When someone says “Black
Lives Matter,” does that mean that all lives don’t matter? Does it mean that
black lives matter more than all other lives? Must we choose between black
lives and all lives?
I find a whole lot of
unnecessary confusion in the white Christian community about the phrase “Black
Lives Matter.” And I especially have a hard time with the response that I hear
so often: all lives matter. It almost sounds like a cover for saying that black
lives don’t really matter at all.
So in response to what I hear
and read on the internet from my white friends and especially in response to
the individual who stole all of our BLM signs from the UUMC lawn last Saturday,
here are some reflections that I hope you’ll read and ponder.
In the Judeo-Christian
tradition, all lives matter. That is ground zero of our faith. Every life is to
be treated with the utmost dignity and respect. Every life is a life loved by
God.
However, in both the Hebrew
Bible and the Christian Bible, God shows a special preference for those on the
margins. In the Hebrew Bible, God has partiality for the poor, widows and
orphans. Does that mean that God loves the poor, the widow and the orphan more
than God loves me? No. It does mean, however, that God has a special concern
for them because they are especially vulnerable. And since we are attempting to
follow God, we must have a special concern as well.
Imagine the God of the Hebrew
Bible with a sign on her back that reads: Widows Matter! Would you want to
remind God that all lives matter? Probably not. You already know the answer to
that question.
For Jesus, it was a special
concern for lepers, children and women, all of whom were held in varying
degrees of contempt and low esteem in his day. Jesus helps us turn our
attention away from the lives of the rich and famous, away from ourselves and our
preoccupations with our families toward those who are left out, last and lost
in our day.
In the 1970s in Latin
America, liberation theologians coined the phrase “God’s preferential option for the poor” to understand
God’s special concern for the poor and the oppressed. John Wesley, founder of
the Methodist movement, actually took this preferential option to heart long
before it was formulated. His diaries and letters are full of his ministry with
and for the poor in 18th century England. Wesley was quite clear
that the church would rise or fall by how it ministered to the poor.
Picture Father John with a
sign that reads: Poor Lives Matter! In other words, pay attention to the poor.
They need you and you need them. And you will find God there.
All of which leads me to
reckon that “Black Lives Matter” fits squarely within the Judeo-Christian
tradition and ought to be embraced by those who seek to follow Christ and his
concern for the most vulnerable among us.
To recap: in our tradition, we
have a deep concern for all of God’s children. In practice, that deep concern
moves us toward the ones who are hurting. A theology of “Black Lives Matter” means
that in following God, we have an enduring concern in our own time for black
young men and women whose lives are under assault, who are systemically and
unjustly devalued and discriminated against. We see the most visible examples
of these inequities in police shootings of young, unarmed African-American men
and in the mass incarceration of young men of color.
So picture Jesus with a sign that
reads: Black Lives Matter.
