Monday May 11^th  2020
A Weekday Emailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
Dear Friends,
 
Do you miss Ahmaud Arbery? 
 
I didn’t know about his terrible murder until the sickening, sickening account on the Thursday morning news. It happened six weeks ago. An athletic 25-year-old, he went out for a jog in his neighborhood and never came home. Brunswick, GA, is predominately white. Mr. Arbery was black. 
 
My black friends tell me—as they have told me before in countless other similar cases—that Mr. Arbery was simply “guilty of being black.”
 
What is my response to this? 
 
First, I’d like to think it’s not true. How can just having brown skin put one at greater risk of random violence. But I know better. Then, I benignly tell myself that Georgia isn’t Champaign-Urbana, I’m not a white supremacist, I didn’t shoot anyone, I like everybody, I’d never discriminate based on color. I tell myself that my “whiteness” is the good kind. I tell myself that the divisions suggested by different skin color, and gender, and country of origin, and, and, and, don’t affect me. My excuses go on and on, get thinner and thinner, more and more untrue.
 
When I finally admit that I’m part of the problem (and part of the answer), I ask myself how can I help build the world about which I routinely preach? How can I become the man I aspire to be? How can I admit the painful parts of my life, my family, my assumptions, my intricate ideologies? Do I dare examine my privilege—the drawer of silver spoons which I’ve been dealt? How do I marshal insight from my cushioned past and use it to fuel a better-for-all-us future? Am I brave enough? Who will help me? 
 
Discrimination is part of the world, and, certainly, part of the Coronavirus story, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. I’m paying attention. I can’t look away. Ahmaud Arbery won’t let me.
 
So, I’m praying harder than ever.
 
News:
 
Bill Stout reports this: A recent study showed that 40% of US households with a mother and children under 12 present are currently experiencing food insecurity, and that is not even factoring in race or woman being head of household, either of which will drive the % much higher. I was stunned. 
 
Me, too, Bill. Me, too.
 
Wednesday Vespers: Join your church friends, and our growing internet community, for a prayer Zoom prayer service at 7:00 on Wednesday. I look forward to seeing you. Please join us. It’ll be good for us to unite. Log on: FirstPres.Live
 
Good Word: (A difficult word.)
 
Amos 3:1, 2, 4, 9-12 
 
But I said:
Hear, leaders of Jacob, 
rulers of the house of Israel!
Isn’t it your job to know justice?—
²   you who hate good and love evil,
who tear the skin off [my people],
and the flesh off their bones . . . 
⁴ Then they will cry out to the Lord,
 but he won’t answer them.
He will hide his face from them at that time,
because of their evil deeds.
⁹ Hear this, leaders of the house of Jacob,
 rulers of the house of Israel,
you who reject justice and make crooked all that is straight,
¹⁰  who build Zion with bloodshed and Jerusalem with injustice!

¹¹ Her officials give justice for a bribe,
 and her priests teach for hire.
Her prophets offer divination for silver,
yet they rely on the Lord, saying,
 “Isn’t the Lord in our midst?
 Evil won’t come upon us!”
¹² Therefore, because of you, 
Zion will be plowed like a field,
 Jerusalem will become piles of rubble,
and the temple mount will become an overgrown mound.
 
Let us pray:
 
Oh God our Creator and our Sustainer,
we’re here this morning coming 
with many forms and many fashions.
We ask that you’d remove all obstacles, 
all feelings, all attitudes, anything that 
may be getting in our way.
Anything that may be burdening our souls.
Strengthen us when we are weak,
and build us up when we are torn down.
 
But most of all God,
we pray that you’d show us the way.
Show us the way not to fortune nor fame,
nor to win morals or praise for our name,
but show us the way to tell the great story,
to live the great story.
 
And thine is the Kingdom and the Power and Glory.
Amen.
 
(Katie G. Cannon) 
 
Much, much love to you all. 
 
PEACE,
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church