“ …Hollis wasn’t her blood relative, but they were still family. It was the collectiveness of the black experience,” writes Crump. “Something he believed had been transmitted across generations, beginning in ancient Africa where the notion of the individual didn’t exist. There was no I, only we, and together, we’d rise or fall.”
As with many families, some of us roll our eyes at the idea that we move supportively and cohesively. Truly, some of our personal opportunities have afforded us the luxury of feeling removed from the family, yet the challenges that dog our steps find themselves on our doorsteps, even when we thought we moved away.
The case of Nolan Wells, the Mississippi youth who ended up dead after a July 4th boat outing shocks our senses because of the confederated wall of silence surrounding his death among his friends. The case of Karmelo Anthony disrupts our suburban peace because we’ve come to trust when boys will be boys, no one ends up having to fight for their life. Gary, Indiana residents — the majority of whom are black — sustained a three week utility stoppage after a summer storm. And, the administration is stepping up the removal of our Haitian brothers and sisters with weekly deportation flights. Our mission elevates the people by shining a light on these issues, challenging our sense of “truth” and finding spiritual resilience and survivability in it all, together.
A few months ago, a vocal critic of Message used his platform to proclaim to the Christian community that our “progressive” articles encouraged young people to resist ICE. He even associated the ideas within as Marxist.
What we resist is a strict hermeneutic that allows one to read the words of Jesus and the Bible and not internalize an outgrowth of operational love and justice.
In Isaiah 58, the prophet rhetorically laments the slow answer to prayers of God’s people. They think they’re doing everything right. Yet their prayers, their showy feasts and general piety are all ineffectual when it comes to God’s blessings and favor. He’s not impressed. Rather, He’s specific regarding the kinds of things that He wants to see:
Is this not the fast that I have chosen:
To loose the bonds of wickedness,
To undo the heavy burdens,
To let the oppressed go free,
And that you break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
And that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out;
When you see the naked, that you cover him,
And not hide yourself from your own flesh?”
God says you want to hear from me? Don’t hide yourself from your own.
A second principle, emerged when Jesus was ministering to the crowds, and someone whispered in His ear: “your mom and brothers are outside . . .” The Bible doesn’t offer the reason why they dropped in on Him. Maybe the whisperer thought everything should stop so that Mary and the family could receive a proper announcement be ushered in to the front and celebrated. Or maybe they needed to have a word with Jesus. Or, maybe, after the intense exchanges between Jesus and the Pharisees, the fact that His family was outside meant they could come get Him. But, Jesus, was not to be diverted from His mission. He took the moment to enlarge our limited understanding of family, as He had regarding the question of “who is my neighbor?”:
“And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren? And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother”(Mark 3:33-35, emphasis supplied).
We may not be blood relatives, but we are family, and together we have work to do.
CARMELA MONK CRAWFORD, Esq., is Editor of Message Magazine