Can You Hear Me Now?

" O Lord my God, if I have done this,

If there is injustice in my hands,

If I have rewarded evil to my friend,

Or have plundered him who without cause was

my adversary,

Let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it;

And let him trample my life down to the ground,

And lay my glory in the dust."

(Selah)

Psalm 7:3-5

I started a new habit this past week, after hearing a challenge from one of my favorite Podcasts. It was to just read a Psalm a day. Just read it. Take it at face value. No need to ponder it or deeply study it. Today, I read Psalm 7, and the words became my prayer. I am convicted of my complicity, my moderateness, my willingness, my white privilege to look the other way. My heart is to hear, to listen and to repent . . .so that I live in such a way that not only is love evident in my actions but justice reigns as well.

2020 will be a year never forgotten. There is always a bigger picture than what is evident before us. Facing a novel COVID19 virus never seen before, has shed a light on worldwide disparities. Staying at home, quarantined, trying to stock up on toilet paper, becoming obsessed with cleaning. Going to work, wearing masks and gloves, seeing patients by video, ever conscious that an infected person or staff may happen to come into the office, has brought a new reality that will probably never return to "normal." Although for now,

restrictions are being lifted gradually, an unseen enemy still abounds. For it is only a matter of time, perhaps before it begins its second wind of rage. . .

But sadly, worse than the physical aspect of death and disease, lies centuries of inhumane injustice. I wish I could go back to my younger self, with the eyes and ears of myself now. I wish I had been more informed back then of racial inequality and injustice, instead of being kept in the bubble of evangelicalism. The bubble that kept me in white only churches and congregations, which gave me a mindset of "us and them." A bubble that spoke words of equality and friendship, but hid behind doors of fear and segregation.

As Martin Luther King has said, "A riot is the language of the unheard." Protests have always been the outcry of the oppressed, and God hears their cry and has a word for their oppressors, us . . .

"Thus says the Lord,

For three transgressions of Israel and for four,

I will not revoke its punishment,

Because they sell righteous for money

And the needy for a pair of sandals.

Those who pant after the very dust of the earth on the

head of the helpless

Also turn aside the way of the humble."

Amos 2:6-7

I am listening more than ever. I have been reading and relearning about the true history of our land for many years, and yet there is still so much more to know. I was somewhat dumbfounded as a teen, when I witnessed the Religious Right movement and response to the Nixon Watergate scandal. Hypocrisy was sheltered and never was called out. The Church or shall I say the Evangelical Church is always absent or late to the issues of the day. This has been starkly put before us during these past years of the Church aligning itself with a pathological lying President, as well as demonstrating silence to a rise of nationalism and white supremacy. Yes, I think God has a word for us . . . and it isn't one of blessing . . .

I have a suggestion for pastors. Instead of looking at these days "as the end of times, " and instead of suggesting to their congregants that "soon they will all be raptured," they need to open their Biblical text to the book of Amos and see how God views their current actions. God doesn't delight in your festivals or "gatherings," nor in your complaints about not being able to meet due to COVID19 restrictions. God doesn't delight in your offerings, He doesn't accept your false worship and your "peace" offerings. He says "Take away from Me the noise of your songs; I will not even listen to the sound of your harps," (Amos 5: 21-23). He doesn't delight in your complaints about wearing a mask or restricting your activity, why?

Because being a true follower of Jesus Christ means that you care for others, you want the best for others, you want the best for this world, and you want to do something to demonstrate care, even if that means to take a knee or walk in a protest in support of your Black brothers and sisters. You are to stand with those who are treated unfairly, and realize this time is not about you. You are not the persecuted Christians, who have lost their "God-given" rights. Rather, the beam is in your eye; you are the one guilty of injustice. And to that God states, "But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream," (Amos 5:24).

Can you hear Me now? God is the One who is asking us that question right now, He has sent a world wide pause to open our eyes to our human frailty and limitations. He has an ear always for the cry of the oppressed and the guilty will never go unpunished, be it now or in eternity. He states:

"Seek good and not evil, that you may live;

And thus may the Lord God of hosts be with you,

Just as you have said!