Daily ONLINE MESSAGE from Rev. Tim

BUT HE STARTED IT! July 7, 2020

One of the more challenging parts of my growing up was my first work-study assignment in college. I don’t know what they were thinking, assigning a lowly freshman to officiate fraternity league intra-murals, basketball and volleyball and such. No matter what call I made, I was wrong!

But especially in basketball, I quickly learned to look carefully at the chain of events. Because more often than not, the flagrant foul I would call would be the product of a series of skullduggerous acts that would go unnoticed until something blew up. Prepared me for life as a parent, where I heard endless versions of “But she started it!” leading to “Well I only did it because she did such and such to me…” and so on. And in that light, I want to present for your consideration these words from the Rev. Dr. William Barber II in relation to the state of affairs in our world today:

America has to be careful of who she calls violent. When you deny healthcare that’s violent. When
you deny living wages and 700 people a day die from poverty, that’s violence. When you suppress
voting rights that folks died for and then elected officials protect violent police departments, that’s
violence. Justice is the absolute deterrent for riots and social unrest.

What is justice? Well that’s a long and complicated story. But it surely is not the rich and privileged writing the rules so that the rich and privileged get richer and more privileged while the poor get poorer. So let’s have the patience to dig a little deeper before we jump to conclusions.

Grace and peace to you all…

 

Photo by D Tan on Unsplash