There’s a Problem with “All Lives Matter”
Luke 15:3-7 (Parable of the Lost Sheep)
Matthew 5:1-11 (The Beatitudes)
I’m scrolling through my Facebook feed, and I keep seeing a number of people posting “All Lives Matter” as a response to the Black Lives Matter narrative. Now, let me be clear: this is true. All lives do, indeed, matter. I am not arguing that at all, and you will be hard-pressed to find a passage in the Bible that negates this fact. John 3:16 states, “God so loved THE WORLD that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life” (CEB, emphasis mine). It’s not “God so loved only this particular people group” – the author of John’s Gospel clearly states that God so loved the world, which, last I checked, has a lot of people groups. We also find Jesus’ missional target for his disciples in Matthew 28’s Great Commission, where we read in verse 19, “Therefore, go and make disciples OF ALL NATIONS, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” (Matthew 28:19, CEB, emphasis mine). Again, we are seeing that the targeted recipients of God’s love are meant to be everybody because everybody is loved – we are not called to exclude. Now that we have that cleared up…
The problem with “All Lives Matter” isn’t the truth held within this statement; instead, it is how it is being used. The problem is that it’s being used as a response to a particular message in an attempt to drown out said particular message. I say “particular” because I haven’t seen an All Lives Matter response to Blue Lives Matter… those who use this phrase appear to be fine with sympathizing with law enforcement by their lack of generalizing which lives matter in those instances; Yet when it comes to the voices of black men and women who have undergone countless atrocities for 400 years in our country, and are today still being treated as being less than by many facets of our society, this cry of All Lives Matter seems to be trying to drown out the immediate concern for safety and well-being of our black brothers and sisters in Christ. (This also presents us with the problem of making it “Black Lives Matter” vs. “Blue Lives Matter” when it shouldn’t be an us vs. them / this or that issue – it is a false dichotomy. You can and should value and respect both, but that’s a whole other topic).
I recently wrapped up a sermon series called “Open Our Eyes” – much of the material and preaching notes coming from UMCdiscipleship.org. In this series, we explored how to make disciples, but it might be surprising to many that the work of making disciples starts with working on yourself. We talked about following Jesus’ example of seeing all the people around us – seeing them for the children of God that they are, including their hurts and hang-ups. We find in Matthew 9:36 that Jesus had compassion on the crowds around him. What precipitated this compassion? Jesus saw the crowds. This isn’t saying that Jesus had a bean counter and saw that a lot of people were around him… Jesus saw the people within the crowd, and because he saw that the people around him were troubled and helpless, he had compassion on them.
We also spoke about the importance of hearing all the people around us. Oftentimes, we only listen to ourselves or to those that simply confirm our biases. Beyond what we explored in that sermon, we find that when we shut our ears off from hearing the cries for help from others, we are doing a number of things. First, we are not respecting the image of God in our fellow man. By dictating our own set of what and who is to be respected and loved, we place ourselves above God’s command to love our neighbor. This leads us to the second point: we are shutting our ears from hearing how God may be calling us to action in the very mission field that we were sent to. This leads us directly to #3: by refusing to hear those cries, we are not validating the experiences of, or seeking relationships with, those in pain. The very act of refusing to hear the voice of others is antithetical to the Good News that Jesus came to deliver. This last point also makes discipling impossible, for if one cannot or will not establish a relationship with someone else, then this discipling that we are called to do as followers of Christ is not possible.
I understand that hearing the stories and experiences of those who are different than you can be scary. Many of the stories that have been shared in conversations, books, social media, the radio, etc… shake our status quo by challenging the notion that everything in our society is fine. But when we hear stories from interracial couples about how the wife drives when they leave town because black men are much more likely to be pulled over for no valid reason, how black men have to consciously act overly nice to everybody in a social setting to try to alleviate the racial stereotype that “black men are dangerous,” and even purposefully avoiding stores and gas stations that have a truck with a confederate flag on it for fear of being caught up in something that they themselves did not start, we are forced to deal with the dichotomy of us believing that everything in our society already works for everyone against the reality that not all men (and women) are treated as equals after all.
I remember being pulled to the side of a Purdue football game when I came to visit friends for a weekend because I “matched the description of a suspect.” Not for one second was I in fear of this officer – I actually thought it was cool because he had pulled me just to the inside of the entrance to the field! Does my experience as a white man nullify the experience of my black brothers and sisters who were terrified as they were pulled off to the side of an event or on the street simply because they “matched the description of a suspect?” Or does my experience that ended with no negative consequences sweep the experience of Elijah McClain’s under the rug, where all he was doing was walking home?
Jesus recognized that all lives matter, yet he also knew when to point out that there is a people group that is hurting and oppressed. In Luke 15: 3-7, Jesus shares a story with a crowd of people about a shepherd that was in charge of 100 sheep and one of them got lost. The shepherd took it upon himself to leave the other 99 sheep in search of the one that was lost. It’s not that the other 99 sheep weren’t important – it’s that they weren’t in danger. They were ok. For this moment in time, the shepherd recognized that this one sheep needed his attention in order to be safe again.
Then we notice The Beatitudes in Matthew 5:1-11. Jesus recognizes where people are hungering and thirsting for righteousness, that there are those who are mourning, those who are being persecuted, those who are downtrodden… but instead of simply stating “Blessed are all the people,” Jesus calls out to them with the assurance that they, too, matter; that they, too, are loved.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.” (Matthew 5:3-11, NRSV)
If Jesus is willing to acknowledge the hurts of people groups who are in pain and reassure them that they, too, are loved – that they, too, matter – what is stopping us from doing the same? Is it because we are afraid that the hate and vitriol will be pointed toward us, then? Is it because we see our friends and family constantly trying to discredit the stories and experiences of the other (whoever that “other” might be) and we were taught to follow suit? Is it because we were told, “Those are bad people who had it coming!” and are having a difficult time removing that lens of implicit bias from our vision of the other?
I have had to ask myself these types of questions; and if I’m going to be honest, I need to continue asking myself those questions. Seeing others where they are is part of being a disciple. Learning what implicit biases we were raised with and working to dismantle them is part of our spiritual growth process that we are called to do. It is holy work to identify the demons of racism and division in our society and in ourselves. I know I’m not completely there, and that I have learning, listening, and a whole lot of praying to do – but that is the work of a disciple. To recognize that all lives matter, but in this instance, to identify that our brothers and sisters of color are hurting and, in many cases, in real danger.
Using “All Lives Matter” as a response to “Black Lives Matter” is an attempt to mitigate our discomfort at confronting a heart and soul issue within ourselves and our society through defensiveness (adding to the division that is already too prevalent in our world) and reassuring ourselves that we are good people because we claim to support lives of multiple people groups. There have been countless other defensive mechanisms for racism to remain rooted in our national discourse – some of which were very briefly touched in this post – but using this term seems to be the loudest and most vocal… and sadly, even misses the very truth that it holds at face value.
As Christians, we must seek to be more than simply not-racist (for that infers an attitude of “I’ll leave you alone if you leave me alone” and allows one to be quiet while others are suffering because, “Hey, it’s not me!”), we need to seek the footsteps that Jesus has left for us and work towards becoming antiracist. This work, which falls in line with discipleship, calls us to see our brothers and sisters, acknowledge their experience, and seek to transform our communities so that racist actions, words, and policies are no longer a reality for anybody. In this moment in time, not because society is demanding it, but because God has been calling us as the church to do so, we need to respond to the cries of People of Color and respond to them with the appropriate words and actions of affirmation, acknowledging that Black Lives Matter.
