Ruler serve, servant King
Suffering servant, sit with that
…
I hold inside a balance, a sort of paradox That my greatest strength
is strengthening others
Is being in awe and wonder
Seeing in the iris of others,
my King and my kin all over me …
Influence Music & Propaganda – “Soil and Sky”
But worth, value, and beauty
Is not determined by some innate quality But by the length for which
The owner would go to possess them
Propaganda – “Lofty”
… my kingdom is not of this world. I will stand in the way of terror and war … my kingdom is not of this world.
Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw – Jesus For President pg 175
When the hero goes bad, the story gets good. This is a problem.
When the hero fights fire with fire, we are captivated and elated. This is a problem.
Tales of revenge move us. This is a problem.
There is an innate part of us that longs for justice. This in and of itself is not evil. A price is to be paid when something valuable is broken. The God that is found in Scripture is known in this very longing.
Jesus has incredibly hard words for those who would lead little ones away from God. He is not pleased with this injustice.
He says it would be better if they had a millstone hung around their neck and were drowned (Matthew 18:6).
That is serious. God feels deeply.
But Jesus did not then say, “Go, get some millstones and do likewise.”
There is a part of humanity that longs for justice, and then there is a part that covets “righteous” violence.
Escalation (or a counter escalation) excites us because we see from the perspective of the one carrying it out. They are grabbing their stones and teaching us how thrilling it is to throw, especially if you’ve been hit yourself.
If you haven’t been hit yet, give it time. A killer in me is a killer in you (that line’s from “Disarm” by The Smashing Pumpkins).
And there is nothing like sweet, violent justice. An air of righteousness comes upon the wielder that feels like infallibility. It inflates into pride.
Pride and power make for a dangerous and deadly combination that has a certain allure.
The account of the Good Samaritan that we see in scriptures would have just been the opening scenes if told from an American context instead of by Jesus of Nazareth.
The Good Samaritan would have returned to the inn, to check on the man who had been assaulted, and then told him:
“I found the people that did this to you. I can train you. Together we can make them pay.”
Look of determination. Training montage.
The Samaritan teaches him one particular move, the “Samaritan’s Purse” and we’d be watching, just waiting for the moment he uses it against his foes.
Then they track down the guys that beat him, and make them pay.
And there’s maybe one guy who swears “[he] didn’t want to do it, they made [him]!” pleads for mercy.
And the man who was beaten wants to rough him up but the Good Samaritan says:
“no, he’s had enough.” And they decide to let him go.
But it was really a fake out! And he pulls out a weapon! So they hit him with the Samaritan’s Purse!
They just didn’t have a choice. They did what they had to do.
The bad guys had it coming.
Insert some one liner, they laugh, walking off together into the setting sun.
But there are different kinds of heroes, fighting for different forms of justice. And they’re not using violence to do so.
District Attorneys and other legal and governmental agents have been working to bring charges, garner indictments, change laws and reopen cases.
And intercessors have moved in protest and demonstrations. Those whose ethnicity or cultural background were not reflected by George Floyd, or Breonna Taylor, or Ahmaud Arbery, still showed up, and declared the value of their lives.
I remember seeing this in Charlottesville in 2017 and being amazed.
Image source Time
This time, it has been multiplied a thousand fold.
This intercession and standing in the gap in some ways reflects some pieces the good news of the Gospel.
Someone steps out of their privilege and into a dangerous situation for the sake of another. They put their body on the line because of the value they see in one under threat (Philippians 2:5-8).
Of course Jesus paid a much greater price for us, who were undeserving, but He did this out of the value seen in us.
He ascribed a particular value to you and that value was worthy, worthwhile, and worth the work.
Lecrae’s recently released song “Deep End” contemplates fire for fire, but also looks for an intercessor to pull him back before he escalates the cutting.
Me, I’m just tryna hold onto my peace
‘Cause I’m liable to lose it
And go get the piece
…
I’ve been trying not to go
Off the deep end,
Give me a reason
Lecrae – “Deep End”
I watched some of the final moments of Elijah McClain’s life last week. I’ve also been listening to Behind the Police, a special series for Behind the Bastards history podcast.
Propaganda joins the usual host of the podcast to look at the history of policing in America. There are many problems. (Expletives if you listen. A lot of good, depressing, absolutely horrific information.)
When I put these two things together, it is horrendous. And it tragically makes sense.
The show seemed to be an outlier at the time, for the raw and unvarnished peek it gave into a corrupt team of officers.
But that dramatized brokenness seems like it was art imitating life.
I realized as I watched these men perpetuate corruption and violence that it was much more likely that I would be the Indians in this drama, and not Gary Cooper, or Vic Mackey.
That changes something. The protagonists who work in violence are not then heroes, but violators.
The heroes are the ones who hold them accountable, and the ones who try to come and make restitution for their victims. And the ones who stand in the gap and intercede, and make provision.
Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative is one such hero. Sherrilyn Ifill of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund is another. And there are so many others. These are the stories that we need to tell, and the plots that should excite us. Not revenge, but protection and repair.
We hail the United States for fighting a war to end slavery. We magnify that violence. People study the battles and the weapons and the logistics of war. Time and energy is spent into theorizing why battles were won and lost.
Slavery was ended. Abolition occurred. Many of the heroes declared were the warriors involved in the physical conflicts.
But there was insufficient provision made for the newly freed.
With all the beautiful promise that [Fredrick] Douglas saw in the Emancipation Proclamation, he soon found that it left the Negro with only abstract freedom. Four million newly liberated slaves found themselves with no bread to eat, no land to cultivate, no shelter to cover their heads. It was like freeing a man who had been unjustly imprisoned for years, and on discovering his innocence sending him out with no bus fare to get home, no suit to cover his body, no financial compensation to atone for his long years of incarceration and to help him get a sound footing in society; sending him out with only the assertion: “Now you are free.” What greater injustice could society perpetrate?
Martin Luther King Jr. – Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community
Christ shows us true heroism. He gives us a countercultural invitation. He left His place of privilege and paid a great cost to not only set us free, but to provision us with heavenly blessing.
And of course we can’t pay that price, but we can learn from the Good Samaritan, and put on prophetic lenses, seeing the value and worth in others, and help to meet the needs of those who have been broken.
And there are many, and this is a problem. In prayer and with support of time and resources we can work to be part of a solution.
Heroism, no violence against a person required.
And when we get them home,
And help keep them home,
Oh it would be like
Hallelujah
The Bail Project
Festival of Booths 
Leave a comment