Still No Justice

In 1992, five police officers were acquitted of any guilt in the beating of Rodney King. At that time Jesse Jackson spoke up and said that “today we have witnessed a miscarriage of justice!” Those were powerful words then and in light of recent events are still words that haunt us today.  In the not guilty verdict of the trial of George Zimmerman, we have once again witnessed yet another “miscarriage of justice.” When I heard the verdict my heart sank. My friend and colleague,  Rev. John C. Dorhauer, Conference Minister of the Southwest Conference of the United Church of Crhist posted on Facebook, “No justice for Trayvon. Is this really who we want to be?” My answer would be no, this is not what I want to be and I expect better from a nation who prides itself on justice for all. 

It is true, I do not believe that George Zimmerman intended to kill Treyvon Martin, but the idiotic “gun laws” of the State of Florida, vigilantism, profiling or shall I say it, institutional racism, and permission given to grown men by the State of Florida, to fantasize  about being a community hero allowed this “miscarriage of justice” to happen. No, there were probably no laws broken – it would appear that both the victim and the assailant were defending themselves in a situation that got out of hand. The injustice may not even be that in the end there was a death of another American teenager.The injustice is the language and the attitude of George Zimmerman who assumed that a black youth with a hoodie over his head on misty, rainy night was up to no good. This is, to me, the wrong that was unleashed that night and an indication that racism and the injustice still rears its ugly head in our nation and there are still grown men and women who still believe that all black youth are up to no good. I cringe to think that if the roles were reversed, Treyvon Martin would not be off to church today, like the Zimmerman family, but facing his first day of life in prison. Is this really who we want to be?

 The prophet Isaiah, one among many prophets, speaks to injustice so powerfully and with such passion. He says, 

“Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow” Isaiah 1:16-17.  

 Having found much solace in the prophet Isaiah over the years, I cannot help, but think that we have not learned anything – there is still no justice.  We are still living in a fantasy world thinking that God adores our laws and our expressions of faithfulness, but I’m here to say that in light of this verdict and countless other atrocities that plague our dark and sickening relationship with race, we are not pleasing God. How do I know? The prophets tells us so. So what can be done? 

“Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean…” the prophet tells us what we need to do and what is pleasing to God. The good news is that this is an invitation to change our ways and just as I believe we are not pleasing God with our actions, God still believes in us and knows that we have the hutzpah to make it right, to wash the blood from our hands, and stand for justice for all people, justice that stands up against racism, justice that stands against idiotic gun laws, justice that stands against the privileged and the powerful, and justice that stands for ‘kingdom values’ and not American values. Today, like the United Church of Christ and the Disciples of Christ, I “walk and stand in solidarity with the family of Trayvon Martin” and believe with all my heart that one day “justice and righteousness WILL flow like an ever flowing stream…”

Hoeing and Harvesting

Maybe I didn't notice it before, but I continue to be amused at the folks, some of them young kids, some adults, or maybe migrant workers who walk the rows of beans hoeing out the weeds that seem to grow taller and more quickly than the beans planted in fields. I noticed orange and yellow flags that seem to be at the end of some of the rows and conclude that maybe that is an indication of where to begin weeding or where a day’s worked ended. I don’t know, but I am amused by the concept of weeding and hoeing the beans row by row.

In other agrarians regions I've lived in before I have not seen  throngs of people going through the bean fields cutting out the weeds and so this is a new concept for me. I guess in the communities I have lived, the farmers choose to spray the weeds growing in the bean fields rather than to send  workers out to manually remove the weeds from the beans.  

As I see this and also notice the weeds high and above the golden wheat, I am reminded of a parable that is found in Matthew – the Parable of the weeds among the wheat. Perhaps you will remember this. It is said that a farmer spread good seed in a field, but as the seeds germinated, some of the servants noticed that among the good seed there seemed to be many weeds. The servant questioned the master, ‘did we not sow good seed?’ The master agreed that it was good seed, but somewhere along the way, the ‘evil one’ sowed weeds among the wheat. The servant asks, ‘do you want us to go out in the field and pull the weeds so that there can be a greater harvest? The master responded, ‘No for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest and then we will know the weeds from the grain and then we will gather up the weeds, bind them, throw them into the fire, and harvest the good grain.”

This parable, the golden wheat, the throng of workers walking the fields with hoes in hand and weeding the bean rows got me thinking about the life we have known and the life we long to see. The agricultural parables throughout the Christian gospels reflect two realities, the reality of the human condition or an alternative reality that imagines a world – a field free of the weeds that compromise the dignity and integrity of all of God’s Creation.

Our human condition cannot help but have a few weeds that darken the shinier side of living and loving. Where are the weeds that bring suffering in our world? The weeds of injustice still find its way into the most progressive of our communities. A rural congregation, seemingly hard working and stable still feeds 60 plus families each week from their pantry.  The Supreme Court votes against affirmative action and voting reforms and large corporations receive a multitude of tax breaks and a few very wealthy people can control Washington with their billions of dollars. The weeds of injustice are still painfully present.

The Harvest is Plentiful, but the laborers are few

What about the evasive weeds of broken relationships that clutter your life? Maybe the weeds of abuse and neglect have been your experience.  Have the weeds of addiction and personal suffering compromised the quality and wholeness of your life? The weeds of life do get in the way of experiencing a life that is really worth living and from time to time, we need to do some hoeing. Maybe it’s time to walk the bean fields and do some hoeing.  Take some time to gather up the weeds, bind them in bundles to be burned and begin to free your life from the weeds that minimize the harvest. Just where are the weeds in the fields today? Is it time to do some digging and free the wheat from the weeds? When God calls us into the field to hoe, just where will you begin?