Which Lives Matter and Which Don't

Mary Erickson 1988

Ever since the Black Lives Matter movement began 7 years ago, some people have countered with All Lives Matter. I believe this is true, but the problem is, it doesn’t get us anywhere, until we reach the point where Each Life Matters. And, as difficult as it is, the only way all lives and each life will matter is if we begin by asking Which Lives Matter and Which Don’t right now. It is abundantly clear our society is acting like black lives don't matter. Black Lives Matter has been relentless in pointing that out, and has given us a path forward as we address the painful reality that right now so many different people are being treated as if there lives really don't matter (like the elderly in this pandemic, including the black elderly), and it is only as we make sure each life matters that we can get to the point where all lives matter. 

Mary Erickson 1989

When Mary and I lived and worked in Mexico and Central America, we witnessed a traditional Catholic church that said that All Lives Matter. However, the poor of Latin America, who are the vast majority, did not feel like that was the case. They lived in poverty and abuse and constant oppression.  Finally, following Vatican II, a small portion of the church made a “preferential option for the poor,” and began to take seriously the needs of the poor, the marginalized, the powerless. Only as their needs were taken seriously and steps were taken to correct the constant injustices under which they suffered, could the church truly be a church in which All People Mattered.

This was the church's way of following Jesus, who lived in a time when   male Jews controlled the synagogue and had all the power. And they left out all kinds of people: lepers, women, the poor, non-Jews like the Samaritans. Interesting, isn’t it, that they left out people with pre-existing conditions and others on the basis of gender, economic status, race, and religion.

Jesus realized that the only way you make all lives matter is by analyzing  which people seem to matter, and which don’t, in the given culture. Oh, he could have fraternized with the male Jews if he had wanted, but he spent most of his time criticizing them and hanging out with all the people mentioned above, trying to find ways to let them know that they were loved and needed and important. In Matthew 25:35-36, for example, we are admonished to reach out to the hungry, thirsty, stranger (Greek xenos, which means foreigner), naked, sick and imprisoned.

He began his ministry by returning to his home town of Nazareth and announcing in his home synagogue:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free. [Luke 4:16-19]

     

Later in his ministry, he was invited to a dinner with a leader of the Pharisees, the group responsible for the rules and regulations of Judaism:

He said also to the one who had invited him, ‘When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed.’ [Luke 14:12-14]

Of course, it would not be long before the tables would be turned by the Romans, who killed some 100,000 Jews and sold others into slavery, and ever since there have been many times when and places where the world has acted as if the Jews didn’t matter.

Courtesy Vivien Feyer

Mary, my wife, has spent most of her working career (even though her first degree was in art) as a Montessori teacher of grades 1-3. In her last position, just outside of Washington DC, her class was usually about 1/3 African-American, mainly from poor families, and sometimes homeless; 1/3 Latino, also poor and sometimes undocumented; 1/3 more affluent white children who were bused in to her school because their families wanted them in a Montessori classroom, and from time to time Asian-American and African students.

She began each year loving all of her students, believing that each of them mattered, and her classroom could be a wonderful microcosm of the world.  And the only way she could do that was by treating them each differently, according to their situation and needs, trying to overcome the structures of society that give children uneven opportunities to excel. Some of her students were hungry. Some had no access to the internet at home. Some had learning disabilities. Some had parents who had never gone to school, and could not help them with their homework. Some were abused at home. Some were bullied in school. Some lacked access to medical care.

Courtesy of Vivien Feyer

She helped make all of her students matter by figuring out and responding to what each needed.

We bought this poster at the King Center in Atlanta, and it hung in Mary's classroom.

Yesterday, on television, Representative John Lewis (See post: Meeting John Lewis ) reminded us of Martin Luther King Jr.’s call to form a Beloved Community, “a society in which all are embraced and none discriminated against,” [Dr. Jeff Ritterman], and is further defined by The King Center:

In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated. . . Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood.