Do we recognize a burning bush when we see one?

Moses was in the wilderness tending sheep with his sights set on Horeb, the mountain of God, when the bush began to burn, and it didn’t faze him at all. It was common for bushes to catch fire in the wilderness, so the fact that one was burning near him didn’t strike him as odd, nor did it demand further thought.

It wasn’t until Moses realized the bush was burning but wasn’t being consumed that he turned aside to look. It had finally captured his attention because the fire wasn’t stopping.

Normally in the U.S., protests come and protests go. We see them on the news in cities far away and in cities close by, like our nation’s capital, yet we pay them little to no attention. We maintain our busy lifestyles, and eventually they die out.

However, instead of dying out quickly this time, the protests have ignited a nation-wide movement—a conversation focused on overcoming racial injustice that isn’t stopping. Working from home, separated from others due to a global pandemic, how can we not notice? It has gotten our attention and is causing many of us to turn aside to look.

Once God saw that Moses was looking His way, He called to him from the midst of the bush. Moses realized that day he wasn’t going to encounter God from some lofty height upon the mountain. Instead he was going to experience Him at ground level in the middle of a fire. His presence was within view.

Recently, feeling led to reread the story about the burning bush, I realized the same thing. God’s presence is within our view. As I reflected on that passage, what I heard Him say was, “Many people want this movement to stop. But it isn’t stopping because I am in the middle of it. I am working here. This is holy ground.”

I have learned that anytime people are being oppressed, we can expect God to be present, working on their behalf. Wherever there is injustice, God’s desire for justice follows. God heard His people’s cry in Egypt. He saw their affliction and their oppressors and told Moses, “I have come down to deliver them.”

This is something we often miss. God’s plan wasn’t to have Moses deliver His people. God’s plan was to work through Moses. The deliverer then, as it is now, was God.

Whenever we get this mixed up and think we are the deliverer, we begin to assume a position and claim power that isn’t ours to possess. Moses was always clear about his role. Anytime the Israelites turned against him, he let them know their anger was misdirected as it was God who had given them their freedom.

I can only imagine if Moses had claimed the position as deliverer, he might have felt he held the power to determine it wasn’t worth it to set the people free. He could have declared the work too hard, the journey too long or opposition too difficult. He might have decided it would be easier, at least for him, to just leave things as is. But God told Moses He had come down and was ready to deliver His people. Moses’ ultimate decision was whether he would work with God or against Him.

I think this is the same decision we have to make as well. Whenever there is injustice in our world, God is present wanting to work through His people to deliver others and free them from oppression. Anytime we justify our stance in not advocating for justice, we have to realize we are not working in opposition to others, we are actually in opposition to the Lord Himself.

Justice and righteousness are the foundation of God’s throne. Through the prophet Amos, whose name means burden-bearer, God told the people of Israel:

“I hate all your show and pretense—the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies. I will not accept your burnt offering or grain offerings. I won’t even notice all your choice peace offerings. Away with your hymns of praise! They are only noise to my ears. I will not listen to your music, no matter how lovely it is. Instead I want to see a mighty flood of justice, a river of righteous living that will never run dry.” (Amos 5:22-24, NLT)

It is no different today. God is in our midst wanting to work through His people to end racial injustice, so justice can begin to flood our nation and change the way we live and interact with people of color.

Author and pastor Henry Blackaby reminds us we must look to see where God is working and join Him there. The bush is burning, will you turn aside to look?

Trayvon Martin was killed in Florida, and I thought “They need to make this stop.” Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, MO, and I wondered, “When are they going to do something?” Then I saw the videos and heard the news reports of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor and asked, “Why do they let this keep happening?”

When George Floyd died from police officer Devon Chauvin kneeling on his neck in Minneapolis, I finally understood. “They” haven’t done something because they means we and we means me. The real question is, why haven’t I done something? Why have I sat in silence, waiting and watching for someone else to act?

Years ago, while studying 1 Kings, I was struck by God’s response to the faithfulness and faithlessness of the kings of Israel. It ran so contrary to expectation. Surprisingly, God held both the faithful and the faithless accountable. The kings who were disobedient were accountable for what they did. But those who were devoted to Him were accountable for what they didn’t do.

I wonder if that is how it will be for Christians? Will we be accountable for what we didn’t do? Will we be accountable for not using our voice and speaking up when injustice occurs, including racial injustice?

One of the favorite verses Christians recite when discussing justice is Micah 6:8. “What does the Lord require of you? To do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.” Micah could have reversed the order and said love justice and do kindness, and then we could easily love justice from the sidelines. But we are required to do justice, and it’s impossible to do anything by standing still. The “do” in do justice implies action. Instead of reciting the verse, it’s time to start living it.

As we do justice, it’s important that we approach this work with a posture of humility, openness, and courage. Our posture should show that we have a willingness to listen to others, convey an earnestness to learn, and project courage—a willingness to speak up and speak out.

Some ways to get started in addressing racial injustice include:

Listening
•    Gather with others for honest and authentic conversations about racial relations.
•    Learn from one another about hurts of the past and hopes for the future.
•    Attend planned events where others share their stories.

Learning
•    Read books, watch movies and listen to podcasts to better understand why, where and how racism and systemic racism began and is still occurring in our country.
•    Study how to be an anti-racist.
•    Educate our children on America’s dark history of slavery, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights Movement.

Speaking up and speaking out
•    Let others know we are offended when they make jokes concerning, unkind remarks toward, and racist generalizations about people of color.
•    Expose redlining* and advocate for it to end in cities where it is still occurring.  
•    Petition lawmakers for equality in education, police and prison reform, and non-discriminatory practices.

How many more lives have to be unjustly taken before we do justice? We are God’s people, and we will be held accountable.

For me, it’s no longer what will they do, but what will I do? For I am they.

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* Redlining is the practice of excluding whole communities of color and other minority groups from receiving services (government, financial, etc.) on the specific basis of race or ethnicity.

As a child of the 60s, growing up in a Northern Illinois city that was and still is very racially divided, I have been recently reminded of some of my grandparents’ closest friends. They would come to visit and often stay for hours. He always had a hat in his hand, and she was always clothed in a smartly fitted dress. They seemed more financially well off than many of the others who came to my grandpa and grandma’s home, but that difference didn’t matter to my grandparents. Neither did the color of their skin. Those differences didn’t define our feelings about them. What mattered was who they were—they were Kiki and Lena. They were friends.

Since the time of our country’s inception, we have long confused who we see with what we see. And that confusion has allowed us to classify and condemn individuals based on the color of their skin and their country of origin. The confusion is part of the disease that took George Floyd’s life almost two weeks ago, Ahmaud Arbery’s and Breonna Taylor’s lives, and too many others in the years and decades before.

That disease is one of the two powerful diseases we see erupting in the United States right now. Both are similar in their viral effect, but the difference lies in the length of time they have have existed and the way healing is to be experienced.

The novel coronavirus has only been around for a short time. Yet, in the not too distant future, a vaccine will be discovered, and healing will soon take place from “the outside in” through the medical community.

The other disease, racism, has been around longer than many of us really care to admit. It was woven not only into the DNA of our country at its formation, it became part of the genetic make-up and culture of many families, being passed down from one generation to the next. As pastor and friend Chris Davis said in his article, “‘I Can’t Breathe’: Reckoning With Our Racial Atmosphere,” it’s been in the air we breathe. And the air we breathe has everything to do with how our heart functions, the organ most affected by this dreadful disease.

Some have maintained that this can be cured from “the outside in” with governmental laws and guidelines. However, the approach has done little to rid us of the disease. We know this to be true because there are times in our lives when something will happen to reveal that racism is still very present today, causing deaths and wounds with life-altering pain that never goes away.

I took part in a Zoom call this week with pastors of our local churches and listened as several of my friends and colleagues shared their stories. What I heard grieved my heart and caused many tears to flow. The pain that these men have experienced in their lives and through the lives of their sons in this 21st century America is overwhelming. The cause of it is racism.

This is one disease that can’t be cured by the medical community, and it can’t be cured by the government either. The eradication of this disease has to take place from “the inside out,” as the change has to be made on the inside before it can ever be experienced outwardly. Inside our hearts, before it will be seen in our responses. “The inside” is where Jesus does His best work. A change of heart is where it has to start, and then it must manifest itself in our actions.

In his letter to the Galatians, Paul says that we are called to freedom, but not to “turn our freedom into an opportunity for the flesh,” to indulge our human nature. Injustice and oppression are about expressing power over others, and expressing power is an opportunity of the flesh. It contradicts not only what Paul said in serving one another through love, but it contradicts the words of Christ Himself. “The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve” (Matt 20:28). Somewhere, somehow, many us have inverted the words of Jesus and called it truth. We want to be served more than we want to serve.

Now is the time that we, as The Church, must finally address this dreadful disease in our country. It’s time that we, both individually and collectively, sit down with our brothers and sisters in Christ and listen to the stories of those who have experienced racial injustice. We need to understand what we are facing—the depth of the injustice and the wide-spread oppression that still occurs in our society today. It’s time we acknowledge that racial injustice isn’t just a thing of the past, but it’s of our present, as well, and it’s time for The Church to act.

It’s time we start taking an active role in helping to initiate a cure for this disease. It’s time we, as Christ’s Body of Believers, step into Christ’s prayer for The Church—and come together in unity as a true family. We need to recognize our friends for who they are, our brothers and sisters, instead of letting society define them by what they see. We all look different, but most siblings do. But it’s up to us to start changing the culture; letting others know different isn’t wrong and different doesn’t mean bad. Different doesn’t justify racial injustice.

It’s time that we, as The Church, do what should have been done years ago. It’s time that we get down on our knees and repent. Repent of our desire for power. Repent of past actions. And repent of the hurt we’ve caused, even going back generations. It’s time we come before the Lord and others and ask for forgiveness.

It’s time to humble ourselves, and look for ways to serve others, instead of looking to be served—to come alongside others, stand with them and take action whenever we see injustice occurring. Our Father is all about justice, and as His children, it’s time we are too.