I thought it was a fog or a low hanging cloud. The smoke from the first evening of protests and riots was surreal. My dogs were restless that evening, so I let them out late to get some water and do their business, when I noticed a really thick low hanging cloud with a low flying plane circling around the night sky. That plane, or a helicopter circle around the city just about every night now. I heard from a neighbor that the plane is the Richmond Police Department and the helicopter is the National Guard. My wife and I were driving home from a hike the next morning when we saw just a small portion of the damage done to the city, a small shopping center containing a DTLR store, a GameStop and a Starbucks just completely burned out. We then drove down a portion of Monument Avenue and saw that just about every Confederate monument covered in graffiti.
It had finally happened. The COVID-19 lockdowns mixed with the anger surrounding the killing of George Flyod boiled over into this, I don’t know what to do, but I want to do something. That week, my wife and I made some time to go visit the epicenter of protests in my newly adopted city.
The Robert E. Lee Monument, in the heart of Richmond, VA was erected in 1890, approximately 25 years after the end of the Civil War. The statue itself is only 14 feet high but it stands on a large stone base for a total height of 60 feet. On this day, he loomed over the traffic circle surrounded by placards with the names, faces, and stories of countless victims of police violence from throughout the country. The stone base itself is covered in graffiti, posters, candles and African Americans. The younger ones take selfies, others prayerfully circle around to inspect each memorial with anger, pain and sadness written on their faces and smoldering in each heart. I saw a pop-up sunshade shelter, where a small group of men sit, selling shirts and hotdogs, and another shelter across the way encouraging people to vote. Beyond this, there does not appear to be any organized presence. There is no dialogue amongst strangers. Everyone approaches individually or with their group and leaves the same way. I don’t know what to do, but I want to do something. God help me do something.
I continue to pray about this and feel compelled to return later again that week to the same scene. The only thing that has changed is the tags on the statue base. Other than that, some bollards have gone up, to prevent vehicles from driving up too close to the statue. Different men and women repeat this grim pilgrimage, circling the statue with a yearning for justice and a better world. A few youths defiantly climbing up to take a selfie but the mood is full of anger and hopelessness.
I don’t know what I am looking for.
What can’t I see?
What am I looking for?
In a moment it hits me, the Church. Where is the Church? Where is God in this? Where is the Church in this? Where is the hope and grace of the Gospel? Everywhere I see graffiti supporting anarchy, hatred for the police. Communist symbols and hashtags for socialist organizations, but no where do I see the Gospel. No where do I see grace. No where do I see God’s healing love. Instead I see countless men and women, calling out in pain for justice, but when your complaint is against the justice system itself, where can you go?
To my shame, and the shame of all Christians, there does not appear to be a voice for God, or for the Church at any of these events. I see now know what I was looking for, I see what is missing.
We are missing.
The church is missing.
God used a pandemic to close our doors, but that does not mean that the mission of the church has changed, instead a new place has been prepared for us. A place for us, as a church, to go out and seek and save the lost.