Before we decide how to respond to the murder of our young gay brother, Matthew Shepard, let's remember another cruel and tragic death suffered by a young Jewish teacher almost 2,000 years ago. Both young men were condemned by political and religious leaders. Both were humiliated by their peers. Both were brutally bashed then tied to wooden stakes and left alone in the cold to die. Both deaths leave us stunned as we witness again the unthinkable power of evil at work among us. Now, we are left with a very difficult choice: how do we respond to that evil?
Matthew left us no last words to
guide our response to his death, but the last words of Jesus are
painfully clear: "Father,
forgive them for they know not what they do." Forgive them? Was he joking?
Forgive Russell Henderson and Aaron
McKinney for (allegedly) kidnapping, robbing, beating, cutting,
burning, and generally terrorizing our 21-year-old gay brother
before lashing him to a wooden ranch fence and smashing in his
skull with a .357 magnum handgun?
Forgive Pat Robertson, Jim Dobson, D. James Kennedy, Jerry Falwell and the other media preachers and talk show hosts whose false and inflammatory anti-homosexual rhetoric flows into Wyoming polluting the conscience of their listeners from Casper to Laramie?
Why should we forgive those who killed (or those who by their words and actions helped incite the killing) of our gay brother, Matthew?
Forgive Gary Bauer and the Family Research Council for announcing on the day of Matthew's death a new barrage of "ex-gay" television commercials implying that homosexuality is a sickness that can be cured and a sin that should be forgiven? Or Fred Phelps for marching on Matthew's funeral waving a sign that reads "God Hates Fags" or "Execute Homosexuals"?
"Father, forgive them," Jesus said, and we recoil from his words in anger and disbelief. Why should we forgive those who killed (or those who by their words and actions helped incite the killing) of our gay brother, Matthew? Why should we forgive our enemies at any time or in any place?
It was the question Indians asked Gandhi in South Africa and India. It was the question black Americans asked King in Montgomery and in Memphis. It is the question we have asked our heroes and sheroes through the ages. Why should we love (and thus forgive) our enemies when it feels so much more reasonable to hate them?
On the practical side, Gandhi and King knew that hating the British generals or the Southern sheriffs only led to more hatred, more violence, and more death. Hating our enemies for hating us leaves us eventually with no option but to respond to their violence with violence of our own. In that game we all lose. Matthew's death makes us all angry enough to kill and yet we all know that killing our enemy would not help our cause. The Hindu lawyer and the Southern Baptist preacher were determined to help end the cycle of hatred, violence and death (and bring in the "beloved community") by demonstrating an active, militant, powerful kind of love. We could gain so much by working even harder to understand and apply the Soulforce principles of Gandhi and King to our individual lives and to the life of our liberation movement.
Their rules of Soulforce ("satyagraha" or relentless nonviolent resistance) flow in large part out of Gandhi and King's determination to transform the words of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 into practical guidelines for the renewal of the individual spirit and the transformation of society. (It is ironic that our newest martyr was named after the apostle of nonviolence and like another shepherd calls out to remind us through his own death where hatred and violence will lead.)
Why should we love (and thus forgive) our enemies when it feels so much more reasonable to hate them?
At the heart of Soulforce is the belief that we are all children of a loving Creator. Those who killed Matthew (or who are complicit in his death) are also God's children and thus our brothers and sisters, estranged members of our own human family. Like Jesus, who blamed his own death on the ignorance of those who killed him ("…they know not what they do"), Gandhi and King saw their enemies as "victims of misinformation" who could be liberated from their ignorance only by bringing them "truth in love relentlessly" even if it means "absorbing the suffering without retaliation" that flows out of their ignorance and fear.
However, absorbing the suffering does NOT mean refusing to educate our brothers and sisters about avoiding danger or helping them to defend themselves from harassment and physical violence. And forgiving our adversaries does NOT mean remaining silent or passive in the face of their misinformation campaigns against us.
To forgive Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney for murdering Matthew Shepard does NOT mean they should not be held responsible for their crimes. However, the Soulforce call to "relentless nonviolent resistance" also means we must not be satisfied with one-night vigils or angry media sound bites. "Relentless" means packing that Wyoming courtroom every day of the trial to remind the world that the death of one of the least of these, God's gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered children, will never again go unnoticed or unmourned. At the same time, we should not hate Russell or Aaron for they and their families, too, are victims of the ignorance about homosexuality and homosexuals that currently clouds the conscience of this nation. We must confront that ignorance where we live, work, play and worship, as Gandhi and King advise us, "with truth in love relentlessly." We are not being "relentless" when we watch the battle from the safety of our closets, when we refuse to take a stand against the daily "little" injustices we encounter, when we remain silent in the face of bigotry and intolerance.
To forgive Pat Robertson, Jim Dobson, D. James Kennedy, or Jerry Falwell does NOT mean we allow them to continue their endless flood of false and inflammatory rhetoric against homosexuals without confronting and condemning it. But we must not respond, in King's words, "with violence of heart, tongue, or fist." Hating Pat, Jim or Jerry will only increase the cycle of violence. Angry letters or massive, one-day protests will not stop the flood of dangerous and deadly misinformation. To save another generation of Matthew Shepards from the tragic consequences of the anti-homosexual rhetoric we must circle the outposts of intolerance in Virginia Beach, Lynchburg, Colorado Springs, and across America. We must fast, pray, and negotiate, and if they won't meet with us to discuss our case against them, we must take direct nonviolent action against them with the determination of the "salt marchers" at the Indian Ocean or the courage of the black children who faced police dogs and water hoses in Birmingham.
Our little brother, Matthew Shepard, is dead and we are left to decide how we will handle our anger, our grief, and our frustration. We'll stand together in silence at moving candlelight vigils. We'll march together to protest and memorialize his death. We'll denounce the anti-gay rhetoric and those who use it to make money and mobilize voters and volunteers. Then what?
Gandhi and King call us to take seriously the principles of Soulforce, of relentless nonviolent resistance. But they warn us that we cannot begin that journey until we learn to love (and forgive) our enemies. I don't know exactly what that means for our community but I'm afraid that we cannot be a part of the long-term solution until we learn to love and forgive sincerely. Gandhi and King promise that once that truth dawns in us, we will know what we must do next and we will discover the power to do it.
In the meantime, I believe that Matthew Shepard's spirit has been welcomed home by his loving Creator; that Matthew's undeserved suffering is helping to change the minds and hearts of the nation; that his death has advanced the cause of truth and understanding far more than we will ever know; and that our young gay brother who stood just five feet, two inches tall and weighed barely one hundred pounds now stands in the company of giants, men and women who died refusing to hate their oppressors.
Now, we must decide how we will honor Matt's memory. If love doesn't conquer our anger, grief, and frustration, if we refuse to forgive, we can reverse the gains that Matthew's death has brought us and dishonor his memory in the process. But if we work to out-love our enemies, if we take the moral high ground and work relentlessly to confront the untruth and end the cycle of anger and violence, the victory will be ours.
OK to forward,
post, print, or publish. No credit or approval necessary.
If you are interested in joining our growing network of Soulforce
Friends or receiving our complimentary Soulforce News, fax us
at (949) 455-0959 Send
Mel a message - Or visit his guestbook