When Social Injustice Finds You on Twitter
Earlier this week on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day I shared a Jennie Allen quote on the podcast Instagram. I resonated with that quote because I try to live it out every single day. All day long I saw quotes by MLK Jr. and it crossed my mind that people might think that I don’t care about racial reconciliation.
Ten years ago I would have sworn that this wasn’t an issue. It would have been 2007. Of course we don’t judge people based on their race or their gender, especially not as Christians. Call that lives-under-a-rock Lisa.
Fast forward to 2017 and these injustices are gaining a spotlight in the media. We hear and see things about how people of color or women are treated that should disturb us all in ways that reach beyond a few clicks on social media.
January 22nd is Sanctity of Life Day. We’re doing a few projects with our church for this cause this month. I have a friend who works closely with a pregnancy center I’ve volunteered with in the past. Will I post about it on social media? I don’t know yet. But not posting doesn’t mean I don’t care. What shows that I care or don’t care is my life.
Sharing a post on social media and going about my regular life reminds me a lot of a passage in the Bible. James 2:14-17 says, “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”
Maybe we should stop thinking that posting or not posting something online is the same thing as caring or not caring. Or that it’s the same thing as getting involved. This doesn’t stop with racial injustice or abortion.
What about what it means to be a Christian and a woman? I see so many messages, especially in conservative circles, that straight up don’t come from the Bible.
Or the stigmas of being an evangelical. I don’t even claim to be one because I don’t want to be associated with so many things.
Then there’s sex trafficking. And the millions of children around the world that need a home. And refugees. What am I supposed to do?
What I don’t want to do is “stand’ with a Facebook or Instagram post every time I see something I disagree with or a cause I can take up. I don’t want to post a quote that twenty other people on my newsfeed shared that won’t cross my mind again until next year. It’s not that there’s something wrong with that; I just don’t want it to be the only thing I do. I want to show up with hands and feet to do some part of the work.
I know people who are doing “big” things. They are growing biracial churches. They are adopting children. They are serving with or supporting organizations like Preemptive Love and Mercy House Global. I put “big” in quotation marks because I’m sure that if I asked them, they would insist they are doing small things. Each day they get up and do small things; some of them are simply more noticeable than others.
It’s all “small” things. I’m raising four boys to hopefully know and live out the truth. I try to be available for the people in front of me. I try to have respectful conversations with people who aren’t like me and with people I don’t agree with. I try to raise my children to see the truth about themselves and others. I try to live from what God says about me and not what others say. I try to teach my children to value what God values and to help as He helped. As I aim for faithfulness, I’ve watched Him place opportunities to be faithful in some other small thing in front of me.
Some of us are waiting on big things to change the world. And I’m afraid that waiting on big things will mean doing nothing. Pick up the small things. Small things done daily add up to significant.
