Last week, I started a long piece about the shootings in Atlanta but, I could not get the words out although I spent the week working on it. This morning, my friend told me about the mass shooting in Boulder, Colorado. The photos on CNN’s website seemed familiar and, I realized two friends and I had been there in October 2019. My suspicions were confirmed when I saw the King Scooper Supermarket sign. We had gone into that supermarket to buy groceries for our Airbnb stay. I wanted to spend time with my close friends who had been with me almost every night over my three-week hospital stay at the end of 2017 when I was diagnosed with a recurrence of cancer. My time in Colorado was the first time I had taken myself on vacation although I have travelled to other countries, visited half of the states and returned to the island of my birth, Saint Vincent. I am almost out of tears for what is happening in this nation. It is possible to weep yourself dry.

 I hesitated to write this post because, I find it much easier to write about a number of things although I have a dissertation to complete. I feel that I should shut my mouth and apply myself to schoolwork. However, I am reminded that it was not the theories that I learned in graduate school that preserved my life when I was sick. The living God and the people He placed around me, carried me through the valley of the shadow of death so I have to honor Him.

At this moment, most of us feel the weight of evil in our nation and around the world. As we grieve, pray, demand justice and a change in policies, it would appear that we are experiencing a never-ending wave of destruction. I submit to you that the rise in violence is another opportunity to change course after careful examination of what we value an individual, familial, communal and national level. Finger pointing is not sufficient to address societal wrongs. Calling out evil out in the world without sitting with the evil inside of me is problematic. I also contribute to collective evil and I have to ask God to examine me. I know that’s not what people want to hear right now and I hear you. I too am wondering how long racial violence will operate in this country. How long will white men be allowed to act out their depraved ideology with deadly consequences?  How long will we fail to have proper gun legislation? How long will we pretend that US military presence and policies in other nations have nothing to do with the tide of people at our southern border? How long will this nation lie to itself that we are the best?

I am reminded of Nehemiah chapter one in which this prophet leader receives news from Hanani about the conditions of the Jewish people in exile and those who still lived in Jerusalem. The context is that the Jewish people were under Babylonian rule after Jerusalem was sacked years before and its people taken away. A were few behind to work the land. The Babylonians had destroyed the walls of the city which left its residents vulnerable to attack. Even though Nehemiah was in a privileged position as cupbearer to the King in the capital of Susa (Iran), he had a heart for those among his people who were in destitute conditions. As a black woman who is a naturalized citizen from the Caribbean, I see all too often how people like me are tempted to buy into certain aspects of white supremacist capitalist ideology in order to achieve the American Dream. Education along with my mentor’s challenge to interrogate interracial issues and my own racial encounters forced me to begin to divorce white supremacist thinking. I am still examining myself to see which roots still need to be removed.

What draws me to Nehemiah is that he takes responsibility for collective sin. He repents for his personal sins and the sins of his ancestral family then proceeds to repent for the sins of the nation. Collective repentance is what is needed in America, first beginning with the church. I am not going to wait for institutional leaders to repent for national sins past and present. I have been in repentance and prayer for my sin, the sins of my family and this nation. 

‘Then I said: “LORD, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying         before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my ancestral family, have committed against you. We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses.”’

Nehemiah 1:5-7

I also submit to you that it is problematic for me to think that I am only part of the solution but not part of the collective evil in this nation. Self-righteousness takes different forms, and we defend ours while castigating people for theirs. 

As I have listened to people’s arguments about why they question the existence of God, their reasons usually boil down to the evil in the world. These individuals always discuss the external evil but omit their personal evil. Evil exists because we have free will and we would do anything to hold onto it. The mantra of the United States is “I have the right to…” I cannot only discuss the misogyny, racism, xenophobia, sizeism, colorism, texturism, classism and, sexual assaults that I have experienced. I have to consider how my internalized racism negatively impacted students. I have to consider how my self-righteousness led people to believe that they had to fix themselves before they approached God. I have to consider my own sins that are separate from personal quirks. I have to contend with how my failure to accept God’s invitation to healing led me to harm myself and other people. To say that I did not mean to inflict harm does not remove the evil that I committed or its consequences. 

If we want healing in this country, we have to get raw before God with our own mess and the historical devastation that continues to bear fruit in this nation and around the world. We do not get to invoke Jesus for our Gospel of snark, sarcasm, self-righteousness and social justice. I believe God cares about addressing the needs of marginalized people. However, if we do not get to know the God in whose image we and other people are made, our efforts will fail. We have to be careful of invoking Jesus to take our side in arguments in an effort to shame and manipulate people to agree with us yet resist how His words expose our own darkness. When we quote the words of Jesus in memes and slick posts, we are inadvertently saying that His words have authority and by default, He himself has authority. We do not get to invoke Jesus but resist His demand that we submit to Him. That goes for church folks and non-church folks. This truth applies to the church writ large regardless of the racial and socioeconomic demographics of its congregants. To invoke Jesus without knowing Him is an attempt to manipulate Him for our purposes. We are lying to ourselves if we think God is under our control and He exists to do our bidding. We can’t even try that mess with our parents! 

To my fellow Christians, “It is time for judgement to begin with the people of God” (I Peter 4:17). We’re off base. We have made church about strobe lights, coffee and donuts, how well the choir sings, the size of the congregation, the style of the preaching and the pastor’s personality. Christians all too often preach the gospel of feelings instead of the Gospel of Jesus. We will be held accountable for our failure to center Jesus which has led people astray. Jesus is the gospel, not principles of right living and social justice even though our walk with him should reflect a heart for justice. The church lacks authority and anointing because we are off base. Repent. The book of Revelations begins with John’s address to the the seven churches (Revelations 1-3). God deals with His people first before He addresses the world because, 

“The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”

John 12:47-48