Don't Walk By On The Other Side

Hey Orchard Hill, welcome again.

You may have noticed if you've been with this service the whole morning that I am wearing something different than I was earlier.

And the reason I'm wearing something different is this is a different recording.

During uh all of the time that we've streamed services at Orchard Hill, we've always streamed the live services so you get what is happening live when it goes out.

But during this COVID season, what we've done is we've recorded services earlier in the week and then played them on the weekend.

Next week that'll all change, hopefully again, at least in part.

But uh what we're doing um uh during this time is recording, and and yesterday, Saturday, when I went out and did the things that I had planned, I didn't really know how the day would go.

I went and weed whacked the woods behind my house.

My wife and I went for a long bike ride.

And then when I came back and saw some of the news, I was uh just taken aback.

Not that it hadn't been happening over the days before, but it seems to have gone to a new level.

People burning police cars, buildings being ransacked, protesters in the street, and and it felt a little bit like a moment that I remember from the early 90s when the Rodney King protest uh became kind of uh in this vein.

And and at the time, to me, it felt like maybe it was a tipping point for our culture.

But it really wasn't a tipping point.

It was just uh another moment in our culture that some people got excited, and then as we know, things have in many ways uh maybe they've moved in some direction, but but they haven't totally changed.

And if you're younger than me, maybe you don't remember that, and this feels like a first.

If you're older than me, maybe you feel like this has been going on a long time.

Maybe you can remember back to 1968 and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

or some other significant moment.

And so I called Josh and John and asked them if I could record something different.

And so it's currently Saturday night, and I just asked if we could record something different for today.

Um and the message that we had planned was on Romans 8, 1 through 4, a very important message.

It's about no condemnation, living without condemnation.

And so I want to encourage you to go to our app, our website, download a podcast, listen to that message before next weekend.

But today we wanted to just take a moment and consider kind of what's been going on since George Floyd was killed earlier this week.

These are graphic images.

And what happens for a lot of people, especially white people, is that we see something like that, and then we say, wow, that's horrible.

And then we ask the question, what's for dinner?

Now, I'm not trying to trivialize it.

What I mean by that is that what can happen is you can say, wow, that that's really bad, and that's a horrible image.

And it's like watching a war story in another part of the world or a person starving from hunger in another part of the world, and you say that's horrible, and then we go on with our lives, and you give yourself a little bit of credit for feeling bad, and you say, Because I feel bad, I I feel good that I felt a little bad, and then we move on with our lives.

But this is really something that's much greater than that.

I mean, certainly the images are horrifying of what took place.

And I know that there are probably some law enforcement individuals watching that may have some um perspective on this, but my guess is that most law enforcement people would say that's a horrifying thing, the way that that man was treated, the way that he had his life taken from him.

And there are certainly police officers that are great police officers that uh would not be engaged in this, and then there are some that are not.

And and as we just uh give this some thought, what I wanted to do today was just show you something that might just take this from, well, what can we do?

The the question of what can we do when somebody has power and abuses power, somebody uh whether it was driven by race or just the abuse of power or just the inability to see the significance of race.

The question is really what can we do?

And uh I was put on to a video by a man named Jason Kane, who's a pastor at Bayside Church in California.

I don't know much about him.

I haven't seen his name before, but a couple of the members of our worship team made me aware of this video.

And I think he speaks very clearly to the issue of not walking by on the other side.

In other words, what can we do besides jump into some protest?

Now, there's one thing that he says that that I just want to say I uh I don't agree with, not that I'm saying um that I need to agree with what this man says, but but at one point he makes the uh kind of point of saying that it doesn't matter how somebody protests.

And I would just say violence is never okay in any cause, any kind of violence.

But I think what he's really trying to say is don't miss the heart of the people who are hurting because you're saying that the protest has gone too far.

But instead understand the the the years and the pain and the fear and the anguish that some people are feeling.

Now he's going to allude to one of the best-known stories in our New Testament.

It's a story that Jesus told that we often call the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Let me read it and then we'll hear from Jason Cain, and then I'll come back and um make some comments, and then we have a great song at the end uh from Colleen and Chris, uh, who will sing uh a blessing for us.

Uh here's what the word of the Lord says from Luke chapter 10, verse 25 through 37.

Luke 10:25–37

On one occasion, an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus.

Teacher, he asked, What must I do to inherit eternal life?

What is written in the law, he said.

He replied, How do you read it?

He answered, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.

You have answered correctly, Jesus replied.

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, and who is my neighbor?

In reply, Jesus said, A man was going down to Jerusalem, to Jericho, and was attacked by robbers.

They stripped him of his clothes, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.

A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.

So too, a Levite when he came to the place and saw him pass by on the other side.

But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was, and when he saw him, he took pity on him.

He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine.

Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him.

The next day he took out two dinari and gave it to the innkeeper.

Look after him, he said.

And when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.

Which of these do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?

The expert in the law replied, the one who had mercy on him.

Jesus told him, Go and do likewise.

This is the word of the Lord.

Now let's hear from Jason Kane.

Hey, what's going on, everyone?

Uh I have um stayed away from making public statements, public videos, um, for a while, but um I can't do it any longer.

I gotta speak up.

I gotta I have to do this and not necessarily for you who might be watching today, but I feel like I have a duty and responsibility to do this for my kids and my grandkids.

Uh, one day they're gonna have access to be able to watch uh any video I ever posted, look at social media, and I don't want them to wonder what their grandfather thought um about the racial injustice that happens in the world around us.

So um, with that said, I just gotta share from my heart, uh, particularly because of the events that happened this this week with uh George Floyd, uh going back a couple of weeks ago to Amon Alberry, uh, and then just looking at the record and history of these events of unarmed black men being killed um over and over and over again.

So um, if you're not one of my grandkids, you can feel free to stop watching.

There's no obligation for you to do so.

Uh, but hopefully uh I can say something today um that just speaks to your heart.

That's what my desire is to speak to your heart.

About six years ago, I went from working at a predominantly um black church to predominantly white churches.

Uh and I did that and I made that transition because I felt a clear call from God that I was supposed to do something about the racial um harm intention that's in our country.

I believe I have a call into that.

And I've had many of these conversations privately, uh, over and over and over again with people with different ideas and on different areas of the spectrum.

And those conversations have been extremely fruitful.

And I just want to share something uh with you today that's been on my heart since this has happened.

Um, I'm just now uh headed to the dentist at the dentist's office because uh for the past since the Ahmad Alberry stuff, I've been clenching my teeth at night.

That's what happens when I'm under extreme stress, so I gotta do something about that.

Um, so that kind of gives you a picture of where my head is um right now.

Uh in Luke chapter 10, this religious leader comes to Jesus and he says, What do I have to do to inherit to inherit eternal life?

Luke 10 · chapter mention

And Jesus responds and says, What does the law say?

The man says, Love God, and you also have to love your neighbor as yourself.

In summary, Jesus says, That's exactly right.

Then the man says, Who is my neighbor?

And Jesus tells this parable of the good Samaritan to let this man know who his neighbor is.

And I think the question all of us need to ask ourselves, particularly, um, I'm gonna just say it, my white brothers and sisters, is who is your neighbor?

Jesus says, This is who your neighbor is.

He tells the story of a good Samaritan.

He says, There's a man who was walking down from Jerusalem, excuse me, from Jericho to Jerusalem, and on the way he was beaten up and left on the side of the road for dead.

Then a priest comes by, a religious leader of the day comes by walking the same route, probably coming directly from the temple.

And as he's walking this route, he sees the man.

And what would you expect a religious leader to do?

You would expect him to help, but he doesn't.

He goes to the opposite side of the street, he avoids the man's pain, he doesn't get in the nitty and gritty, he doesn't see what's wrong with the man, he doesn't help the man, he doesn't check his post, he doesn't do any of that, but he decides to go to the opposite side.

That is very interesting to me.

Why does he go to the opposite side?

Because he wants to avoid getting involved with the pain of another individual.

What I found is that many of us, we're looking at the pain of black people in America, have unfortunately made the decision to go to the other side.

What is I wrote a few notes of what it looks like to go to the other side today.

You go on the opposite side when you say stuff like this.

We need all the details first.

Listen, as it relates to the George Floyd video, it doesn't matter what he did prior to the police putting his knee on his neck for minutes.

The man was in handcuffs, could have put him in the car, could have done anything, but stay on his neck.

We don't need all the details.

We don't need to know exactly what happened.

We don't need to try to rationalize away what happened.

No, we can't go on the opposite side.

We gotta get involved when we see injustice happening.

This priest who walked by, maybe he said, I don't have all the details, so I can't help.

Or maybe you're thinking to yourself, man, why are you making such a big deal about this, Jason?

What about black on black crime?

I understand your point.

Listen, black people, white people, Asian people, Hispanic people, we all kill one another.

We kill each other, people who are part of our groups, because we're close to the people who are in our groups.

You kill, people end up killing the people who they are near.

So there's no there's this myth of black-on-black crime.

Yes, we do commit crimes against each other, but every race does that.

Not to mention that we also have uh entire groups and organizations who are fighting against to make conditions better so that that crime does not happen.

We have the NAACP, they do this work.

Black people, amongst ourselves, we have conversations about how to fix these things.

That is just an excuse.

And when you find these events happening, the worst thing that you can do is making excuses.

You can always make an excuse to go to the opposite side, but it takes love, duty, and responsibility to go check on people who are hurting without knowing every excuse.

Another way we go to the opposite side is uh Jason, why don't you talk about X?

Why aren't you talking about stuff that's going on in other parts of the world?

Listen, I'm dealing with the trauma that's affecting me right now, and I also get involved in other ways as well.

Another excuse, another way to go to the opposite side is to say this, man.

Jason, just preach the gospel.

The gospel, yes, is that Jesus Christ died and rose, but the gospel is also good news for the poor, it is also lifting people up.

It's about being a kingdom-minded citizen.

The gospel is not just saying Jesus Christ died and rose.

That is enough for all of us, but the gospel means that we get involved in this present world and affect it as much as we want to affect the future world.

So when I talk about injustice, I am talking about an issue that has to do with the gospel.

Perhaps this priest thought the same thing.

Man, I can't, I don't gotta get involved in that.

I'm just here to do my priestly duty.

The primary duty of a priest, according to Micah 6:8, the primary duty of God's people was to show mercy.

Micah 6:8

Their primary duty was to show mercy.

What is mercy?

Mercy is simply this is love that responds to human need in unexpected and undeserving ways.

Our primary responsibility in the world is to show mercy to people.

But he went to the opposite side.

Going to the opposite side also says things like, I don't like the way he's protesting.

Look, the nature of a protest is it's not supposed to be comfortable for you.

And don't allow yourself to be so upset about the method of protesting that you miss the reason behind people's protest.

The method for protesting is no is is is is irrelevant.

What is the person protesting?

They're protesting injustice, and we're supposed to be people if we follow Jesus that are after justice.

Think about your own life.

When did Jesus die on the cross for you?

When you deserved it?

No.

Did he die on the cross for you uh when you were thinking about him?

No.

The Bible says when we were sinners, Christ died for us.

The moment he showed us the mercy was the moment that we deserved the least amount of mercy.

Going to the other side also says this makes me uncomfortable.

Going to the other side is also saying I don't want my kids to have to have a conversation about race.

Look, I don't have that option.

From the time my kids were two, they understood that there was something different about their skin.

And I've had to have those conversations with them.

And I've had to talk to them about race, and I've had to talk to my son about why he needs to behave because he's not going to be given uh any any shortcuts in life.

Don't go to the opposite side, like the priest.

Then the priest went to the opposite side, then a Levite comes by.

That's somebody who would assist the priest.

He sees the man, he makes the same decision and goes to the opposite side.

Man, there are church leaders and people who go to church every day that make the decision to go to the opposite side.

Don't turn a blind eye to the injustice in the world.

Just because you admit that injustice and racism exist does not mean that you're less of an individual.

We live in a fallen world.

It's okay.

The world is full of sin and full of issues.

And with the present ones going on, get involved and help.

So then you have a Samaritan that comes down the road.

Samaritans and Jews did not get along.

He sees this man on the side of the road, a Samaritan.

When Jesus told this story, when he said the word Samaritan, people would have been like, oh, a Samaritan.

The Samaritan does the least, the thing that people expect it the least.

He gets down on his knees, he bandages up the man's wounds, he takes him to an inner hotel, he pays for his night stay, and he says, Any, if he needs anything, put it on my bill.

This Samaritan does the very thing that demonstrates the love of Jesus.

He cleans up a man's bandages without knowing the full story.

He makes a sacrifice and pays for him and helps him out when he doesn't know the man's entire story.

He says, put it on my account when he doesn't know the man's entire story.

This Samaritan, the least likely person in the story Jesus told, was the one who got involved and the one who helped.

He helped somebody who was not like him, who is from a group of people who uh marginalized his people, but he still got involved.

The system of the day said he should not help, but he made a decision to.

Listen.

This world is gonna get better, it's gonna take our white brothers and sisters getting involved and listening to the pain of people like myself.

We aren't making these stories up.

And now that we got video, it's irrefutable.

We're not asking you to do anything that Jesus isn't asking you to do, we're asking you to feel our pain to get involved in the help.

Help! Help! Help! How can you help?

How can you help?

If you go on Google and you search for racial injustice, if you just look at the disparities, if you search, how can I get involved?

Read my brother Ephraim Smith's book.

Read Brian LaRitz's book on these subjects and on these topics, it'll show you how to get involved.

Befriend people who don't look like you.

Be willing to listen and ask questions and receive the answers that people give you who are going through this.

Humble yourself.

Put your pride aside and say, man, maybe, maybe, just maybe, black people haven't been lying all this time.

And this stuff really goes on.

Yes, it does.

Talk to your friends and your family members who get out of pocket.

That means who uh have a different opinion or who don't believe that racism is an issue.

We are not lying to you.

Christian brothers and sisters, we are not lying to you.

This story, Jesus asks and he wraps up and he says, Which one of these was a neighborly one?

It wasn't the priest that went to the opposite side.

It wasn't the Levite that made excuses.

It was the Samaritan who got down and actually helped.

If you are a person who put your faith in Jesus Christ, you gotta be like that Samaritan.

You gotta get in there and you gotta help.

And you have to do something, you gotta show compassion and empathy and love and don't make excuses.

Listen, I'm not being political.

I'm not telling you who to vote for.

I'm not telling you to change your political affiliation.

What I'm telling you to do is to be a person that shows mercy to people who are hurting.

Church, we should be leading on this stuff.

The world should be following our lead because we have instructions from Christ.

Please get involved.

Help.

Don't sit on the sidelines and not do anything.

In the time to come, I'll be sharing more from my heart.

And I'm willing to deal with the consequences.

Because the work is too important.

My kids' future is too important.

The gospel and the witness that we have for Jesus is too important for us to not do anything.

Please, don't go on the opposite side.

Stand hand in hand and get involved and love your neighbor.

Thanks for your time.

I don't know how those words strike you.

But I don't want to be a person who walks by on the other side.

I don't want to take my privilege.

I don't want to take my life.

And simply say, well, that's somebody else's problem.

There's a challenge, though, and that is a lot of times the ideas of what we can do come up in moments that surprise us.

In the video, there were people standing there videoing as George Floyd was handcuffed and the police officer's knee was on his neck.

I wonder if any of those people wish now that they had come forward more aggressively, more forcefully, to say this is wrong, you need to stop.

I wonder what you would have done if you were there, what I would have done if I was there.

I got a little window into my own heart last year.

My wife and I and our two sons went to Chicago to visit my oldest son, who had just gotten married, and my new daughter-in-law.

And they live in Lincoln Park, which is a nice part of Chicago, and my son takes the commuter train down to where he's going to grad school.

And one morning we went with him to grad school just to see where his school was, and then he stayed for class and we took the train home.

And on the way back, on the train with my wife and two of my sons, there was a lady on the train.

She was an African American lady.

And she was sitting kind of across from us.

And then she got up and she moved over next to an Asian American man.

And she began to yell at the Asian American man.

She began to yell things that were clearly offensive, telling him to go back home, to leave our country, to go back to Chinatown where he belonged, saying that he was the reason that there was economic problems in our country.

And as I sat there, everything in me said, I should say something.

And I wish I could tell you I did.

But I sat there.

I just sat there.

Now I told myself that I might escalate the situation.

I told myself that maybe she was unstable and it wouldn't be a good thing.

But instead of standing up for the man who was being berated, what I did is I sat there.

I went by on the other side.

And that's just the most recent story.

It was just a year or so ago.

Not even a year ago.

And throughout my life, there have been plenty of times that I've walked by on the other side.

I wish I could say that there were more times that I had stepped across the road than what I have.

And here's just what I want to say to you today.

And that is maybe joining a protest is something you say I want to do, and that would be fine as long as you do it peacefully.

But what I really want to say is let's make a commitment to say that we will not be the people who walk by on the other side.

That when we see something, we will step forward and say, not today, not with me here, and I will not sit silently on a train next time.

And it isn't just waiting for the dramatic moment that you might catch yourself in, but it's also the moments that may seem innocuous or small, or the moments that seem systemic, but it advantages you in a way that you say, maybe I don't need to involve myself in that, where you say, Not today, I'm not walking by on the other side anymore.

In Proverbs chapter 3, 31, excuse me, verses 8 and 9, we read this.

Proverbs 3 · chapter mention

It says, speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.

Speak up and judge fairly.

Defend the rights of the poor and needy.

It's a fairly clear call in Scripture to say, if you are somebody who's in a position of strength, use your strength for those who are not.

And you know, this is really what Jesus has done for all people who become his followers.

Those of us who are not in a position of strength, who are weakened by our own sin, by our own choices, Jesus in a position of strength comes and on our behalf does something for us that we're not able to do, and we live in the benefits of what he does.

And what he says is, I want those of you who are in a position of strength in this world to use your strength for those who are weak as an example, as a model of the very gospel of Jesus Christ.

But it's easy to sometimes just walk by on the other side.

I hope that this will be a tipping point for our country.

Or many of us will say, Not anymore.

Not anymore.

I'm going to cross the street each and every time there's an opportunity for me to do that.

I want to take a moment and pray, and then, as I said, there's a beautiful song from Chris and Colleen that will just help us kind of come together in this moment.

Let's pray.

Father, I pray first for those in our country, those in our congregation who are feeling this the most deeply.

Those who are people who have been in the groups that feel discriminated against, have been discriminated against.

And God, certainly we long for the day when you will make everything right, but God, we know that your plan isn't just that one day you'll make it right, but that you're in the business of changing things here and now.

And God, I pray that you would bring change to our country, to our world, that there would be healing, that there would be uh beauty brought to this world.

God, I pray that you would help those of us who have something to offer, to cross the street, to not walk by on the other side because it's easy or it's comfortable.

But instead to know that you didn't think that coming to earth in Jesus Christ was too much of a sacrifice in order to give us what we couldn't have.

And God, I pray that you would help every one of us to say we have that responsibility in issues of race, issues of poverty, issues of education, issues of inequality of any kind in this world.

And we pray this today in Jesus' name.

Amen.