What have we just seen?
Yesterday’s verdict in the trial concerning the death of George Floyd, “guilty on all three counts,” was a clear confirmation that what we saw a year ago was just what it appeared to be. We saw a man being suffocated to death in broad daylight on a public street in the presence of active bystanders who called for what was happening to stop. Because the event was captured on video, it was not only those standing close by but the whole world who saw a man being murdered. Yesterday, the jury’s verdict confirmed that what the whole world saw was actually what happened: George Floyd was murdered.
The verdict could be seen as nothing more than an expression of what was self-evident. It did not tell us anything we did not already know; it did not reveal anything more than what we had already seen. But I believe we saw something very significant yesterday afternoon when the verdict was made public. We saw our nation take a step toward establishing truth as the common ground on which our life together is built.
The truth is that what our Declaration of Independence claims to be “self-evident” has simply not been treated as obvious or clear or even true among us for a very long time. Our nation’s founding document claims, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” But our experience in this country for a very long time has been that these self-evident truths have been contested; they have been challenged in broad daylight and in sequestered juries. Time and time again the formal verdicts of our court system and the informal findings of the court of public opinion have declared that the lives of some are not clearly equal to the lives of others, that the liberty of some is not to be assumed, and that the pursuit of happiness is not a right that all share equally.
It is self-evident, of course, to anyone who has lived in this country for any length of time, but to name it clearly, those whose equality, life and liberty have been continuously contested in our society are people whose racial inheritance is something other than northern European, people who are poor, women and girls, people for whom English is not their native language, people with little education, people whose religious or personal identity is considered non-normative, people living with addictions and mental illness, the unemployed and homeless, the very old and very young.
What we saw yesterday in the jury’s verdict that George Floyd was murdered was a step toward the truth for everyone in this country; it was a ruling in favor of the equal value of all those who have been considered less than equal, for those whose lives have not mattered, whose liberty is not thought to be an unalienable right. Yesterday’s verdict was a ruling in support of the self-evident truths described in the Declaration of Independence; it was a step toward establishing truth as the common ground for our life together.
Lutheran Christians understand how a simple appeal to the truth can reform whole societies. While Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, posted in 1517, may be more familiar to us, the 28 theses of his Heidelberg Disputation (1518) may be more important, for in these statements of truth, Luther developed the Theology of the Cross, an interpretation of the Biblical witness to God’s work in human history, a work that is often hidden in those things we would call unlovely or unhelpful or unwelcome, like the cross itself, but that through these things God reveals grace, life and freedom.
Theses 21 claims: “A theologian of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theologian of the cross calls the thing what it actually is.”
Our nation’s recent history has seen truth itself made relative to the strong interest of a few. Yesterday our nation’s court system called a thing what it actually was. Yesterday’s verdict told the truth. I pray that this step toward establishing the truth as the common ground under our shared life in American society will in time lead a reformation within our nation, a renewal of our society, that results in equality and liberty and life and justice and peace for all. I invite you to join me in that prayer, and to put our prayers into action, trusting our Lord Jesus when he said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” (John 8:32)
Bishop Kurt F. Kusserow