When I read Matthew 10:41, conviction around my responsibility grips me.
There’s debate on whether or not Jesus is referring to children in general in this verse or to His disciples as children. Regardless, in the past, every time I’ve read it I’ve thought of course I would give a child a cup of cold water. And yet I haven’t.
It’s 2020.
Our responsibility to America’s children
The Flint water crisis began in 2014 when in a cost-saving move, the city switched its drinking water from Detroit’s system to the Flint River.
You are right if you are thinking, but Hope, you didn’t make that decision six years ago.
But as complaints mounted and the wrong brought to light, did I scroll past those articles because it didn’t affect me, because it was uncomfortable, or because I had no idea what to do?
I don’t remember. I can’t answer that honestly.
In 2015 it was reported that the children of Flint had elevated blood-lead levels. Five years ago, 9,000 children had been poisoned from tap water
Did I even pay attention?
In 2016 I became friends with a woman who spent her summers in Flint. She shared her stories and her love for the community, her heartbreak for the economic and racial injustice. My heart grieved and I listened, but I did nothing. I never even asked her how I could help.
In 2018, Governor Snyder announced the problem resolved with the discontinuing of providing bottled water to residents. I breathed a sigh of relief, believed the narrative and was grateful. I did nothing. Nothing was required of me.
I chose the narrative that let me off easy
I chose to believe the narrative that absolved me of action. This story fit into my life comfortably.
I did not make the decision to change the water source. How could I have? I didn’t know about the issues, I held no power, I knew no one affected, and it didn’t touch my own children or the world I inhabited.
The truth is that the problem remains. Lead pipes are still being replaced. Children’s bodies have been destroyed by the water in their own homes. In all, around 12,000 children were exposed to dangerous levels of lead in their drinking water.
The water crisis is a discrimination problem
The coronavirus pandemic we are currently living through has put the work on hold. While Detroit lawyers and activist fight to have the water turned back on in Flint, it is coming to the light that not just Flint is experiencing a water crisis.
Millions of vulnerable people, in this country, in a time when handwashing and cleanliness are at an all-time necessity, lack clean water. This only compounds the injustice and inequality. There is a strong correlation that, “on going water contamination in majority black communities like Flint, Mich and Newark, NJ is related to a history of community disinvestment, residential segregation, and discrimination (read more at comingcleanink.org).”
What is my responsibility in this? Because I am part of the collective group, our country, that is segregating and disinvesting in these communities.
Six years later, fully knowing what is happening, I can not claim ignorance. I am responsible. Jesus told me to give a child a cup of cold water, and I am part of a system that can’t even provide them with clean water.
Side note and how you can help
The Presbyterian Church is responding to Flint’s water crisis. The convictions above are my convictions. I have done nothing. I’m in the process of correcting that. Here is a list of different ways you can join me in helping Flint today. I’m also starting a Facebook fundraiser that allows you to give at the click of a button.
- Give to the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance
- Support the Virginia Tech Research Team’s Flint Water Study
- Learn more about how we can help the children of Flint at FlintKids.org
We are responsible for the groups we are a part of
It’s somewhat easy to absolve ourselves of Flint because we live far away.
Let’s talk closer to home for a second.
The Presbyterian Church has a reputation for being WASPs. I can surround myself daily with people of color, be friends with coworkers of different ethnicities, and be welcoming to others in my personal life.
If church is the most segregated hour in our country, what does that say about our churches. As a member of this community, what am I doing to shake up the systems that have led to the WASP reputation? I’m not looking to leave the system, but what rather could radically enact change from within?
We are each responsible and will be judged according to the communities in which we live.
We are accountable for:
- this body, the Presbyterian Church of Bloomingdale
- our role in the PCUSA
- our identification as American Christians
- our participation in the global church
- our role in the continuation of systematic injustices in this country
We are in this together. Good and bad.
Jesus told us clearly what our responsibility is
Jesus, before he left this earth, said, “I give you a new commandment to love one another as I have loved you. By this they will know that you are mine.”
Friends, can we claim the reward of a prophet or of the righteous when collectively we have blindly supported systems or even refused the equality of Black and Brown bodies in our country?
Have we truly welcomed others when we’ve done so little to even offer children a cup of clean water?
The prophets are calling us to change.
I want to leave you with some words my friend Dana Butler:
Our responsibility as white Americans is to stop and listen, to make space for, and to learn to lament with our Black brothers and sisters. It is not their responsibility to welcome us.
God is sending disciples and prophets warning us to change. White Christians, we are the villagers that must decide to welcome or dismiss them. Which will it be?
We will never be whole until we take responsibility
Friends, hear me on this. We can not claim to love God when we deny humanity to those God created. When we deny God’s children a cup of water, we are turning our backs on God.
We will never be whole until we are welcoming to all. However, we will never be welcoming to all if we do not as a collective whole acknowledge that Black Lives Matter.
Jesus told us to love one another because in doing so we would be identified with him. Are we?
*Featured Photo by 🇨🇭 Claudio Schwarz | @purzlbaum on Unsplash
