When Mary (Bridget) came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, \u201cLord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.\u201d 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34 (Jesus) said, \u201cWhere have you laid him?\u201d They said to him, \u201cLord, come and see.\u201d 35 Jesus began to weep.38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 Jesus said, \u201cTake away the stone.\u201d\u00a0 John 11:32-39<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Most of us didn\u2019t know you, and yet we all wept at your senseless death. Your words now echo in eternity \u201cI can\u2019t breathe\u201d. Your name added to the list of victims of the system of Policing.<\/span><\/p>\n Mr. Floyd, <\/span>I go back often to the image and sound of your voice calling out for your \u201cMomma\u201d. Helplessly begging for relief from under the pressure of former officer Chauvin\u2019s knee on your neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. Your humanity ignored and violated by persons covenant to protect and serve, they failed you. They failed us all. But you were not alone in your suffering, your community was there pleading on your behalf.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And every \u201cMomma\u201d responded to the cries of your voice, as did every father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, friend and activist.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n George, God wept at your death, and I trust that Mothering God was there, when you took your last breath. She did not leave nor forsake you. And your cries, your death inspired and unleashed a movement of protest uprising around the WORLD!<\/span><\/p>\n Malcolm X said \u201cThat\u2019s not a chip on my shoulder, but your foot on my neck.\u201d, today 365 days after your death, Chauvin’s knee on your neck, visible to the world, the Community has a chip on it\u2019s shoulder.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n A chip that says Policing must be reformed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n A chip that says you can\u2019t destroy George Floyd\u2019s character to justify his death.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n A chip resulted in the bill for George Floyd Justice in Policing act.<\/span><\/p>\n I believe Jesus was disturbed at the violence of your public lynching.<\/span><\/p>\n I believe, when you called, God sent angels to minister to you. And I believe, we are all called to \u201ctake away the stone.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The stone of systemic Racism<\/span><\/p>\n The stone of the Empire<\/span><\/p>\n The stone of Hererosexism<\/span><\/p>\n The stone of Ableism<\/span><\/p>\n The stone of Classism<\/span><\/p>\n The stone of Ageism<\/span><\/p>\n The stone of Cissexism<\/span><\/p>\n The stone of Gun violence\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Take away the stone of violence within our communities, now!<\/span><\/p>\n Mr George Floyd, today we are all invited to self-reflect,\u00a0 sit in reflective silence, to gather in community\u00a0 to \u201cRise and Remember\u201d and tomorrow with chips on our shoulders, get to moving The Stone.<\/span><\/p>\n Ase and Amen!<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Rev. Babette Chatman<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When Mary (Bridget) came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, \u201cLord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.\u201d 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":326,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prayer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/campusministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/campusministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/campusministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/campusministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/326"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/campusministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53061"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/campusministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53063,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/campusministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53061\/revisions\/53063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/campusministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/campusministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/campusministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}