Another Day After: Ferguson, MO

On this day after the announcement by St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch, it is cold, dark and rainy here in Seattle.  The weather seems fitting somehow to reflect the despair and hopelessness that so many people are feeling.

The announcement that there would be no Grand Jury indictment of the police officer who fired 12 shots to kill a young black man in Ferguson, MO, was made under the cover of darkness because it was shameful.  The justice system failed. As a meaningful mechanism for accountability in the case of lethal force by a police officer against an unarmed citizen, how could a Grand Jury and Prosecutor not find probable cause? If an unarmed man is shot dead in the street by an officer, something went wrong. That “something” deserved to be examined in a judicial process, a trial, to determine if the force was excessive and if the officer is responsible for this loss of a human life.  A Grand Jury is not that process, and yet now the Prosecutor and the state can close the book on the death of Michael Brown.

So we pause in this moment to remember who we are and to what we are called. I turned to the Hebrew prophet, Jeremiah [31:15-17], because I needed some reassurance from my faith that all is not in vain.

“Rachel is weeping for her children;

she refuses to be comforted for her children,

because they are no more.

Thus says our God:

Keep your voice from weeping,

and your eyes from tears;

for there is reward for your work,

says the Lord:

They shall come back from the land of the enemy;
there is hope for your future,

says the Lord:

Your children shall come back to their own country.”

Mothers weep; their children are gone forever; they cannot be comforted in their despair, anger and hopelessness.  What can we offer them beyond our tears? Reagon begins and ends her song with this challenge:

“We who believe in freedom cannot rest
We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes”

Jeremiah assures us that beyond tears, there is reward for our collective efforts; there is a future for all sons and daughters.

O God, I pray beyond words that it may be so and that we have the courage and energy to continue to do the work of justice-making in the face of hopelessness and to not rest until it comes.

Rev. Dr. Marie M. Fortune
www.FaithTrustInstitute.org
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artwork by Clare Obradovich, copyright 2014