War on Christmas

While they were there, the time came for Mary to have her baby. She gave birth to her firstborn child, a son, wrapped him snugly, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the guestroom. - Luke 2:6-7

I don't know if y'all feel it, but this year is just hitting hard.

What I'm really feeling right now the constant, unending, and brutal justification of violence in our country, and I have never felt further away from the Christmas story.

And then there was this:



If you didn't watch the video here's the pertinent quote:

"I just want to point out that there had been these protests in Times Square, right outside of our building here for the last week or so, since the non-indictment came down in the Ferguson situation. So, I mean, I certainly hope nothing is going to happen here in New York City today, and we've got the tree lighting ceremony."

 I hope nothing is going to happen... We've got the tree lighting ceremony

If there has ever been a war on Christmas, it has been the slow, purposeful stripping away of other's humanity.
The very reason we celebrate Christmas is because of the glory of the God-with-Us.
Emmanuel.
God made flesh.
We celebrate because in the midst of all of the chaos of the world, in the midst of our pain and suffering, God came bursting into life, crying, irritated, and in need of mother's milk.
Jesus being born into the world is about more than a birthday. It is the surest message from God that our lives matter. Our pain matters. Our flesh matters.
The central message of the Christmas story is that our humanity matters to God.

And yet, with another non-indictment in the killing of yet another black American, the response from major news sources, white Christians, and others has been the callous disregard for human life.

Remember an indictment just means that something will go to trial. So to not indict means that there is NO evidence to suggest any wrong doing whatsoever. Not even a question.

In the case of rioting, with shops being burnt, there were calls for the heads of those doing the rioting. There was condemnation of those practicing peaceful protests, but rarely was there anyone white or in the media looking to understand why. Why it is that people protest, why it is that some people riot. Because the conclusion that most white people and most people in the media came to was that

property ranks higher than black lives.

Gosh, I just hope black people don't protest the non-inictment of Eric Garner's killer in NYC. It would really be just terrible to ruin Christmas.

That mentality, the one that places things above people; the one that justifies the killing of one person because they supposedly sold individual cigarettes instead of being licensed to sell the whole pack; the one that says your pain is not worth my time. The one that says every time some one who looks like you dies, no matter if they weren't armed, no matter if they weren't actually a threat, no matter if they were in an accident and looking for help, no matter if they are an adult or a child, they deserved to die.

That is the war on Christmas.

Because it is antithetical to everything God set out to do.
And when I sit down with my family this year to celebrate the birth of Christ, I know this to be true more than ever: We need God. We need Christmas. We need a win.

Black lives matter to God. Eric Garner mattered to God. When people are upset by the lack of justice, or the lack of an admittance of wrong-doing in cases like Eric Garner, and our first response is to focus on how their pain inconveniences us. We walk away from Christ. We walk away from God. And I guarantee you, we do not get an invitation to the manger.

I am tired of the phony, pathetic excuses we make. I am tired of the mantra of the war on Christmas because I know 9 times out of 10 that war is a weak excuse to distract us from the real threats to Christmas.
I am tired of this sinfulness, and I know there are many people who have felt this for far longer than I have, who've lived it more deeply and experienced it more intimately.

This year I'm doing something about it and I hope you'll join me. I'll start with a prayer:

O Lord, anytime we make an excuse for the death of another human being, or anytime we place a pretty tree above someone else's pain, God, remind us that people like Eric Garner matter to you. Remind us that Jesus was born into this world for Eric's pain. Remind us that Jesus shares in his suffering. Remind us of what Jesus was born for, that on Christmas morning, Jesus was brought into this world to know what it is like to die Eric's death. Forgive us for our sin of hatred, apathy, and racism. And if we cannot meet you there God, remind us of how far away from that manger scene we really are. Amen.

How Long O Lord?

"Lord, how long will I call for help and you not listen? I cry out to you, 'Violence!' but you don't deliver us. Why do you show me injustice and look at anguish so that devastation and violence are before me? There is strife, and conflict abounds. The Instruction is ineffective. Justice does not endure because the wicked surround the righteous. Justice becomes warped." - Habakkuk 1:2-4

Last night the verdict was read in the case against Darren Wilson, the white Ferguson police officer who shot and killed an unarmed 18 year old black youth named Michael Brown.
That verdict was the product and the result of hundreds of years of racial oppression, subjugation and segregation that underlines, scores and marks the fabric our nation, our communities and our relationships to this day.

This day, Today.
Today is a painful reminder of just how long the moral arc of the universe really is.
Today many brothers and sisters of color have woken up from the hope of justice and returned to the bleak reality of systemic racism that puts a price on their life and a millstone around their neck.

Today many continue to remark that #blacklivesmatter. However, making the proclamation more often than not feels like shouting into the void.
Yes, #blacklivesmatter.

Yes, #blacklivesmatter. They matter to black people, they matter to me, they even matter to other white people even in the face of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

This is perhaps the most difficult aspect of that proclamation. That even while I proclaim #blacklivesmatter I know that the devaluation of those lives is a very real, persistent, and present threat.

As a nation we need our "come to Jesus" moment. We idle in the sin of racial injustice, too many made comfortable by its false promises. For most white folks, today we wake up and it is business as usual. No assumptions have been challenged, no hearts convicted. We continue to idle in sin while our brothers and sisters cry out, and many of us have the audacity to discount their cries, as if their pain is the true violence which shakes us.

So warped has sin made us that the reality of trials such as this one is that it is in fact the dead who are put on trial. Those who cannot respond for themselves are assessed of their innocence or guilt. Those who cannot give testimony to their version of events are expected to have their full perspective represented by the one who killed them. The result, more often than not, is that the dead are found guilty. The dead deserved to die. Michael Brown needed to die. He was dangerous, though he was unarmed, he was a threat to white lives, and he had to die. What other conclusion can be drawn from a refusal to indict?

By affirming Darren Wilson's decision to kill Michael Brown, the Grand Jury asserted two very powerful messages: Michael's death was justified; #blacklivesdon'tmatter

What other lesson is there for young people, white and black alike, looking in to discern how they should best relate to one another?

That's what hurts the most. Black lives are devalued every time this happens. Black lives are proven to be less valuable than those of their white neighbors, and thus the cycle of violence, systemic violence, marches on.

Indeed, Justice does not endure because the wicked surround the righteous. Justice becomes warped.

Today justice has been warped, delayed, subverted, denied.

Today we again wait for the moral arc of the universe to bend toward justice.

But now it's not for Michael Brown, not for Eric Garner, or Trayvon Martin, Ezell Ford, Orlando Barlow, Oscar Grant, Renisha McBride, Dante Parker, Jordan Davis, John Crawford, Alonzo Ashley, Kimani Gray, Danta Price, Steven Eugene Washington, Victor Steen, Sean Bell, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Wendell Allen, Aaron Campbell, Kendrec McDade, Bo Morrison, Timothy Stansbury Jr., Timothy Russell, Jerean Blake, Jonathan Ferrell, Amandou Diallo, Ervin Jefferson, Angelo Clark, Steven Rodriguez, Johnnie Kamahi Warren, Nehemiah Dillard, Stephen Watts, Michael Lembhard, Tendai Nhekairo, Manuel Loggins Jr., Rekia Boyd, Melvin Lawhorn, Marquez Smart, Patrick Dorismond, James Brissette, Jersey Green, Ousmane Zongo, Duane Brown, Justin Sipp, Christopher Kissane, Raymond Allen, Travares McGill, or Sheron Jackson,

Now we wait for Tamir Rice, a twelve year old black child killed by police.

How long O Lord?

Happy Good Friday?

I really do love this time of year. As the weather begins to warm up and hues of green start to return to the world I always get a boost of encouragement to get work done. It may be when I'm most productive. Which is good news for me, since this week is also Holy Week, the final days of Lent, which, I think, is the busiest time of year for clergy. That busyness may be a little self-induced, but for many this is a time of intense spiritual discipline.

This year we'll be worshiping on both Thursday and Friday leading up to Easter, and we're going to worship in new ways. Part of that means that I am building a cross for our Good Friday service. Something has struck me as I've worked in planning and building such an object. In some sense this is a spiritual discipline, connecting to the labor of love that God pours out on creation, both in the way of a "carpenter" and in the significance of God's action on the cross.
However, it is also very much an odd juxtaposition of emotions, much in the same way that Good Friday is.
As a "spiritual but not religious" friend of mine once asked:

"Happy Good Friday?"

Happy Good Friday about sums it up. As I make the first cuts in the wood beams, I am reminded that this is both a symbol of God's love for the universe and also an instrument of torture and death. Those are two realities that don't fit together. They never were really meant to. When I think about what happened on Friday, on Golgotha two thousand years ago, I realize that the cross isn't God making good out of a bad situation. It is the goodness of God destroying the futility of evil. Jesus' crucifixion was an attempt to do away with something holy, but what is revealed on Sunday is that in the worst of human actions, evil sows seeds against itself. At just the moment when the prosecution rests its case against humanity and all possible hope seems lost, the judge throws the book at the prosecution.

As I put the final nails in to secure the beams, I do so with the realization that I have just created a replica of something on which real people have bled and died. I do so with the realization that what I have now built is the same thing that many have built out of reverence and many for evil. I do so knowing the very real human cost that such a thing represents, and millions of people who were and are "crucified" in some form or another in our world. Ultimately I do so with the knowledge that this cross represents the power of God over the evil in our world. Over hatred and violence, oppression and demonization. Over the power of sin and death.

"The power of God over the power of sin and death."

On Friday we will gather at the foot of this cross and lay our burdens down before it. Because, in Jesus, God has taken all of the worst things we could possibly come up with and subverted them, undermined our worst intentions to make something good and whole and beautiful.
On Friday we will morn and we will repent.
But what makes Friday "Good" is that the story does not end on the cross, or in the tomb. What makes Friday "Good" is that Sunday comes, a new day dawns for all of creation and we hear the first words of the day: "Do not be afraid."