Editor’s Note: As part of our mission to equip the local church and Asian American Christians, we are posting sermon excerpts, devotions, and prayers from our SOLA Council members concerning racism and injustice. We hope that these words would be challenging and encouraging to believers as we fight against the sin of racism.
This is an excerpt from a sermon and a special church statement given by Rev. David Larry Kim at Harvest Church in Orlando. You can listen to the rest of the sermon here.
Below is an edited transcript of the video. Please note that some changes have been made for readability and clarity.
But I think another part of it for me as an Asian American, and I know not all of us are Asian American, but maybe for some of you, you felt the same way as you saw the Asian police officer standing there. [He was] fully aware and cognizant of what was going on just a couple feet away from him — with the power to stop it, with a voice to say something — but he did not do anything and allowed a man to die.
As I think about what’s happened in the last few weeks, I realize there is a massive elephant in the room that I’ve been quite okay as a pastor, as a Christian, as a person, to ignore.
There’s an elephant in the room, there’s an elephant in the church, and at least here in the church that I have been called to pastor, I confess, and I am sad to admit, that I have ignored this elephant of racism and racial injustice for too long.
Even if you don’t think that there’s racism going on behind these things, then what we have to reckon with is the fact that countless people who are made in the image of God are being discarded. Their worth and dignity and value as human beings is not being upheld by those who are taking their lives, as well as by those who are not speaking out against the atrocities committed against them.
That this elephant in the room is not just in the room, but the elephant is in the Bible. And so often, that elephant has been ignored from the pages of Scripture.
What does God want from people — from you, from me, from us from the church? What does he want from us in this present moment in history? Here’s the first thing: to see what’s wrong and to right the wrongs.
The reason the prophets were angry — don’t miss this — the reason that the prophets preached is because they had a vision of Shalom. That anger between the gap between what is right now and the shalom that could be is what caused the prophets to preach. The prophets had a vision from God of the way that the world ought to be, and when they saw the situation as it was, they said, “This is not right.” That’s why they preached the message of God with such passion and emotion and fervor.
That distance between our present reality and the shalom that ought to be is the gap between injustice and justice. And when [God] says, “Act justly,” He’s saying, see what is unjust and correct that so that it becomes just and right and true. In other words, find out what’s wrong and make right what’s wrong.
And as we stand here, I think this is a tipping point for us, as we realize 1. That racism has affected us in certain ways, but 2. we have stood in positions of privilege and power that have allowed us to walk away from situations where other people cannot walk away.
They turned their back on him because they don’t want to see. They walk on the other side of the road. Because they know that if they see, they will become responsible to do something about it.
Isn’t that why we don’t want to watch the whole video? We want to turn the other way because once we see it, our consciences will continue to sear it in our minds until we do something about it.
God in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament said, I don’t want your worship, I don’t want your tithe, I don’t want your money — if you’re not going to give me your justice and your mercy.
Jesus says, You strain out the gnat, you tithe all of your mint and spice and all this stuff. But you ignore weightier laws, matters of the law like justice, like mercy.
But how can we still be here in this situation? Decrying and arguing for the fact that the lives of Black people ought to matter?
Do you see what’s wrong? Because if you do, the next thing he says is then we’ve got to work to make right those wrongs. Regardless of where you think you stand, either on the sidelines or caught into the game — for the people of God, this is our issue.
Get involved, do all those things. But keep your eyes fixated on God, and as you march, march with God. Don’t go ahead of him and do things that are not written in Scripture. Don’t fall behind Him and not live in obedience to Scripture. But walk in step with God. Pray.
We used to sing a song, “Tell the world that Jesus lives.” And in that song it says, “How could this world be a better place but by thy mercy, by thy grace?”
We can do good things and good will be affected by the things that we do. But nothing transformative at a holistic, systemic, and eternal level will happen apart from us walking with God. The greatest walk will be as you walk with God and prayer to ask for the pulling down of powers and principalities that have ensnared itself around our nation.
It was Jesus, who was punished for the sins — the racist sins, the judgmental sins, the violent sins, and every other sin in thought, word, motive, and act. It was Jesus who took all those upon himself. Why do we do these things? Micah says, “He has shown you, O people.”
Why do we act justly love mercy walk humbly with our God? Not because God said, I said so. Well, Jesus, unlike George Floyd and the countless other people before him, Jesus was unjustly killed, but he was in complete control of the situation. Nobody took the life of Jesus. He gave it up in order that injustice would be done away with, in order that humility could be understood, in order that truth would prevail and that we could have hope that rings true for all eternity. That’s why he has shown you.