Now is the Time

Matthew 24:30 – “Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky and then all the peoples of the earth will mourn (lament!), and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds in the sky with power and great glory.”

All the peoples of the earth will mourn. That seems odd. Many people look forward to Christ returning and here Jesus explicitly says we will mourn. What will we mourn? Perhaps we have unfinished business with family or a loved one and now it won’t be finished. Or perhaps there is so much crap happening and maybe we stood by. Or, and this is maybe the real reason, we all know our faults and how they manifest. Perhaps we mourn because we know we’re not worthy.

The good news here is that some of these things can be addressed in the here and now. Jesus is describing a day in the future. We have time now to lament the oppression perpetrated on the most vulnerable in our name. We have time now to love our neighbors and to remember the everybody is our neighbor. We have time now to express our resentments in hopes of clearing the air, to resist Donald and Mitch’s designs for the US, to work to close the illegal and immoral camps at the border, to work to end gun violence – by police as well as mass shooters, to spread love and peace and joy in whatever way we can. Now is our time.

Lament the latest shooting in the US, the border camps, police violence against Black people, and all the other corruption going on. Feel the fear and the sadness, pray for support, and continue to push back in any way we can. Even if that entails smiling when we’d rather argue.

Lament and spread love today. The world needs it. Always.

B

The Trauma Remains

Matthew 24:29 – “Immediately after the persecutions of those days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give her light; the stars will fall out of the sky and the powers of the heavens will be shaken;”

Jesus is describing the beginning of judgment day, the day of the Lord. It will not be a day to look forward to according to Jesus and the prophets he quotes here, but rather a time of terror. To see these things happening would be terrifying, especially after persecution. The sun, moon and stars represent stability and consistency. Jesus is describing a world gone amuck. In fact, he could be describing depression; the feeling that the world has gone dark and that nothing makes sense or matters. Note that it comes after the persecution described in the previous verses. Anyone would have depression, mental instability, or PTSD after surviving what Jesus describes.

So it will be with all those who are oppressed, persecuted, caged, targeted, survived gun violence; they will be changed. Many will suffer after effects. The trauma isn’t over when the persecution stops. This adds to the viciousness of separating families, caging adults and children in unhealthy conditions, letting police shoot Black people with impunity, doing absolutely nothing to curb gun violence, letting Donald tweet out his racism so others can act on it. The trauma remains. In fact, while targeted groups have it worse, there is a lot of trauma in the US and around the world right now.

When freedom comes, the trauma remains until it is dealt with. We don’t always know about the trauma others are dealing with. Let’s keep those points in mind as we work to end these injustices.

B

Do Not Judge

Matthew 24:28 – “For where the corpse is, the vultures will gather.”

At first glance, this is a non-sequitur. It seems to have nothing to do with Jesus’ description of the coming of the Son of Man. However, reading it metaphorically, as a parable, yields some small clues. If we read it as the corpse representing sinners and the vultures as God’s judgment, it fits right in. It also fits right in with what I read in Bonhoeffer this morning. He wrote that we’re “out of God” when we judge another person, because only God can judge. The question for me is what about accountability? If we truly never judged another, we wouldn’t be able to hold people accountable for their/our actions.

Or would we? There are various ideas and systems being discussed around transformative justice. This term is used in opposition to our punitive justice system. Keeping people out of our racist and abusive penal system is one goal of transformative justice. Another is reconciliation of the parties involved leading to a transformation not only of the perpetrator, but also the victim and the community as well. Everyone has a chance to speak and everyone is heard (ideally). It’s a way of pushing back against the violence and abuse of our penal system, especially in for-profit prisons. And, as someone whose local jail has witnessed nine deaths in the past year, I’m all for keeping people out.

Such a system would require a massive transformation in how we view society, government, and our role in those systems. It would require empathy to listen to the perpetrator as well as the victim and attend to everyone as persons. Attending to perpetrators as people is a political non-starter now, but we are capable of changing that. Recognizing, as our current president is unable to, that immigrants, refugees, Black people, and offenders of all races are people is the key to making transformative justice work. Why is it so difficult for human beings to remember that people who commit crimes are still people with certain inalienable rights.

One reason is that thinking of perpetrators as something different from us, distancing them from us and their own humanity, we never have to acknowledge our own capacity for such behavior. Recognizing our own capacity for such behavior can lead to empathy for those who have committed a crime or even a minor offense. This is why we’re commanded by Jesus not to judge others. In the same circumstances, we’re capable of making the same choices. 

Let’s remember our capacity for hurting others. Remember those behind bars for the color of their skin. Remember too that this includes many Black prisoners. Work for justice in these situations with as much love as we can muster for everyone involved. And without judgment.

B