HERE AND NOW

This past week we’ve all been made aware of the trial of the three police officers in Minneapolis who were present at the murder of George Floyd.  I have no acquaintance with the technicalities of the law, so I don’t know if what these officers were doing is a criminal offense or not.  That will be for others to decide. 

What has come to light, though, is the defense that everyone else is to blame except for these three men.  Derek Chauvin is to blame.  The Minneapolis police training protocols are to blame.  George Floyd is to blame.  And what are they to blame them for?  For doing nothing, nothing, in the face of a dying man.  The police training manual says that officers have a duty to intervene when a suspect is being maltreated by another officer, or when he needs medical attention or is in some sort of trauma.  Really?  You need a policy book for that?  You need to be taught to be a responsible neighbor when someone else is in trouble?  You need to be told that just being an idle bystander is not all right when a fellow human being is in mortal danger?  None of the bystanders on the street seemed to be in need of that lesson and I don’t think a single one of them was familiar with any training manual. 

Criminal or not, this goes to the heart of what it means to be a human being.  And you don’t get to opt out of that responsibility, that solidarity, by claiming that you’re only a rookie on the force, or that it’s someone else’s job to fix what’s going so tragically wrong right here in front of my face. 

When God chose the Prophet Jeremiah to preach difficult words of challenge, Jeremiah’s first response was to say to God, “I am too young.  Go find somebody else.”  And the Lord’s reply was, “You are not too young – now go.”  Jeremiah really wasn’t so concerned about his youth.  He was afraid.  Afraid of what could happen to him if he actually spoke out to do the right thing.  It’s what everybody there on 38th and Chicago were kept from doing:  the basic right thing – the human thing.  They might put me in jail; they might reprimand me down at HQ; they might rough me up.  Fear.  So let’s everybody stand around and do nothing while a man dies. 

Today’s gospel of Luke is the second of two parts which tells the story of Jesus in the synagogue in Nazareth on the Sabbath day.  We heard part one last weekend, when Jesus got up to read from the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, to bring good news to the poor, liberty to the captives, sight to the blind and liberty for the oppressed.”  And the crowd was loving it, because it was the same grand promise that they’d been hearing for hundreds of years, involving something that God would do at some point into the future.  And they spoke well of Jesus, according to this Gospel. 

But today comes part two of the story, the part where Jesus announces that “today this passage is fulfilled in your hearing,” which means that this great mission is no longer simply to be awaited idly, with approving nods and folded hands.  It’s something that Jesus himself will be setting his vision into practical activity – here and now – and anyone who would claim to love this God must join him in his saving work, not someday, today.  And suddenly the mood of the assembly shifts from one of praise to one of anger, to the point that they seek to throw Jesus over a cliff to his death.  What changed that response so quickly and so completely?  It was that “here and now” thing; the demand that we either come along with Jesus in the midst of life as it is now, or we sit around and stay out of it.  To do that sitting around thing is tantamount to saying “No” to Jesus, because “today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Or not. 

But why would people choose against God?  Against the Gospel?  Against what we know will bring positive justice, healing and light?  Against what would make us human?  It’s the same reason that lurks just behind every failure to act when we should.  It is fear.  My friends won’t like me if I point out the sin here.  I could lose my job.  I could be made to be of little interest anymore with people whom I don’t know or understand.  I could be laughed at, excluded, made to walk away from some of the comforts of life as I now know and like them.  I could be trashed and ridiculed on social media – what worse thing could there be?  Fear, fear.  I prefer a God who speaks of future glory rather than the one who makes hard demands of me right now.  And so I prefer to just stand around even when confronted with evident suffering, and systemic injustice, and social inequality, and violence and hatred.  Like Jeremiah, I may try to convince others – maybe even myself and God – that “I’m too small, too inexperienced, too weak.”  But the fact is, I’m just afraid. 

Jesus told us over and over and over again, perfect love casts out fear.  He gets it.  People are rightly afraid of things that could bring them ruin, or at least inconvenience, which is why we need to make a decision now, today – Jesus “Yes?”  Jesus “No?”  “Fulfilled in your hearing today?”  Or, standing on the sideline doing nothing, waiting for God to do something someday?  Not an easy Gospel to hear. Prophets never really preach news that’s comfortable.  But let us pray as we continue our Eucharist that we will not be dominated by fear, the fear that paralyzes us, the fear that keeps us standing around doing nothing when something needs to be done here and now.  Let us pray, God, for the courage to do exactly that.