Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Thank you for asking....


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SHE SAID:  
I looked at your profile and was surprised to see that you are a Christian minister? This country was built on Conservative, Christian values. Taking a knee during the National Anthem when people fought for the rights of this country should go against your Christian values. 

I SAID:
Yes, the church calls me a Christian minister but I define myself as a follower of Christ, first and foremost. I base my values on Jesus' teachings and the message of the Hebrew prophets as Jesus did. I suppose you could call them conservative Christian values, perhaps. 

However, Jesus often encouraged his followers to re-evaluate their values and question their traditions, I have tried to do that also and have reaped the consequences--but that's another story.  (An example of Jesus repeatedly encouraging his followers to question values and traditions is in the Sermon on the Mount when he says, "You have heard it said... but I say to you....)

The Hebrew prophets called God's people to be mindful of the injustice in their midst and work to correct it. "Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity...." Proverbs 2:8 
God's people are called "...to loose the bonds of injustice,...." Isaiah 58:6
And the prophet Amos calls for justice: "Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate... ...let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." Amos 5:15, 24)

Colin Kaepernick desires to call our attention to rampant injustice in predominately black neighborhoods and pleads for justice in addressing police brutality when he takes the knee. In this context, informed by the prophets who declared the heart of God to God's people, I "kneel" with him, (I put it in quotes because I speak metaphorically. I'm old and I would have a hard time getting up and down from the kneeling position,  but maybe this helps you see where I'm coming from in my reasoning.)

From the beginning Jesus identified with the people on the margins of society (Luke 3:4-6)--and our national history has put descendants of slaves on the margins whether we realize it or not, (Think slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, lynchings, and now police brutality.)

I see the dynamic between CK's kneeling and the resistance to it in the story of blind Bartimaeus. Blind Bartimaeus crying out for mercy would be like 
Kaepernick pleading for justice. "Many ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly." (v48). That is what is happening now. For me, Jesus is on the side of justice and mercy. Read the incident in Mark's gospel to see how it turns out. (Mark 10:46-52)


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