Why "Black Lives Matter"?

In the sixth chapter of Acts, there is this account of the early church:

1Now during those days, when the disciples were increasing in number, the Greek-speaking Jewish converts complained against the Hebrew-speaking Jewish converts because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food. 2And the twelve called together the whole community of the disciples and said, “All widows matter.” And that settled it.

Actually, that is not what they said and not how they settled it. Instead, it went this way:

2And the twelve called together the whole community of the disciples and said, ‘It is not right that we should neglect the word of God in order to wait at tables. 3Therefore, friends, select from among yourselves seven men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this task, 4while we, for our part, will devote ourselves to prayer and to serving the word.’ 5What they said pleased the whole community.

It appears there was a division in the earliest church and a disparity in how the widows of one group were being treated vis a vis the other. Given the tensions it might have been tempting for the twelve, being Hebrew-speaking Jewish converts, to deny the disparity. They did not. Rather, they formed the order of deacons to issue that everyone received a fair share.

We have heard from our African-American sisters and brothers that there is a disparity in the way they are treated. In the case of Ahmaud Arbery, Christian Cooper, and George Floyd; we have not only heard, we have seen it. This is true across the board. Particularly, and much too often, our black brothers and sisters report that this disparity of treatment shows up in their engagement with the police and the courts. This gives the impression that justice for them – indeed their very lives – is worth less. Hence the cry, “Black Lives Matter.” 

One does not need to endorse all the views of the organization that calls itself Black Lives Matter to understand and endorse the sentiment of the slogan. For the vast majority of those declaring Black Lives Matter do not. Nor is the the point of Black Lives Matter that other lives do not matter. It is not that the lives of police or anyone else do not matter. The Greek-speaking converts did not insist that their widows mattered more than the Hebrew-speaking widows. They were demanding fairness and justice where fairness and justice were not being applied. So it is with Black Lives Matter. 

Those of us who are white have the same choice as the disciples in Acts 6. We can ignore or deny the injustice. We can avoid dealing with it by deflecting and insisting that all lives matter so we do not have to deal with the reality that it is not in fact always true in our society that all lives matter. Or we can acknowledge that something is wrong in the way black people have been and are being treated. With them we can affirm and insist that Black Lives do indeed Matter. We can acknowledge that racism is a corrosive reality in America and one with a long, deep, and pervasive history. We can commit ourselves to doing something to address that history and change that reality.

What if we, like the disciples in Acts 6, faced the injustice? They formed the order of deacons – servants – to insure fairness. What if we committed ourselves to be better servants of our black neighbors? What if we listened better, with open hearts and non-defensiveness, to their stories of injustice? How might we, like deacons, advocate with and for them? What diaconal policies and laws might we advocate for to insure more justice?