of my friends and family comment on the great work that Roger and I do in our ministry. We appreciate that affirmation. We hope we are doing what God called us to. And we cannot minister in the black community and ignore these issues. So don't praise me for my work, then chastise me for taking a stand. I can do no other.
The next morning at church 86% of churches did not address this issue. I was one of those pastors. Not because I didn't want to talk about it, but because I still didn't know what to say. Yet this issue loomed in my heart all morning, and I appreciated worshiping with my more black than white church.
It's taken me a couple of days to process and decide what to say in response. In two weeks I am preaching on race, so while I'm behind, this will be addressed. I can't just ignore it.
When I look at my Facebook news feed, I get a pretty good picture of our nation on this. As someone else explained, black people take this as a pattern, while white people take it as an isolated incident, which is pretty much the difference between the races and justice issues all the time, as illustrated in Divided by Faith by Michael Emerson and Christian Smith.
Some of my white friends and family just don't get the problem, the defendant was acquitted, move on. Let me say that two years ago I sat on a jury for a young man accused of murders, two separate scenarios. Our jury found him guilty of one, and not of the other. In talking to the police afterward, they felt confident he committed both. But the evidence as presented left reasonable doubt, and they understood why we chose the way we did. The responsibility of deciding someone's fate feels pretty overwhelming. So unlike some folks, I won't vilify the jury, I don't think the case was presented clearly enough under the laws of Florida for them to make a good decision. We can't go back and fix that.
However we need to bring systemic changes to our system. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal about racial profiling in New York City shows that the NYPD stopped more young black males than live there. Books like Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow show that blacks have been criminalized for crimes to a level that means fewer black men can vote now that before voting laws changed. These are the realities that the black community lives with daily.
We just sent five teens and our youth worker on bicycles from Cincinnati to Niagara Falls. Yes, literally, they rode their bikes 550 miles. What an accomplishment! I couldn't be prouder of all of them. Yet these same young men could easily be racially profiled and fall victim to the same treatment Trayvon Martin and so many others have suffered.
Many of my friends and family comment on the great work that Roger and I do in our ministry. We appreciate that affirmation. We hope we are doing what God called us to. And we cannot minister in the black community and ignore these issues. So don't praise me for my work, then chastise me for taking a stand. I can do no other.
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