“You are appointed watchman,” says the Lord in Ezekiel. “When you hear me say anything, you shall warn the wicked for me.” If “you do not… the wicked shall die for his guilt, but I will hold you responsible for his death.” Jesus never appoints watchmen for the wicked liable for their deaths. Instead, Jesus tells us in the Gospel, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault.” “If he does not listen… take others along… If he refuses to listen to them, tell the community. If he still refuses to listen” set him aside. With Jesus, no one is threatened and instead a loving appeal to conscience is made.
We are diverted from Jesus’ loving appeal to conscience to the degree we believe an Old Lord ‘appoints us watchman’ against the ‘wicked.’ The watchman role is exemplified by white evangelicals from the time of slavery, to Jim Crow, to Jerry Falwell Sr. (1933-2007), and his Moral Majority descendants. Falwell Sr. began his ‘watchman’ role against ‘wicked’ people of color at a young age. He soon joined his personal and social racism with that of the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover and other racist officials. They continued structuring white supremacy into the U.S. culture, including its institutional christianity. Together, when confronted with civil rights seeking disciples of color who were conscientiously and lovingly speaking up about the sins being committed against them, these officials silenced them. For generations, white ‘watchmen’ have been canceling the voice of people of color, through discrimination and death. It is white supremacists therefore who crafted the original and still persistent ‘Cancel Culture.’ Most of today’s white evangelicals grew up under that supremacist ethic, influence to be ‘watchman’ appointed to cancel the culture of people of color. This would currently seem to include the founder of the crowdfunding site that calls itself Christian yet is raising money for another ‘watchman,’ 17 year old Kyle Rittenhouse. He is charged with canceling the lives of two BLM protesters in Kenosha WI. For hundreds of years, and certainly recent Moral Majority ruled decades of cancel culture, conscientious people of color have followed Jesus’ witness. They have ‘gone to their white supremacist brothers and told them their fault’ – of horrifically racist legal practices, of severely discriminatory financial practices, of terrorist police, vigilante, and social practices. Their white brothers ‘have not listened.’ They have ‘taken others along,’ to attest to their pain, and still, white supremacists ‘will not listen.’ The conscientious have ‘told the community’ of their suffering and still white supremacists ‘will not listen.’ So it is that white people who have crafted or benefited from their embedded cancel culture that will not listen, are now being set aside by the conscientious. What are they being set aside from? Honor. That is all; from building and statue dedications, faux meritocracy, and challenge free narratives, Twitter, or Facebook accounts, and thus can hardly claim they are being canceled. Not being accorded honor for one’s supremacy is not the same as being cancelled. Cancel culture is simply supremacists’ pejorative projection. Supremacists are upset that those whom they routinely cancel are exposing them to their conscientious voice. But white supremacists always had Jesus’ conscientious voice. They just chose to cancel it. Like the dark-skinned Jesus, people of conscience don’t stop communicating with supremacists. Neither do disciples mimic rulers’ cancel model (e.g. Falwell, Rittenhouse). We can witness Jesus’ loving and conscientious model with supremacists who try to cancel people of color. John Lewis did this (1940-2020). John Lewis was targeted with cancel culture most of his life; by ‘watchmen’ for white supremacy like the Falwells, Fox News, and other corporate media. Yet he persisted in being loving and conscientious. In his spirit, we can communicate to this generation’s white supremacists, such as Kyle Rittenhouse and his crowdfunding defender, that it is possible not to cancel Jesus but to follow Jesus; a brown-skinned man not white, a peacemaker not a warmaker, a universalist not a nationalist, a lover not a hater, a healer not a killer, and so much more.
“What I try to tell young people is that if you come together with a mission, and it is grounded with love and a sense of community, you can make the impossible possible.” (John Lewis R.I.P.)
Prayer: Spirit, turn me from sins of racism and toward listening to people of color.
Question: How have I relinquished the watchman role and become a voice of conscience?
September 06, 2020 Gospel Matthew 18:15-20 Twenty Third Sunday in Ordinary Time