Eastertide

May 4, 2021

Scripture Reading:
Acts 10:44-48

While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, ‘Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?’ So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.

Welcoming gentiles as followers of Christ was a culturally challenging part of the early church. In the scripture above, Peter identifies the gift of the Holy Spirit as God’s sign that the gentiles should be accepted. Who do we cast as outside God’s love, and how do we open our hearts to all God’s children?

As we arise from the savagery of COVID, I find myself to be short on patience and restless. I wonder if others feel the same. The people I observe via media seem eager to get back to what they deem normal. My impatience is targeted at all the injustice that the virus revealed, and my restless response is to wonder why we are not moving faster to restore not what to us is expected but wholeness to our fractured world. Our former normal did not and will not address justice issues.

I have been attending a class on White Privilege, and it dawned on me as I listened to the discussion that there is no justice in privilege. We often use the term underprivileged to describe poverty, lack of a good education, or loss of hope. There is nothing normal between the privileged and underprivileged. Our society tracks many measures of success by the percentile they are above, at, or below norms. There is no identified “at” related to privilege. I believe the “at” of privilege must be justice.

In our society, we stumble about measuring poverty with antiquated tools to find its impact on our world. Do we measure poverty to determine at what point it negatively impacts privilege? How do we measure privilege and its effects on the society? Is it as essential to get a handle on privilege to bring about justice as it is to address the underprivileged? At what point does justice end and privilege begin, and who gets hurt in the process?

Prayer: God of Justice, send your Spirit to show us how to wedge justice into our consideration of the impacts of privilege in our world today. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.