The Incarnation and Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Rumain Brisbon . . .

  They shall name him Emmanuel’, which means, ‘God is with us.’   Matthew 1:23

This post is for white people, especially white Church people.

I can’t breathe either, but I sound like a jerk saying that. I don’t deserve to say it with my white skin and enormous privilege.  But I am honestly queasy over the state of racial relationships in this land we love.

I know what you’re thinking, white family and friends:  you are getting a little tired of people talking about white privilege and you find this constant talk about #blacklivesmatter – ing and news coverage of protests excessive.  But let’s look at this from the perspective of Advent and The Coming of Christ.

We who believe that the One who has come and is coming again is Jesus might also believe that we are called to follow Jesus.  If Jesus became one with us, maybe we understand that we are to become one with others for whom Jesus died.

Do we believe in turning the other cheek, caring for “the least of these” and loving our neighbors as ourselves or don’t we?  Yes, police officers and others with authority are also our neighbors and God’s children.  But we are all called to protect and to serve each other.  Will we be those people or won’t we?

We need to address racism in church.  We need to connect with people of color to listen to their stories of racial profiling and everyday racism.  And we need to use our privilege to serve those without privilege.  If we don’t do this as the people of Jesus, I’m not sure we can claim to follow him.

Mosaic of Trayvon Martin, Renisha McBride, Eric Garner, Rumain Brisbon, Michael Brown, John Crawford III, Dontre Hamilton, Jonathan Ferrell, & Tamir Rice.  They have all died in the past months for many reasons but the color of their skin had something to do with it.