I Need to Breathe, May 31, 2020

8 minutes and 46 seconds. 

That's how long Derek Chauvin held his knee on George Floyd's neck, as alleged by the Hennepin County Attorney's Office criminal complaint against the former Minneapolis police officer. "The defendant had his knee on Mr. Floyd's neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds in total. Two minutes and 53 seconds of this was after Mr. Floyd was non-responsive.” According to reports, he repeatedly called for his mother, said please, and said I can’t breathe...

I need to breathe, Ahmaud Arbery jogging on Holmes Road near Brunswick in Glynn County, Georgia, while jogging on Holmes Road trying to improve his lung capacity, had the cops called on him and chased down by people attempting to make a “citizens arrest” two citizens decided to be judge, jury, and executioner for the high crime of trespassing, looking in a house while it was still being constructed. 

I need to breathe, Breonna Taylor sleeping and breathing peacefully in her home in Kentucky one evening and police knocking the door down without identifying themselves and shot her 8 times, Breonna’s boyfriend Kenneth Walker returned fire and he is in jail being charged. What happened to the castle doctrine and stand your ground in that case?

I need to breathe, Amy Cooper a white woman walking her dog in Central Park in New York did not like that a black man named Christian Cooper while bird watching asked her to put her dog on a leash. Instead of leashing the dog, or even just saying mind your business and keep moving decides to argue with him and then call 911, change her voice from calm and collected to heavy breathing and screaming in the video you can see her saying “I’m taking a picture and calling the cops,” then later Amy Cooper is heard saying in the video. “I’m going to tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life.”

I need to breathe, we are in the midst of a pandemic that has infected over 6 million people worldwide, 1.7 million in the United States, has killed over 368 thousand worldwide, 107 thousand in the United States. A disease that ravages the respiratory system. Some people just get a little tired and go on with their lives, others lose their lung capacity others are put on ventilators and many have died in a short amount of time. 

I find the connections in all of these situations going on 

I. The appearance before the ten (20:19-23) 

1. The fearful ones (20:19a): 

The disciples are meeting behind locked doors for fear of the Jews. 

For fear of the Jews, I used to think this was an issue of faith, and the disciples were scared of the Jews because they didn’t believe in the risen savior but there is more to it. The disciples were Jewish too, they were afraid of the authorities. It wasn’t safe to be a so called Christian during those times. These disciples just saw their leader executed like a common criminal, Jesus followers were not welcomed warmly where they went. They upset the order, they upset the status quo, and those who were in charge wanted to stay in charge and did not like their authority being challenged. They don’t want you to overturn the empire, they don’t want you to change the social norms, they didn’t want Jesus challenging the social, economic, and political power structures that he did so they killed him, and killed others who followed him. 

I wondered why would the disciples be afraid of the the Jews, they were Jews themselves. But then I realized, you can be a human being and be afraid of other human beings because they will figure out a way to separate themselves from you and oppress you for it. I can be a Christian and be scared of other Christians. Those who are silent when their brothers and sisters are persecuted. I’m looking at you so called Evangelicals. But then again, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made an often repeated observation that “the most segregated hour in this nation” is Sunday at 11:00 am. 

And while we are on Dr. King, I wish so many people would stop trying to invoke his name when they don’t know much about him outside of him having a day they don’t celebrate and the “I have a dream speech.” I’m watching so many people invoke his name in the midst of riots like they knew the man or would care what he had to say if he was still alive.

In 1966, for example, in a Sept. 27 interview, King was questioned by CBS’ Mike Wallace about the “increasingly vocal minority” who disagreed with his devotion to non-violence as a tactic. In that interview, King admitted there was such a minority, though he said that surveys had shown most black Americans were on his side. “And I contend that the cry of ‘black power’ is, at bottom, a reaction to the reluctance of white power to make the kind of changes necessary to make justice a reality for the Negro,” King said. “I think that we’ve got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard. And, what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the economic plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years.”

Martin Luther King Letter From Birmingham Jail quote: 

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

In other words stop telling other people how to protest especially if you are not going to actually address the reason that they are protesting. Treating police brutality and racism as separate isolated instances even though these things have been ingrained into the founding of this country and are promoted as early as preschool only helps the oppressors. 

When Amy Cooper can call the police and yell and scream that she is being attacked by knowing what happens to black and brown men when they encounter the police, and people are more concerned about how she treated the dog, then the fact that she is lying to the police about what a black man is doing to her helps the oppressors. Saying you have a problem with both Colin Kaepernic kneeling and the officer kneeling on George Floyd’s neck then proceeding to talk about Kaepernic for the rest of the time. 

This conditions people to side with the oppressor, and discount those being oppressed, why is it that when a black man is killed, I have to hear people go out their way to justify, he should have just complied, he stole a candy bar when he was 17, he is a thug, he fit the description, more black people kill each other than the police do anyway. Black on Black crime is a myth. 

Just preach the Bible pastor. 

Amos 5:24 New King James Version (NKJV)

24 But let justice run down like water, And righteousness like a mighty stream.

Proverbs 31:9 New King James Version (NKJV)

9 Open your mouth, judge righteously, And plead the cause of the poor and needy.

Isaiah 1:17 New King James Version (NKJV)

17 Learn to do good; Seek justice, Rebuke the oppressor; Defend the fatherless, Plead for the widow.

James 1:27 New King James Version (NKJV)

27 Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

Matthew 22:34-40 New King James Version (NKJV)

34 But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”

37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment.39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

2. The faithful one (20:19b-23)

 

    a. He comforts them (20:19b-20): Suddenly Jesus appears, showing them his hands and side. 

Once they saw the scars, once they saw the nail pierced hands 

    b. He commissions them (20:21-23): They are to become his Spirit-filled witnesses. 

The text says as the Father sent me, I also send you. The disciples had to get out of the room they were in, get out of the state of mind they were in, and get out among the people to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

It is going to take a miracle and it is going to take some movement. 

Be angry now, but be just as angry in November. Be angry every year after that in the polls not just presidential elections. Donald Trump doesn’t hire police officers.

Do you know who is on your school board, do you know when they meet. Does you kids teachers know you?

I’m just as angry as you, if not more, but I also get angry because my NAACP Unit meeting is only going to have 5-6 in it. 

Jesus breathed on them, and Jesus sent them.