Between Anger and Grace in Minnesota

by David Edwards, Intern, Future of Faith and student at Gordon College

To understand belonging, one has to first belong. The egg comes before the chicken. The “product” before the “machine”. Once you have found this “egg,” or sense of belonging, you are able to not only find it elsewhere but replicate it yourself. However, like an egg, one’s sense of belonging is fragile. A break in the egg could be caused by how one acts around other eggs. Or simply how one looks! While the definition of an egg is far more universally accepted, one’s sense of belonging is most certainly not. We see this play out in a variety of arenas and spaces, most recently a space I am quite particular to: My home, in Minnesota.

For the time being, I will set aside the egg analogy. It would be impossible to relate all the complexities of our country’s political, cultural, and theological climate to a silly egg metaphor. However, the connotations of a fragile sense of belonging, I believe, are quite relevant. What does one do when certain people are told they belong, while others are kidnapped off the street? How does a Christ follower react when people in his own neighborhood are quite clearly told they don’t belong? Especially when the price for their belonging is their own life?

How does a Christ follower react when people in his own neighborhood are quite clearly told they don’t belong?

As a member of the African American community, my initial response was a sense of numbness, which turned to anger. Numbness due to the fact that, for me, this is not new. It is not a “new concept” for Black Minnesotans that people die at the hands of law enforcement. It is not a “new concept” for Black Minnesotans that people die for their politics, either. I point to the recent killings of Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband, and the attempted murder of Senator Hoffman, Yvette Hoffman, and their daughter, Hope. I could also point to the murder of Daunte Wright, or what Minneapolis is well-known for, the place of George Floyd’s murder.

That numbness turned to anger when I saw how people reacted, both from the right and the left. I’ve been frustrated with how our government has told us not to believe what we saw with our eyes. It pained me to see people in high positions of authority and influence call these people domestic terrorists, when it is quite clear that those they are defending fit that bill more accurately. However, as an African American who descends from enslaved people, it pained me to see people on the political left be quick to identify ICE as a modern-day Gestapo. I understand the fascism comparisons. However, I find it far more plausible that ICE resembles modern-day slave catchers.

During the slavery period in our country, slave catchers fulfilled duties like “enforcing curfews, checking travelers for a permission pass, catching those assembling without permission, and preventing any form of organized resistance” (nleomf). National Archives notes that after the American Revolution, where African Americans enjoyed emancipation in northern states, kidnappers would, under the guise of the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act, kidnap and sell free people back into slavery. Oftentimes, slave catchers would not take time to ensure “the identity of the person they captured matched the one they were legally allowed to seize” (Archives). Sound familiar? Not only did white witnesses refuse to testify (for fear of retribution from other white neighbors), but those who did protect African Americans were imprisoned, harassed, and threatened.

 So the violence we are witnessing is not from a faraway land in a faraway time. In fact, according to the History Channel, “to craft legal discrimination, the Third Reich studied the United States” (Little). So even if there were connections to be drawn from the Nazi Regime (which I believe there are), they get their origins from us! However, there was well-documented resistance to unjust enslavement and kidnapping. Similarly to how Minnesotans have reacted to ICE patrols and raids, Bostonians in 1854 formed the Anti-Man-Hunting League, which committed to using the tactics of slave catchers against them. Namely, kidnap them before they could kidnap others. 

 I provide this history because this is the history that I have grown up knowing. And it is the history that, out of necessity, I have had to know in order to protect myself. It infuriated me to see how many people simply do not know the origins of sin within our own country. It pained me to see how easily the darkest times of our country could re-manifest themselves. 

However, as I was praying and processing, I was led to a particular passage in Luke 6. This was right after Jesus had finished assembling His core twelve disciples, and was sitting on a mountain with the large crowds of disciples listening to His teaching. The section that I focused on was partway through Luke’s account of The Sermon on the Mount, just after The Beatitudes. 

Jesus says, “²⁷But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. ²⁹If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. ³⁰Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. ³¹Do to others as you would have them do to you. // ³⁵But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. ³⁶Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:27-31; 35-36)

Love your enemies. One of the most difficult teachings in all of Scripture. How could I possibly do good to someone who so clearly hates me? How could I bless someone who curses me? How could I pray for someone who presently and historically mistreats me? It is impossible. It isn’t human. 

However, Jesus always modeled what He preached. In that moment, Jesus was preaching to a sea of His “enemies”. Here was God in flesh, surrounding Himself with a ragtag group of sinners, traitors, zealots, sick, and diseased people. Righteousness ministering to sinfulness. 

I was challenged by the fact that, although I have been justifiably angry and offended, I offended God first. As much as I have been sinned against, I, too, have sinned. As much as someone has mistreated my people, I have mistreated the Lord. 

And God’s response to my utter despondency was not to condemn, damn, or eternally judge. His response was kindness and mercy. He chose full solidarity with rebellious people. Paul makes it incredibly clear when he writes: “God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

And this is the love He has called us to know and cultivate. In His final address to His disciples before Gethsemane and His cross, Jesus commanded His disciples to “love one another. Just as I have loved you, so you too are to love one another. ³⁵By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34b-35). That love was then demonstrated in the Son of God, taking on all of my open rebellion as open wounds, my cutting insurrection as the thrash of the whip, and the sickness of my depraved mind as all the ailments and sicknesses this broken world has wrought. I don’t deserve it, and could never hope to earn it. Yet He gives it as a free gift of grace all the same. 

So, as I process this dark time we are living in, especially as one who is from a hotspot of this darkness and violence, I have been moved and challenged to love. To love those who voted differently from me. To love those who don’t understand the historical significance of the moment we are living in. To love those who are still openly blind and rebellious to the truth. It looks like humility, which is the active ingredient in the ability to ask questions about the story of your enemy. To humanize your foe the way Christ humanized you. I have been moved by Christ’s love to try to see the best in others, even when they demonstrate the worst in themselves, as He did for me.

I have been moved by Christ’s love to try to see the best in others, even when they demonstrate the worst in themselves, as He did for me.

To continue to tell the truth, I haven’t the slightest idea of a “rule of life” when it comes to balancing love and righteous anger. I know that while Jesus loved His enemies, He was quite sharp (to say the least) with the Pharisees and temple merchants and moneychangers. I have no idea what the “precise rule” to how far forgiveness and love of the other should go. 

However, as I have been exploring the answer to that question, the Lord has provided three clarifying revelations: 

1. The first being that the degree to which I love my enemy is the fruit of the degree to which I have received the love of God. 

2. Secondly, the way I understand and receive that love of God is by intentionally working out love for my enemies. It is in the exploring of love for a hostile other that I understand how God loved me when I was (and still am) hostile towards Him. It is in the fervent prayer for my administration alongside the oppressed that I understand my Father’s deep love for all of His creation.

3. The third is one I am very much still exploring as well. A “half-baked” idea, if you will. It is the fact that I am weak, and as Jeremiah 17:9 tells me, my heart is sick and deceitful. Only the Lord has the ability to search and understand my heart. Knowing where God is leading my heart is called discernment. Acting upon that discernment is wisdom. Grace through faith (Eph. 2:8-9) is my access to both. Paul writes that he was afflicted by a devilish thorn to keep him from being conceited. Three times he asked the Lord to remove the devil from him. God responded by saying, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). So Paul responds by not resisting the pain, but embracing it. In embracing his deficiency, he enables Christ to work on His abundance. In weakness, He is strong. 

   
   

The truth is, we are all fragile social “eggs,” searching for meaning and belonging. Navigating with like-formed and minded “eggs” provides some semblance of safety, but not complete and total assurance. In an ultra-polarized world, “breaks” in our social shells are much more prevalent, and everyone seems to be desperately searching for some remedy other than the cardboard carton we call politics, the news, and social media. 

The degree to which I love my enemy is the fruit of the degree to which I have received the love of God. 

I propose a relationship with Jesus Christ. He’s always listening and offering a shoulder to cry on. Lately, in my quiet time, I have been extremely honest with Him about how I feel. I have found that the only remedy for my broken shell isn’t found in the cardboard cartons of politics or social media, but in the unconditional safety of being fully known and fully loved by Him. It is only in this space where we are seen in our own 'open rebellion' and yet shown mercy. Here we find the strength to do the impossible. We cannot love our enemies in our own strength; we can only do it as an overflow of the powerful grace we have already received. When we allow ourselves to be fully seen by Him, we gain the eyes to fully see one another. In that spirit, I return to this prayer:

The Serenity Prayer

God, grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change

the courage to change the things I can

and the wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time,

enjoying one moment at a time.

Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace.

Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is,not as I would have it.

Trusting that You will make all things right

if I surrender to Your will;

that I may be reasonably happy in this life,

and supremely happy with You, forever, in the next.

Amen.