After Jesus is murdered by rulers of the Roman Empire, his disciples do their best to “love one another.” Disciples start expanding Jesus’ Community of God to diverse members and to expanding their love to those diverse members. Peter is struggling though. He is initially inclined to be loving and show partiality to those who are like him and not to those who are unlike him; women, Gentiles, slaves, and others. He is learning that in Jesus’ Community of God, “God shows no partiality.”
Partiality is the nature of Empires, as in Rome, so too in the U.S. That partiality is evident in U.S. Supreme Court decisions, for example, its decision to hear the case of Donald Trump seeking absolute immunity. Trump’s lawyer is arguing, “If a president can be charged, put on trial and imprisoned for his most controversial decisions… that looming threat will distort the president’s decision making precisely when bold and fearless action is most needed… (he) “will face de facto blackmail and extortion by his political rivals.” Trump’s claim to absolute immunity pretends presidents have not always had absolute immunity. No trial ensued for Woodrow Wilson after he lied about not entering WWI, entered it, and was responsible for 10 million dead noncombatant Europeans. There was no trial for Harry Truman whose decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed over 200,000 Japanese. George W. Bush was not put on trial for invading Iraq and murdering over 1 million people. Presidents have always lived above the law. They have always lived independent of conscience to issue harmful policies against opponents. They have always taken bold and fearless action to kill enemies. Trump is not arguing for presidential immunity. He is arguing for personal immunity. It is the projected reasoning in his highlighting not presidential immunity from The United Nations nor The International Court of Justice in the Hague, Netherlands, but rather personal immunity from “blackmail and extortion by political rivals.” Though he has had personal immunity too. Trump has always lived above the law that crowns him a financial dictator. He has always issued unconscionable policy to harm stateside opponents, usually workers and contractors. He has always taken action to kill stateside enemies, usually slowly via discrimination and poverty. He has specifically done so violently in his intended January 6th insurrection. Trump will never face murder charges for the killing of Ashli Babbitt. Institutionalists are unnerved by Trump’s embodiment of Malcolm X’s prophecy, “the chickens have come home to roost.” Wrongs done to destroy other nations by men exercising presidential immunity are now being done to destroy this nation by a man exercising personal immunity.
The Supreme Court case of a wealthy, white, insurrectionist, Donald Trump, can be contrasted with the lack of a Supreme Court case of a middle class, Black, educator, DeRay McKesson. McKesson is a community organizer who trains people “to love one another,” specifically in conflict resolution and nonviolence skills. He focuses on ending violence, specifically ending the organized violence of police. He led a peaceful Black Lives Matter march during which a single unknown person threw “a rock-like object” injuring a police officer. The officer sued McKesson. A lower court admitted McKesson had no intent to injure but he ignored a “foreseeable risk of violence” and is “liable for illegal actions committed by others.” The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case letting McKesson’s liability stand. Onward from the McKesson ruling, peacemakers have no official nor personal immunity from the organized violence of the state and its police both of which have absolute immunity to charge, imprison, and do violence to peacemakers.
Prayer: Beautiful Spirit, encourage organized peacemakers to challenge organized warmakers.
Question: What are my experiences of peacemaking in the face of harm?
May 5, 2024 Gospel John 15:9-17 Sixth Sunday of Easter