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From bystander to activist

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Rev. Peter E. Bauer

Church of Christ Minister

Sometimes in life you can find yourself observing the actions of others whether it happens at work, school, church, or even in a community. You can find yourself monitoring that which is around you or that which goes before you. 

This is the bystander, where you literally watch what is going on from a safe distance, but it doesn’t require any involvement.

Bystander phases can run a few days, a few months, even a few years or maybe even a lifetime.

Life being what it is, however, can throw you some curve balls. The new trajectory of the events or circumstances may be at such a critical juncture, that it demands involvement and commitment. Here, you can find that you are leaving the domain of bystander, and you are entering the realm of activist.

Now, you can’t stay in the bystander mode comfortably any longer. The reality of the situation, and of changed life events requires action and in turn activism. 

We have seen this recently with the decision to build a new baseball stadium in downtown San Antonio. What has been happening, in its wake, is the potential displacement of residents at the Soap Box and Robert E. Lee apartments.

The argument for this initiative has been to bring more revenue to downtown San Antonio and to spark more capital investment in the area. What has been lost in the conversation has been what happens to the residents who are living on low incomes and who are now going to be forced to move?

The question is where will they move to especially when there is such a shortage of affordable housing? Will these people find a place to live, or will they be left abandoned, forced to fend for themselves? This issue has prompted some individuals to leave their position of bystander and to become an activist.

Activists know that the end goal for justice is something that is greater than individuals or their leaders. Fighting for what’s right, what’s fair and just, is simply the right thing to do.

Martin Luther King Jr. in the fight for civil rights, Dorothy Day in her fight against poverty, and Maggie Kuhn in her fight against discrimination of older people. All these pioneers were motivated by justice and by the moral and value that every single human being possessed their own inherent dignity and worth.

Epiphany is the season where we declare the brilliance of light that banishes the darkness. This is such a welcome message for us and for the world right now. We are witnesses to forces which threaten to take us back fifty or more years to a time where all people were not honored and were not cherished.

We believe in the Kingdom of God. We believe in a God who wants all people to be free and to achieve their highest human potential.

We don’t believe in a system that leverages some people and their interests over others. We don’t affirm an environment that believes that some people must suffer while others joyously celebrate in their abundance.

We don’t condone an order as Joni Mitchell describes.

Governed by greed and lust? Just the strong doing what they can, and the weak suffering what they must?

The current order of national governance would have us believe that we are all players in a gigantic “game of thrones” where everything hinges on cunning and manipulative decision-making and on ruthless exploitation of others.

Now granted some people may get nervous about all of this “divinity” talk.

They may say humankind is not all that good. My old mentor and friend, Rev. Dr. Lincoln Reed, remarked when he received his honorary Doctorate Degree in Humane Letters from Pacific University (a United Church of Christ higher education institution) in Forest Grove, or would say, “I’m more human than I am divine.”

I agree, that’s clearly the reality, and yet Jesus wants us to be living as people with whom are greatly pleased.

We reveal that greatness and that brilliance when we respond to big real estate developers and political moguls that you cannot sell out the poor for some stadium sky box seats. You can’t say, “That’s the way God planned it,” while poor people with no healthcare die or where people are given a death sentence because long-term consequences of a disease like Covid-19 are never disclosed. Furthermore, people are never warned regarding the possible, in this case, terminal consequences.

May we realize that we are called to move from being bystanders to really becoming activists in the work of God’s Kingdom in our world, in our time and in our lives.

May it be so.

Amen, Shalom, Salaam, Blessed Be.

He currently serves as the Intentional Interim Minister of Touchstone Community Church (United Church of Christ) in Boerne.

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