WOE TO THE BETRAYER

Matthew 26:24 – “The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born.”

I know right now, I’d like to say, “Woe to you,” to a lot of people. The Republicans who continue to support Donnie, even after he lost, after he spent two months trying to overturn the results of the election (illegally!), all the while laying the groundwork for an insurrection to stop the vote count on January 6^th. An insurrection that resulted in the death of five people that day and two people later as well as 140 people injured. Some of those injuries were serious enough to hospitalize them.

I’d like to think there will be consequences, legal consequences. Because they betrayed and are continuing to betray our country. By our country, I’m referring to people. People who have been struggling for centuries for equitable treatment from their government, for the right not to be gunned down like animals at the whim of police. People who are suffering from the pandemic economically, physically, or otherwise. People who were made poor, kept poor, and are left to fend for themselves.

I recently read an article in ‘The Land’ detailing the barriers that people here in Cleveland faced in order to get housing assistance during this pandemic. Income verification, documentation that their housing was ‘safe, warm, and dry,’ ID papers, and other requirements. Because none of these requirements were eliminated due to the pandemic, many people were denied aid that they qualified for, by multiple agencies. They then had to scramble for resources to stay in their homes. It is tempting to blame landlords for not maintaining their property, but many of them are as strapped for cash and their renters. Everyone is caught up in this web of suffering.

The article only discussed one neighborhood. Multiply that my millions of neighborhoods in the US and many agencies differing requirements for assistance and we can begin to get a picture of systemic racism here in America. It is not one person or group of people calling another a slur. It is the systematic, bureaucratic, unemotional, but NOT neutral requirements (for voting, housing assistance, IDs and driver’s licenses, etc.) that affect poor and low-wealth people disproportionately – Black people, immigrants, people of color. These systems that on the surface seem reasonable are designed to keep these populations down – poor and without power.

And that is the biggest betrayal of there is and it has been there since the founding of this country.

To the extent that we can – given the trauma we’ve lived through and continue to live through – it’s up to us, white people, to change these systems, making them equitable for all people who live here. To do otherwise is to betray Christ. And we know how Christ would respond to such betrayal.

Woe to the one by whom the betrayal comes.

B