I could see him from the front window of our apartment. He was standing at the bottom of the stairs, just waiting for me to come outside and walk down the stairs so he could fight me. This fight was unavoidable. He literally had a chip on his shoulder. He had taken a small piece of wood and balanced it on his shoulder. If I tried to go around him as I descended the stairs, the piece of wood, or chip, would fall to the ground. It would not matter if I tried to avoid touching him, he would move directly into my path and cause it to fall. There was only one way to avoid this fight. I went out the back door. It took more effort, because I had to go through the back yard and out through the gate into the alley. The alley wasn’t clean and the neighbor’s dog would bark, alerting my stalker that I had escaped. It didn’t matter. I had the privilege of avoiding this fight, by being a coward.
There are so many situations today that we prefer to take what seems the easy way out. We avoid confrontation of things we know to be evil. This is especially true when those issues don’t appear to directly involve us. We ask ourselves questions like, ‘why should I get involved, and maybe they deserve it, and it will probably work out eventually.’ We take the back door, the alley way, knowing that the issue will present itself again, probably very soon.
This is what I mean by the privilege of cowardice. Not everyone has a back door, alley way to avoid what must eventually be confronted. It doesn’t mean that I have to look for a fight, but it does mean that I be aware and sensitive to the defenseless.
The Reverend Vernon Johns, the predecessor to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was noted to say, ‘If you see a good fight, get in it!’
We avoid good fights. We allow evil to continue in our midst because we have the privilege of escape. We close our doors, pull down our shades, don’t drive through those areas and never discuss the issues that cause discomfort. We use our privilege of cowardice and claim it as our right.
I don’t believe God sees it that way. The God I serve admonishes me for looking the other way when people are abused. I cannot claim to be one of His if I pretend to not see those who look exactly like Him, the beggar, the prostitute, the migrant, the prisoner. I can’t ignore them nor the systems that keep them in their desperate conditions. I must go down the front door, knock the chip off the shoulder and confront the evil wherever it presents. I dare not continue to take advantage of my privilege of cowardice. Next time, your stalker will meet you at the back door. You can’t avoid this fight, but you can control the terms.
Isaiah 58:6-7 KJV Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?
Matthew 25:41-46 then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’
Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. and these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”