If you’re trying to get quality sleep before a big day, a word of advice: Don’t listen to a police scanner. For full effect, read the following lines as if they are being shouted at you and in the span of 5 seconds.
“Shots fired on 43rd and Wallace. Send wagons.”
“Slow down on 47th, 2 in custody.”
“Dollar Tree is on fire, send fire.”
“You guys are all talking over each other again.”
“Cleaning out All-star Liquor.”
“Wait for more cars. Anyone in that area? Do we have wagons on Ashland and Archer?”
I finally fell asleep at 4:30am. But in what felt like a blink, I woke up an hour later and headed to church. It was time.
Helping Hands, Open Ears, Closed Mouths
Morning and curfew’s end found us praying in front of our church. Our mourning was first and foremost centered on the murder of George Floyd. A white officer had kneeled on his neck. An Asian officer had stood by and enabled the murder. If you cannot see this parable of the Asian church standing by and enabling the murder of blacks, please pray and rewatch the video.
For the rest of the day, we moved around the city, finding the next damaged area to help clean. Our efforts took us further and further from the comfort of our church and deeper and deeper into the city. The damage to businesses was extensive.
So as we mourned and served, we offered prayers for everyone we crossed paths with. We prayed with firefighters, police officers, business owners, activists, and community members.
We received harsh backlash from the people we were serving. A Korean storeowner lashed out upon seeing his business utterly destroyed.
“Free money, free merchandise! Oh my goodness! THIS IS YOU GUYS! Young guys! White, black, oriental. I really don’t understand this! You ruined my heart.”
He was talking to all of us: Chinese church members, black and white activists, and other community members who had come out to help. Out of the overflow of his mouth, we could see a broken, angry heart.
Later, after delivering care packages with emergency groceries, PPE, and more to the community, we started filming a video asking churches to step up and do more than just pray. As we did so, a black man started yelling at us.
“You from around here? You not even from around here but you’re making us look bad! It’s not even just black people looting! Your people, Europeans, everybody’s doing it, you just want to make us look bad!”
And another.
“You’re out here talking but you haven’t picked anything up. Pick something up. PICK SOMETHING UP, MOTHERF-!”
In each case, we listened; we learned. They weren’t met with resistance, and we didn’t shout back. We looked them in the eyes and acknowledged their pain. And after they fully vented their emotions, frustrations, and pain, they listened to us. We gratefully ended each of those interactions with a handshake or dabbing each other up.
Late to the Game
My adrenaline is pumping even as I type this several days later. It’s a natural response in a tense situation. But these are the situations God is calling his people into. This is what it looks like to sow peace. It’s being in the tension, in the pain. And you can’t be in it without being in the neighborhood.
Hindsight is 20/20. The truth is, as great of a learning experience as this was, our church was late to the game. If the Christian walk is like sports, the majority of our church members haven’t missed a single practice in years, but haven’t shown up to a single game. Why?
For starters, we were so busy fighting ourselves, how could we fight the battles of the oppressed? Our division left us helpless and unhelpful. It’s no wonder Jesus’ focus in his prayer for all future believers would center on unity (John 17:20-23). Christ knew that our witness was contingent on our unity.
Another reason: selfishness. Our priorities are to love God first, others second, and ourselves a distant third. That’s the order, and when we have that order, we’ll be a church with empathy, with ears that listen to the cries of the oppressed and hurting, hands that rush to bring healing, and feet that arrive quickly with the Gospel. Deaf ears, idle hands, and set feet are the symptoms of a church with these priorities mixed up.
In more recent years, by God’s grace, He has been uniting us and fixing our priorities. As a result, God has led us out of our four walls and into His world. We started late, but we’re here now, and we’re going and growing. My prayer is that God would use us to be peacemakers and bear fruit that draws the world to Him.
“And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. (James 3:18 NASB)”