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(Read this series from the beginning at Part 1 and Part 2.)
I think of how silence in regards to injustice is called for against those who “speak up for the oppressed” (Psalm 82:3) in the name of not rocking the boat or not causing a stir. Whenever I begin to feel this pressure to remain silent I take some time to go back and reread King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail in its entirety.
Here is just a snippet:
“I felt we would be supported by the white church. I felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained glass windows . . . So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent–and often even vocal–sanction of things as they are.”
As someone who shares my social location within our present society, I want to be honest about how deep the temptation is at times to just stay quiet, to not have the energy to rock the boat once again, and to justify that silence by a pretense of concern for “unity.”
Wake up! This is that very “unity” that is indeed death-dealing.
I don’t read this week’s reading as calling for this kind of unity. I don’t read this week’s passage as placing unity as our value of highest priority. It’s a call for unity, yes. But it’s not a call for unity at all costs. If we have to choose between unity and harm being done to those our status quo has made vulnerable, then in the name of justice and love and compassion, our highest concern should not be maintaining unity.
This kind of unity leaves the status quo unchallenged and unchanged. And nothing could be further from the spirit of the table flipping Jesus we read of in the gospel stories.
To be a follower of this Jesus (and his ethical teachings of love) means, not to place our highest concern on maintaining unity within an unjust system. It means our highest priority being transforming our present world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone, just as we see the Jesus of the gospels modeling in his life.
There is a time for unity. There is also a time for disunity.
May we have the wisdom to know the difference.
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