Tim Reardon

Sisters, Brothers, Siblings,

I am taking in the feelings today from Derek Chauvin’s conviction on three counts for the murder of George Floyd. I have a sense of relief that he was found guilty, that there was some modicum of justice where I had grown so accustomed to seeing justice denied. And I think part of why this happened is because the world is watching and those calling for justice were not silent, making clear in a voice that grows ever stronger that we will not stand for this injustice any longer, that we are watching.

Today, I am thinking about the centurion at Jesus’s crucifixion–Jesus, who was led to a place overlooking the city, so that all in Jerusalem could see his execution, a public demonstration of state power over those who were not compliant. Here, a centurion, an overseer of the Roman domination system, looks at Jesus amid the horror of his unjust execution by the state and says, surely this man is just, and so he declares the state’s claims of justice a sham. The centurion is not absolved, but he sees how the “justice” system of his day, the imposition of “law and order,” has been unmasked, how injustice and death masquerades as justice and how Jesus’s death shows this state violence for what it is.

Today, the criminal punishment system is not absolved; systemic racism, white supremacy, and the systems of exploitation are not absolved; but the centurion has looked and confessed, the system was not able to turn away, and a crack has broken open in its veneer. The world has looked on and saw the charade of justice and injustice in a new light. Jesus shined a light that forced the system (this centurion) to see its ugly face. Amid the horror of that 9 minutes and 29 seconds,  George Floyd’s death unmasked “justice,” and a light has been cast on state violence and the criminal punishment system.

God of justice, as we mourn the death of George Floyd, the continued deaths and criminalization of Black and Brown lives within our nation, we thank you for this verdict. We pray, Lord, that you make more cracks in this thin veneer of “law and order,” that the powers and principalities that structure our world, with whom our battle is fought, will be unmasked and dethroned, even as many of us confess our continued complicity with these powers. God, forgive us; God, transform us.

May this light of true justice, your light, shine forth as a light unto our feet, the light of your Son breaking through our oppressions, as it undoes that which binds us and guides us forward to follow the path of justice, life, and peace that you have laid out before us.

God of mercy, grant us mercy. God healing, grant us wholeness. God of peace, grant us peace. God of justice, grant us your true justice. Amen.