On May 25th of 2020, George Floyd was killed by then police officer Derek Chauvin. The facts of the case are familiar to most. Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. Floyd died on the pavement, handcuffed behind his back, his stomach and face to the ground. Chauvin was charged with second degree unintentional murder, third degree murder and second degree manslaughter.
Today the jury in the case returned a verdict - guilty on all three charges.
What are the moments when your life changed? We are given to think of momentous personal events, the day we start a new job, or the day we move or the day of a wedding. As we seek to be people of hope in the world we ought to consider that our lives change when things happen to other people. As we consider that we are better when we are aware of our common humanity, things that change the world for the better are preferential even to things that simply improve our individual lives. Your life might be pretty much the same now as it was this morning. I want to present to you that the world changed.
Whenever anyone is being dehumanized we are all diminished. We seek to never dehumanize anyone, not George Floyd, not Derek Chauvin. However, where we see injustice, particularly the injustice of the powerful against the relatively powerless, we aim to acknowledge the inhumanity of the actions.
I am praying that the world changed today. Nothing personally momentous happened in my life, but what I hope for is greater than that. Christian scripture says that God hears the cries of the oppressed, that God hears the cries of those who have suffered injustice. I write this less than half an hour after the verdict was read. I don’t know what lies ahead, but I do live in the hope articulated by Martin Luther King when he quoted Theodore Parker in saying:
“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure that it bends towards justice.”
And the words of Howard Thurman who inspired much of the civil rights movement in the United States, quoting scripture:
“We must not indulge in any deception and dishonesty even to save our lives. Our words must be yea and nay, anything else is evil. Hatred is destructive to hated and hater alike. Love your enemy, that you may be chosen of your father in heaven.”
Let us pray that today, even amidst circumstances of such grief and trouble, that we may be people of hope.
The podcast on which I am co-host recorded a brief episode today before the verdict. It includes the audio of the judge reading the verdict and a prayer from “Black Liturgies” after we hear the verdict.