How Jesus Helps Me Respond to the Death of George Floyd and Beyond
The image of Derek Chauvin kneeling on the neck of George Floyd stirs all sorts of thoughts and feelings in me. The response of people to this situation stirs more thoughts and feelings. Each subsequent conversation, post, and protest, and news report stirs more and more. The world feels out of control and I feel out of control. This prompt me to say:
“I need to figure this out!”
There are number of assumptions that stand behind this statement. It assumes that I can both figure out and grasp the situation in Minneapolis and the response to it. There is an innate belief that I have the capacity to understand and the means to come to that understanding. It also assumes that I am a key person in this discussion and it is essential that I understand it. Ultimately this is pride. I have heard that “pride comes before the fall” (Proverbs 16:18). God help me!
Two scriptures come to mind that help me deal with my statement:
1. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
According to the Scripture, I am not the key to all of this. The key is Scripture itself. This passage does not leave me wondering what the word of God is able to do. These verses say that it is able bring me to completion and make me thoroughly equipped. Scripture alone is the place to turn. When I focus on myself as the key, I distort things and pride becomes the natural outflow.
2. Ephesians 2:8-10 “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
It turns out that what I need, I cannot reach by my own efforts. I am totally incapable of reaching it and I need it to be given to me. In trying to figure something out on my own, I’m trying to put myself in a place where I can boast. But I cannot do this. Again, this verse puts me as a passive recipient of a gift and that gift is what does the work in me. And this passive receiving of a gift makes me God’s work and He is now going to direct me. I am His instrument. Hammers do not move without a human hand moving them. If the hammer is going to boast, it will not be about what it has done, but about what the maker has done through it.
Now I would like to say that everything is settled in my mind and I can go about my business. But it is not. Another thought now replaces the first. The Scripture heightens my awareness of my own assumptions. And because of that I say,
“I am so prone to be tainted in my assumptions, that it seems impossible for me to understand the Word of God correctly and then have eyes to understand what is going on in our world.”
It bothers me that I will hear one Christian say something and then they point to the Bible as to its validity, and then I will hear another Christian say something that sounds like the opposite while pointing to the same Bible to validate it. It is tempting to throw up my hands in defeat and say, “I believe that absolute truth exists, but it is impossible for me to know it with any certainty.”
Scripture to the rescue. The Apostle Paul wrote a letter to the church in Ephesus in which he is working to instill in them deep understanding of the faith. He explains how that understanding came to him in Ephesians 3:3; “how the mystery was made know to me by revelation.” Paul came to this understanding because it was disclosed to him. And I see in verse 5, this disclosure was not by any man, but by the Spirit Himself. In other words, God told Paul the truth. Paul has understanding not because of empirical pursuit (hypothesis, experimentation, observation, conclusions). Paul has understanding because God told him. Jesus had a similar conversation with Simon Peter. After Peter had declared that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the living God,” Jesus says, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 16:16-17). Scripture is the foundation of my knowledge. This is where I start because the Scripture will guide my way. God will reveal the truth.
Yeah, but the situation still remains. The response to the situation still remains. What does all this talk of theology have to do with real life?
Everything! The good news is that I do not have to figure anything out, that it has already been figured out. I feel the need to figure it out because I need to be accepted, and to know I am accepted, by God. But I am not accepted because I figured it out. It was revealed to me that God sent His Son Jesus Christ to die for my sins and to raise Him again to life in victory. He has done this for me and He has shown this to me. I have heard this news and believed it. I am acceptable to God through faith in Jesus Christ. I no longer have to work for acceptance or prove that I am. God has covered that.
As I grow in this, the gospel works these things into me daily:
1. Confidence in the goodness and power of God. As I see more and more how deep my sin is and how desperately sick my heart is, God reminds me that I am in fact saved from this wickedness and that more and more amazes me. How great the love that God has lavished on me that I should be called a child of God (1 John 3:1). If God will do that and can do that, then He is certainly good and powerful. He can handle anything, even racism. The gospel makes God bigger than the problem.
2. Freedom to truly listen. There is a difference between a conversation and a debate. Conversation is the free exchange of content back and forth between parties involved. A debate is a quest to be right. When I enter into communication with another person as a debate, I tend to listen differently than if I am merely having a conversation. In fact, even in a conversation at some point something may be said by me or the other person that will spark debate. One temptation I have in those moments is to stop listening and start formulating my strategy to win. This is not the directing of the Holy Spirit who would tell me, “be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger” (James 1:19). This does not come naturally to me, often because I feel the need to be right to show that I am acceptable to God. Thankfully God reminds me that I am acceptable to Him through faith in Jesus, not by winning an argument. This frees me to listen. And not listen so that I can figure out how to make them see what I see. Remember salvation comes by faith and faith by revelation. I declare what has been revealed. God must handle the rest. I am free to listen. And what I might hear is areas where people feel guilty or ashamed. Things they may be fearful or angry about. I know what it is like to feel all of those things. And I know that when people tell me to stop feeling those things and argue with me IT DOES NOT HELP. I need to be heard. The gospel frees me to listen well.
3. Freedom to love people outside “my circles.” I have natural affinity toward certain groups. I identify with people who share things in common with me. When I start listening to people who are outside of my circles, God will often soften my heart to them and begin to give me compassion. If I am honest, this reality makes me nervous. If I begin to have compassion toward people outside my circles and I begin to show compassion to people outside my circles how will the people inside my circle respond to me. I think the natural response by the circle can be seen in Acts 11. After Peter, a Jew, had been led by the Holy Spirit to visit and then stay with a Gentile, some Jews criticized him. I do not like the thought of receiving criticism from people in my circles. It makes me feel fearful and defensive. Much of this goes back to acceptance. I want to be accepted by my circle. To be a man without a circle is to be alone, and it is not good for man to be alone (Genesis 2:18). But I am accepted, firstly, by God through faith in Jesus Christ. That is not lost if my circle rejects me. In fact, I am not the only one that God is leading outside the circle. He is leading every Christian outside of his or her circles. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all on in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). It should be noted here that this does not mean that we should be actively trying to do away with these categories. These are still real distinctions that exist that add to the great beauty of the Church. Remember God is seeking to build a kingdom from “every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:8). He is not trying to make us color blind. He is inviting us to loosen the reigns that our circles have over us and to join hands with others across those lines prompted by the gospel and for the sake of the spread of the gospel. Even if that brings tension within our own circles, I am still acceptable to God and He is hard at work and making me a part of His “chosen race, royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9). I am not alone.
The above has taken a burden off of me that I could not bear. And it frees me to enter into the discussion differently then I started. I am grateful to God for this and pray it encourages you as well.