truth and reconciliation
Last week, jury selection began in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who was arrested for the killing of George Floyd after kneeling on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds — a horrific killing that sparked a movement of racial reckoning. In part, this trial is about justice for the Floyd family, about whether a jury will find Chauvin guilty in the murder of George Floyd. However, this trial, this moment, is about far more. It is about us and the future we want to build.
“You will know the truth and the truth will set you free,” Jesus promised. I have been reflecting on that instruction and invitation from John 8:32 more than ever after these last four years, thinking about what Jesus is saying and, perhaps just as importantly, isn’t saying. He did not say to tell the truth in order to make us right and righteous, and them wrong and unrighteous — or to show some of us to be good and others to be evil.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu's excitement that Congressional leaders were going through a process known as 'reconciliation' was abated last week when he learned that the procedure was not, in fact, a healing process for two bitterly feuding parties, but rather a technical congressional procedure designed to address budget items and bypass a filibuster.