Justice and Only Justice You Shall Pursue – January 24, 2019

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity began with Catholic high school boys from Kentucky, Black Hebrew Israelites, and a Native American activist and Omaha elder facing off with yells and jeers and drumming and stony silence. 

The theme for the Week is “Justice and only justice you shall pursue,” a line from the Hebrew Scriptures Deuteronomy 16:18-20 (what we Christians call “The Old Testament”).  The hope of the effort is that we will move from shared prayer to shared action for justice, equality and unity.

There’s a lot of work to do.

As I watched (some) of the video from last Friday’s incident on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial I was reminded again how much I DON’T like groups of people yelling at each other. I know from my experience of growing up in an Irish Catholic family of five boys and two girls that responding to yelling with more yelling just ends up with hurt feelings, tears, and an exasperated mother. It doesn’t ever help a situation.

Young Nick Sandmann said his group “wanted to drown out the hateful comments that were being shouted” at them by the Black Hebrew Israelites, so they started yelling school cheers.   Within hours people were “yelling” at each other via social media. In the words of Dr. Phil, “how’s that working for you?”

I’m not suggesting we settle for a false peace.  I’m not advocating “burying our heads in the sand” or thinking we can all “join hands and sing kumbaya”.  We must face our conflicts and divisions.  But I hope and pray we can somehow start talking (and LISTENING) respectfully and civilly to one another about the important issues that tempt us to demonize the other.

We are called to speak out against what is wrong.  We have a right to free speech and protest.  We can and must stand up for ourselves and those who are vulnerable.  But all of our speech and our action must come from a deep place of knowing that the person we disagree with, the person who is threatening all that we believe is good and noble and right and just, is a son or daughter of God.  Only then will we be able to pursue justice.

As we pray for unity among our Christian family, let us also pray AND WORK for unity among our human family.