Systems of Fear and Violence

As we read through the scriptures describing Christ’s passion during Easter Week every year, the question that we struggle with the most is “who is complicit in his death?” For centuries, the answer we shamefully came up with was “the Jews,” and there was violence against Jews. Now, we are more likely to answer, “the Roman Empire,” “the leaders in Jerusalem,” and, if we are looking at the mobs that appear, “We are.” Those with the nails and the spears were just different actors in the same system. Is it any different today, as we hear more stories about black people killed by the state and our own systems of fear?
(if you wonder about your own implicit biases, try some tests from Project Implicit at Harvard: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html )
This is a reason we talk about systemic racism here in Ankeny UCC. It’s a hard thing to talk about, because it’s not an easy thing to solve–we want it to be true that if we are good people and don’t consciously act differently toward people of different races and backgrounds, we have done what we must to fight racism. But if we look at the system, and see the ways that the decisions we make as society differ based on who we are dealing with, we see that it goes beyond good intentions. When Jesus preached about the Good Samaritan helping an injured person after those closer to him failed to do so, he was challenging the assumptions about people different than ourselves. Do we rush to find fault with a person who was shot, finding the reason they deserved it? That is the suspicion about the Samaritan Jesus was fighting.
This is scary stuff. But RIP Philando Castille. RIP Alton Sterling. We pray for all the people who are scared, especially those who fear the state and those who carry the burden of life or death with them every day.