When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, [Jesus] said, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” —Luke 21:5-6
It is hard for me to stay on topic. There is one topic for me to focus on, just one: Mr. George Floyd was lynched in broad daylight, and many of my fellow citizens continue to be in danger of lynching.
(Calling him Mr. Floyd is important, for a couple of reasons. His given name, George, has been used in dominant U.S. culture as a general name for any Black man who is working a service-industry job. It has thus been used to casually degrade the dignity of human beings. In addition, when I meet anyone for the first time, I was brought up to call people by their title and surname. This kind of thing matters.)
But again, back to the main topic! Mr. George Floyd was lynched in broad daylight, and many of my fellow citizens continue to be in danger of lynching.
Mr. Floyd was once a mother’s baby boy. Then, when he was a grade-schooler, he told one of his teachers that he dreamt of one day becoming a Supreme Court justice. He looked up to Justice Thurgood Marshall. That dream was dashed. I get to keep pursuing my dreams, but Mr. Floyd does not. And many of my fellow citizens continue to be in danger of losing their chance to pursue their dreams. That is my topic.
It is hard for me to stay on this topic! First off, it is a terrible topic, that is, it is a topic that inspires the emotion of terror: Mr. Floyd was asphyxiated in broad daylight on a Minneapolis street, while the person killing him smiled for the camera, his sunglasses perched casually on his forehead. A police officer sworn to protect and serve Mr. Floyd—a White man named Mr. Derek Chauvin, but let’s be careful not to get off topic—put his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds. I should sit here in my living room and just be still for that length of time. I’ll do that tonight, if it helps me stay on this terrible topic.
My brain and body do not want to stay here with Mr. Floyd. This past Monday, the president did something irresistibly provocative, something that vividly captured my attention. His actions in front of a church (and an Episcopal church at that! I am an Episcopalian) proved impossible for me to ignore. I posted about the excellent response of the bishop of the Diocese of Washington to this stunt. Lots of likes, of course, for that post. It’s a great topic! St. John’s Lafayette is an historic church; the presidency is an historic federal job; words and actions matter; this all matters; I should focus on this! And so I did.
But I got off the topic of Mr. Floyd, whose dreams were dashed, whose breath was taken from his body, who bore the image of God and was lynched, right before our eyes. And again, many of my fellow citizens continue to be in danger of lynching. It is hard to stay on this topic. But I have to keep trying. St. John’s is a lot like Notre Dame in Paris: it’s an important building where lots of people have prayed for centuries. It is a “house of prayer.” Its history and its future both matter. But it is off topic.
Well … maybe I could, maybe I should, focus on how the Episcopal Church is complicit in structural racism and white supremacy. Now that’s a good topic. There’s a deep need for Episcopalians in particular to confront our own great sinfulness that has caused death and suffering for millions of God’s people. America famously denies having a state religion, but the Episcopal Church is the state religion America does not have. We therefore have colluded, and continue to collude, in the oppression of many millions of our fellow citizens, and even in 2020 are complicit, however indirectly, in public lynchings. This sounds like the same topic as Mr. Floyd’s lynching, and my urge to talk about it is a good urge. At some point it should be the main topic. But right now, even this is off topic.
I have only one topic I want to focus on: Mr. George Floyd was lynched in broad daylight, and many of my fellow citizens continue to be in danger of lynching. Mr. Floyd was a mother’s son. He was a father. He loved and was loved. Like me, he occasionally got into legal trouble. Like me, he made some mistakes and did some regrettable things. But unlike me, he was tried, convicted, and executed in eight minutes and 46 seconds, in broad daylight on a Minneapolis street.
Okay, maybe I could focus on that—on how I once got arrested by a cop, back in 2013, and did not get lynched. I got handcuffed and placed in a holding cell for an hour or so, and then I was released. I could focus on how unfair it is, how horrible it is that Mr. Floyd and I have such different experiences with police. This sounds like the same topic as Mr. Floyd’s lynching, and my urge to talk about it is a good urge. At some point it should be my main topic. But it is off topic.
At the top of this little post I quoted a couple of verses from Luke, chapter 21. (They are included in a book held aloft the other day by a skilled provocateur, but I digress.) At this point in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is in the temple in Jerusalem, and his companions are … off topic. They are gazing at the beauty of the temple, a religious building at the heart of a major city. (What is it about religious buildings? They are compelling.) I am sure it was a beautiful building, but they were off topic. Moments before, Jesus had just noticed someone everyone ignores: a desperately poor widow. He noted aloud that she gave the temple her last coin, the last bit of currency she had that tethered her to life. This was a manifestly unjust situation. This widow was the topic. After this interaction about the temple (quoted above), Jesus then launches into a big apocalyptic speech that essentially says, “Stay on topic, friends. Our mission is not about beautiful buildings. Everything you care about will die or be destroyed. Focus.”
Mr. Floyd’s lynching, and the continued threat of lynching of my fellow citizens, is the topic, for me. I will keep trying to focus on him, and them. I will keep praying for everyone, but especially for Mr. Floyd, and for his family, and for all people of color who are afraid to go outside, or enter a store, or drive a car, because they could be lynched. Will I act on this terrible injustice? Sure, yes, I will and I do act on it, but that is off topic. We could talk about that, you and I. We could have lots of conversations. And so we will. But again and again, I will try to remind myself that there is really only one topic. Everything else, including all kinds of important things, is secondary.
Mr. Floyd was lynched. I saw it happen. It could happen again. I want to focus on this alone.