"I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of
God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable
to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to
this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that
you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and
perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you
not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to
think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that
God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and not
all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one
body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We
have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in
proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in
teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity;
the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness." -Romans 12:1-18
The story of Ferguson, Missouri is on my mind lately, not just because I grew up partly in the state, but because this is a narrative that is becoming tragically familiar. A young, black man is killed by excessive force, and the outcry of the community is met with more violence. Some people seek to justify the young man's death all the while knowing that had he been white he would likely never have been stopped, let alone shot multiple times past the point of surrender. Do I know if Michael Brown robbed that convenience store, or even if he acted aggressively toward the officer who stopped him? No. But I do know that he was unarmed, and that there are ways to use force in less deadly ways, yet when it comes to black men, it's the same old story: shoot first, ask questions later. The narrative that focuses on his actions places blame everywhere but where it should be, which is on all of us for our role in institutional racism, a cycle of poverty and violence which keeps people, particularly people of color, in a hopelessly inescapable landscape that breeds more violence, more crime, more tragedy.
As Christians, we are called to be in the world but not of it, to not be conformed to the world. The "city on a hill" mentality has often led to Christians believing that they are called to live on this planet while remaining apart, somehow, from the problems and violence of society. However it has never been more apparent in all of human history how hyper-connected a life we all lead. The pain of our broken hearts crying for the tragedy of the world should tell us, even if we choose to interpret this passage otherwise, how we are all brothers and sisters. When my black brothers and sisters cry out in the agony of institutional racism and systematic oppression, I should also groan. We should all be groaning right now, not just because of Ferguson, but because of Syria and Iraq and Gaza and Ukraine and everywhere else that people are crushed under the yoke of oppression.
Not being conformed to the world doesn't mean taking the city on a hill approach. It also doesn't mean that being Christians somehow makes us better, different, or apart. Rather, it means that those of us who believe have undergone a radical re-orientation to the reality of the world, where we see not the thrill of power and privilege, but the grief for sons and daughters lost too young to drug addiction, prison, gang violence, and murder. We understand that although we all, in some ways, benefit from and take part in maintaining the social order which continues to segregate the rich from the poor or the white from the black or the man from the woman, that that reality of one stepping on another is a product of brokenness, and the reality that we are called to is that of no Greek or Jew, man or woman, slave or free. It means using "sober judgment" as Paul says, to recognize our role and break away from the biases and say no to the status quo and use our power in society for the good of others. It means understanding our interconnectedness as creatures and using our God-given gifts to usher in the kingdom of God, because we have a God who from the beginning has been about liberation of the oppressed.
Being transformed means re-orienting towards the future to which we are called. That future is the reign of God's kingdom, and it looks not like a people set apart from the world, but a people so deeply moved by the everyday trials and hurts that we stand up against what sometimes feels like overwhelmingly powerful systems. It looks like a people who take on the yoke of the oppressed as if it were our own burden, who fight for the rights of our neighbors as if they were our own rights. God's kingdom looks like brothers and sisters acknowledging and fighting for the right of the other to be fully, uniquely and genuinely who they are as a person also created by the same loving God as you and me.
I believe that the death of Michael Brown should serve as a wake up call to us, that there is still violence in the world because of inequalities large and small, obvious and subtle, and that as Christians our call is to solidarity with those in the world who are suffering. Paul calls us to be renewed; not to be conformed with the world that says that violence and inequality are the way of things, but to be transformed to the reality that God wants liberation for all God's people, who is always for us, who is always faithful, and who is calling us into greater communion with one another. May we all be remade daily so we may more fully learn how to weep, pray, and fight for our brothers and sisters in Ferguson and all over the world until God's promised reign of peace becomes today's reality. Amen.
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