Preaching and Protesting in Nineveh
As I’ve wrestled with what to say to you during the protests following the killing of George Floyd, I’ve returned again and again to the words of Jonah 3. It may seem strange to be thinking about Jonah in the midst of the movement for black lives, but the prophets have long been a source of nourishment for those resisting injustice — after all, justice, righteousness, and kindness were the prophets’ bread and butter.
At the beginning of Jonah, God says to the prophet, “Get up, and go to Nineveh.” And, we’re told Jonah got up and went to Tarshish. He wanted nothing to do with preaching to the people of Nineveh who were known for their brutal law and order, and their swift repression of all who opposed them.
However, when Jonah finally arrived in Nineveh by way of that famous whale, something miraculous happened. In chapter 3, we’re told the king of Nineveh declared three days of fasting and mourning as a sign of repentance. The king commanded, “Let humans and animals alike put on mourning clothes, and let them call upon God forcefully! And let all persons stop their evil behavior and the violence that’s under their control!”
I tell you, Jonah is on the streets of our modern day Nineveh. Jonah is in the voice of every person shouting Black Lives Matter. Jonah is in the timeline of every post speaking truth to power. Jonah is in every hard phone conversation that justice-seekers are having with white family and friends. Many of you are Jonah. You have heard the call of God to “get up and go” to the sources of oppression, and you have gotten up and gone. No whales needed. Thanks be to God.
I wish our country’s leaders had responded like the king of Nineveh, with a call for sackcloth and repentance. I wish three days of mourning were enough to staunch God’s demand for justice in our country. But, alas, Jonah is a story to tell around the fire, and we live in a world without prophet-swallowing whales and repentant despots.
The fact is in our world we can be both Jonah and the Ninevites at the same time — and most of us in the Central Pacific Conference are. We live in a world where even our churches are infected with the violence of white supremacy. We minister in sanctuaries built on stolen land. We hold equity gained at the expense of those who could not buy property because of exclusion acts. We call for repentance, and our own institutions are the ones that must repent.
So, in the midst of the protests following the killing of George Floyd, in the midst of a pandemic that has disproportionately killed those who are vulnerable because of racist structures, in the midst of prophets calling for justice and an end to racial violence, I a white leader in a predominantly white church look to the king of Nineveh in Jonah 3, and I say, “Let all persons stop their evil behavior and the violence that is under their control.”
I wish I could give you easy answers. I wish white people taking a knee was enough. Instead, I must call each of us to redouble our efforts. Recommit to rooting out white supremacy wherever we see it, in our police departments, in our churches, and in ourselves.
In this work, you are not alone. In 2015, the Central Pacific Conference passed a resolution declaring ourselves an anti-racist conference. This February, the Board of Directors recommitted to that work. We know being anti-racist requires daily practice. It’s not a three-day seminar, but a lifelong journey. We are with you, the churches of the Central Pacific Conference, as we seek to be an anti-racist conference together.
This is the work of the church in our modern Nineveh: Shun racism in all its subtle and violent forms, not for three days, but for every day we have on this earth, and every day our children have, and every day their children have.
And may God have mercy on us all, until the day Jonah can lie under a shade plant and take a nap.
Yours in the struggle for love and justice,
Tyler
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