Moving from accessibility to belonging
Justice is not something we form or fashion. It is woven by God into the very fabric of creation. It has been from the very dawn of time.
Justice is not something we form or fashion. It is woven by God into the very fabric of creation. It has been from the very dawn of time.
Significant anniversaries provide an opportunity to take stock of where one has been and where one is headed. This month, I celebrate 25 years of ministry with American Baptist Home Mission Societies. While my portfolio has changed during that time, one constant has been my involvement with The Christian Citizen.
The challenges before us are great. So is our capacity to address them. To do so, we must reject false distinctions that separate us from those with whom we share this brief moment of life. Moreover, we must learn, in Kennedy’s words, “to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of all.”
This Holy Week, Christians find themselves scattered like the first disciples, each to their own homes. This is as it should be given the threat this pandemic poses. And yet, amid the fear and anxiety of whether we or our loved ones will become sick, amid difficult conversations with our children and others about worst case scenarios, amid the worry of our children over something so present yet so imperceptible as this dread virus—have we left Jesus alone?
This Easter many Christians, perhaps most, will gather as the earliest Christians did—in homes. Unlike those early Christians, they will do so as individual families connected, if at all, through online platforms and streaming services. Like those who preceded them in the faith, they will break bread and praise God as the church has done through the ages—amid war, peace, famine, plenty, pandemic, plague, freedom, oppression.
Together, lets develop a dangerous unselfishness that honors and extends the legacy of Dr. King.