Willing to be salt and light on a regular Friday?

So here we are at the end of this strange month of May, and life still feels far from normal. Re-opening the world while continuing to fight an invisible virus has proved to be more complicated and more polarizing than we imagined. Arguments rage around the globe over the right and wrong way to do a thing none of us has ever done before. And in the middle of the debate about mask-wearing, the media cycle is taken over with the story of a man who is denied the right to breathe. And an evil we thought was so well hidden is exposed yet again. The earth keeps on spinning, but it feels like it just might be tilted in the wrong direction. And I wonder what we are called to do about it all here in the middle of our regular Friday.

We watch the news. We talk with our kids. We re-watch Remember the Titans and search hard for a happy ending in this centuries-long injustice. We pray for our world where, as Mya Angelou wrote, “Equal rights, fair play, justice are all like air: we all have it or none of us has it.” Amen. We are not okay with this, not okay with any of it.

But the days are rolling on and the pace of life blurs out the details. And how am I to fight injustice and racism here on a summer Friday in the suburbs? It is a battle that feels like it has little to do with me or my kids or my neighbors.

And my ability to look away has me worried.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Martin Luther King Jr. said that. And I remember the day my 7th-grade English teacher wrote it on the board.

I didn’t get it.

I grew up in the heart of the South —  the suburbs of Atlanta in the 80’s.  Life was good. We went to the best schools, rode our bikes through the safest neighborhoods, stayed out until the streetlights came on, and watched the sunset over the tops of our towering Georgia pines. And we never thought much about racism.

Until that 7th grade English class. Our teacher made us read articles and watch news reports (on the actual 6 o’clock news) that dealt with issues like racism and discrimination. She made us discuss things like white supremacy and segregated schools, and she insisted that we realize it was still an issue.

But we didn’t think it was. I went to school with kids from everywhere. Kids from South Africa, Korea,  and Japan. Kids of all different religions and backgrounds. And kids who lived right in the middle of the big city, who spent hours on a bus each day to get to our school because the ones in their neighbors were falling apart. We were certain that segregation has been fixed.

But together we sat in that stifling un-air-conditioned middle school classroom, the wet Georgia humidity heavy in the air, fans rustling the papers in our Trapper Keepers, and we talked about racism that we didn’t believe existed.

We were the new generation of southerners; the ones who had never known segregation. We were the ones who were going to change the culture of this city that had risen from its own ashes. We were going to be different. We had lockers next to each other, used the same water fountains and bathrooms and ate lunch at the same tables. And we couldn’t imagine it being otherwise.

But then our teacher showed us a news story about a county only a few miles north of our Sandy Springs school, a county where riots and protests against diverse classrooms like ours were unfolding in the streets.

How could this happen? It was 1987 for goodness sake! We were horrified! But it would never happen to us. We were good.

And I remember my teacher looking at us and saying, “Don’t think that this is just going to go away. Don’t think that because it isn’t happening to you, it doesn’t matter. It all matters. Mark my words. This struggle will continue and it will be yours.” She was so serious.

But. We still didn’t believe her. And as we walked out of her door, shoulder to shoulder, racial and social boundaries all blurred and bumping right into each other, we laughed about our crazy old teacher.

And yet. Here it is all these 30+ years later.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”. Martin Luther King Jr.

And so on this Friday, after watching horror unfold once again for a man of color, I think about my 7th-grade teacher.

She knew something we didn’t. She knew that just because we felt safe in our little space, we couldn’t afford to look away from evil that was happening all around us.

The book of Ephesians says this, “Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our battle is not against flesh and blood but against rulers, against authorities. against powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:11-12).

In other words, it is a bigger deal than we think. I often react to tragic circumstances a lot like I did in that 7th grade classroom; not thinking that they have much to do with me. But here’s what I am learning.

These tragedies have everything to do with me. And they have everything to do with you. We are the way that God will do his work on earth. Our prayers matter. Our words of kindness matter. What we teach our kids matters. How we try to understand the perspective of someone different from us matters.

It is often said that Christians are called to be “salt and light” in this world. And we are. But it can be hard to decode that metaphor and figure out what that looks like in the middle of a world so divided and so intent on keeping people behind their battle lines.

But what if it isn’t really that complicated? What if being salt and light means we need to be the ones who are willing?

The ones who are willing to talk about it; willing to listen; willing to not always set up camp on one side or the other. Ones who are willing to be the 7th-grade teacher who looks at a class full of smug suburban kids and reminds them that they have a responsibility beyond themselves; willing to look evil in the face and call it what it is. And be willing to think that it might not just be found in others. It might be found in you and in me as well.

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free or male or female; we are all one in Christ. Could we be willing to not only believe that but to try and live it?

This is our watch. We are called to pay attention. May we stand firm. May we pray for healing for our world. And every day may we look for ways to love and listen to those who believe different things, think different thoughts, look different ways, and live different lives. And may we spread the salt and the light of Jesus as we do it, one regular Friday at a time.

“And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and in Samaria and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).