As Christians, we, indeed, believe God made humanity equally in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) and loves all humanity (John 3:16-17). We have continually tried to demonstrate God’s love for everyone in our personal lives and the collective ministry of this congregation, as people in Pittsboro can attest.

But the bible shows countless times where God’s people have mistreated and marginalized people, ignoring their cries of pain and their calls to be treated equally. When people are being mistreated or ignored, countless scriptures from both testaments show God comforting those who are disturbed and disturbing those who continued to seek their own comfort during their neighbors anguish. To simply say “All Lives Matter” without acknowledging especially Black lives who are shown to be at the most risk of being hurt by myriads of unexamined polices would belittle the trauma at hand. If someone has a heart attack at our church, we don’t ask everyone if they need an ambulance, but give focused love and support to the one needing immediate attention.

Here are but a few examples from scripture to consider:

The Lord said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.” – Genesis 4:10

Do not exploit strangers, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. – Exodus 22:21

Love your neighbor as yourself – Leviticus 19:18

Therefore because you trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain…Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. – Amos 5:11a, 24

If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? – Matthew 18:12

On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God. Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”¹⁵ The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?” When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing. – Luke 13:10-17

Luke 4:14-30 show what happened when Jesus tried to tell his town that the people society treats as second-class actually matter greatly to God. Jesus said: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s Favor” the crowd was initially pleased until Jesus reminded them that “there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman (the foreigner from Syria).” “All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.”

The wording on our sign was meant literally and not as brand or more narrow political group. Hopefully everyone agrees that Black lives matter!

Pittsboro Presbyterian Church’s session decided before we ever put up the sign that it would only be up for about a month. Since part of the impetous of the sign was the trauma of recent events, we believe the sign will have served most of its intended significance in that time. When the sign comes down, our support for black lives will only increase as our congregation continues to educate ourselves, look at our own institutions and the many in this county, state and country for ways in which people are disproportionately advantaged or disadantaged by race.