Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Time to Love One Another, Right Now!

My 17-mile drive to and from the Wheat Ridge Ministries office each day provides ample time to catch up on daily news stories on the radio. I’m not sure why I just don’t switch to all-music stations. Almost every day, there is a lead story about violence stemming from hatred toward a person of another race, culture or lifestyle. All too often, even the reporting of the story seems flavored by a bias in one direction or the other. To be sure, we are living in a world in need of healing.

A good friend of mine, Marlene Lund, lives in New York City and serves as the Director of the Center for Urban Education Ministries. You may recall that for several years the CUEM was located at Wheat Ridge Ministries. It was our privilege to help seed its development. Marlene recently wrote a poignant post for the CUEM eNewsletter on the theme of hatred and violence in response to a recent incident in New York that attracted world-wide attention. I am pleased to share it, with her permission (thanks, Marlene!): 

I’m writing this message as NYC and the rest of the country continues to reel from the random murder of police officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, while on duty in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. According to the assassin, these murders were committed in retaliation for the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. PO Ramos’ death hit many in the NY Lutheran community hard, as his children were former students at St. Peter’s Lutheran early childhood center in Brooklyn. Four families, four tragic deaths—who’s to blame?

As an aftermath of the shootings, demonstrations have cropped up in many cities in the U.S and globally. The police are furious at Mayor DeBlasio, demonstrators are furious at the police. As Christians, we need to be on the side of justice and peace. We need to be the voice of reason and hope. Violence of any kind, whether perpetrated by police or by the general public, is unacceptable. It’s easy to take sides, play the blame game and forget the human beings that lost their lives in a senseless manner.

What this situation has done is to provide an opportunity for dialogue and for education. I do believe that the majority of police are good people who desire to help others. I do believe that racism is still a problem that makes people uncomfortable and is hard to speak about.

Our churches should be safe places where frank discussions about inequality can take place, whether racial, economic or social. In fact, I’m glad that several prominent Lutheran theologians have addressed these shootings publically.

When incidents like these occur, I can’t help but think of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, South Pacific, which includes the song, “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught.” The lyrics include the lines:

You’ve got to be taught To hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught From year to year,
It’s got to be drummed In your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late, Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate, You’ve got to be carefully taught!

Our schools should be places where children are taught tolerance and respect for others, themselves and those in authority. All of this needs to be deliberate and ongoing. They’ve got to be carefully taught!

Being a child of the 1960’s, I lived through the civil rights demonstrations and the call for equality. I hope that we haven’t become complacent. I hope that we take action. I hope that our Christian love for all who are suffering due to the events of this last year shines through.

Perhaps you can recall times when the words, attitudes and actions of parents or others you trusted and respected when you were a child wittingly or unwittingly taught you to disrespect or even hate people who were different than you. I sure can. These influences on today’s children (and adults) have multiplied as a result of our media-centered instant communication environment that makes it so easy to sow seeds of distrust and hatred toward others who look, act or believe differently than we do.
 
Fortunately, even in the midst of these daily reminders that we live in a broken world, Christ’s Easter victory over sin and death provides us hope for a future filled with healing love rather than prejudice and hatred. What an important opportunity we have as Easter people to plant seeds of health and hope, recognizing everyone around us as a person uniquely created and loved by God. What a great time it is to teach this Good News to our children as we live into the encouragement Christ provides to “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Matthew 7:12) 
 
Like Marlene, I’m a child of the 1960’s, so I can’t resist concluding with words from a “hymn” of hope and encouragement from that era written by a band called The Youngbloods (the #5 hit in 1969!). It’s not one you’ll find in your hymnal, but I think it’s a great chorus to sing as we experience the joy of the Easter season each and every day of the year! 

Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another
Right now