Freedom Results from Action
Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society.
—John Lewis, Across That Bridge
Pastor Janelle Bruce reflects on how Jesus’ liberating acts in the temple (Mark 11:15–17) were the model for clergy-led Moral Monday protests in North Carolina and beyond:
When Jesus comes to the temple, he drives out those who are selling and buying, and he overturns the tables of the money changers. He says, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a ‘den of robbers.’”
Doing justice and overturning tables is not an option but a mandate. Holy disruption is a mandate for those who follow Christ, those who profess love as their religion, and those who believe in justice. While comfort leads us to accept more of the same, our faith calls us to disrupt that which harms God’s people.
We cannot become so comfortable having a seat at the table that we refuse to flip it over when it becomes a tool of oppression. We cannot fail to act because we fear the consequences. I watched the radical work of the Forward Together Moral Movement when the group’s protests first began in 2013. I was awed by North Carolinians of different backgrounds standing together, with the crowd growing from dozens to hundreds to thousands, Monday after Monday. These holy disruptors fought against the destruction of voting rights, tax codes that would hurt the most vulnerable, and policies that would devastate students, the poor, the elderly, and African Americans…. For far too long, churches have depoliticized the gospel of Jesus that demands love and justice in action.
Bruce names areas that deserve disruption in the United States today:
When we have fewer voting rights today than we did fifty years ago, we need holy disruption. When seven hundred people die every day from poverty in the United States while the richest amass and hoard wealth, we must engage in holy disruption. Holy disruption demands that people be treated justly and reminds our legislators that they are servant-leaders who will be held accountable to the people. If we walk in the radical nature of Christ when we step into spaces of injustice, people will think, here comes trouble: good, liberating, loving, Christlike trouble!…
On that first Moral Monday, Jesus showed us how to overturn tables. May we remember Jesus the revolutionary, the refugee, the prisoner, and the table turner. May we embody Jesus who fought for the poor, questioned corrupt religious establishments, and challenged the evil policies of the government. Just as Jesus disrupted the Roman Empire, we are the moral witnesses of today, and we are called to disrupt the unjust empires of our time.
Reference:
Janelle Bruce, “Should We Sit at the Table—or Turn it Over?” in We Cry Justice: Reading the Bible with the Poor People’s Campaign, ed. Liz Theoharis (Broadleaf, 2021), 89–91.
Image credit and inspiration: Sushil Nash, untitled (detail), 2020, photo, United Kingdom, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. The fist is a simple but mighty symbol of resistance, solidarity, and unity in the face of oppression and injustice. An innate desire for the liberation of the oppressed also results in the unexpected liberation of the oppressor.
Story from Our Community:
Where do I belong? Not with the rich and privileged, not with the very poor, not with the liberals and not with the conservatives, not with the intellectuals and successful, not with organized religion and social organizations—not even with some family members. I belong in Christ’s arms, in the space of paradoxes, the space of unknowing, and in the cracks of suffering. That is where I am free to feel God’s loving touch with an open, humble heart.
—Kathy Jo W.