I remember when my mom called me and told me that if I wanted to see my grandfather, I’d better hop on a plane and get myself to Harlingen, Texas; it wasn’t going to be long.

She called about 8:00 on a Sunday morning in December, 2003. Under ordinary circumstances, I would call someone in leadership and tell them that I needed to hop on a plane, and could they help me find someone to fill in on short notice. But the problem was, I was having a very bad time at the church just then. There was some speculation about how long I’d last as things were deteriorating.

So, when my mom called, I said, “I’ve got to go to preach this morning. I’ll get on a flight as soon as I can after church.”

She said, “Can’t you come now?”

And I said, guilt establishing a beachhead in my heart, “I really can’t. It’s too close to service and I can’t afford the kind of blowback I know will be coming my way if I don’t show up.”

In tears, she said, “But it’s your grandpa. Why would they get mad at you for wanting to see him before he dies?”

I didn’t have a good answer for her. I didn’t want to tell her that even with one of the most important people in my life dying, I wasn’t sure my job would still be there when I got back.

So, I went to church, stumbled through the service, and then took off to the airport to hop on a flight to say goodbye to my grandfather. He had colon cancer. And even though he was a tough guy, a World War II marine, he was suffering terribly. The whole way to Harlingen, I was stressed about my grandfather, about my job, about how I was going to make it through.

After we landed, I was walking through the concourse and I saw my mom and my uncle Juan walking toward me. I could see my mom was crying, which didn’t surprise me under the circumstances. But when she reached me, she said, “Your grandpa died about an hour ago. He went peacefully, thank the good Lord.”

Somebody I desperately wanted to see, but I still found a way to let my own stuff get in the way of me being there for my family when it mattered most. If I could go back and do it all over again, I would have just called somebody and told them I couldn’t be there for church that morning and let the chips fall where they may. I didn’t show up for my grandpa, for my grandma, for my mom, for my uncle Juan—some of the most important people in my life—when they needed me most. Think about how easy it is, then, to fail to show up for people nobody much cares about—even for people who love Jesus.

But that’s not a new thing, is it?

Those who call themselves by God’s name have too often failed to show up for the people everyone else feels comfortable leaving behind. And it’s not just the travails of the LGBTQ community, the oppression of our Black and Brown siblings, our immigrant neighbors, the elderly warehoused in institutions, the countless kids who will be needlessly exposed to Covid. Those who call themselves children of God have often stayed deafeningly silent in the face of the suffering, oppression, and neglect of our neighbors whom God also calls children.

During the seventy-five-plus year abomination of lynching in this country, Black people looked around for support from White Christians only to find that there was no one.

Late nineteenth/early twentieth-century African American anti-lynching activist, Ida B. Wells, outraged by white evangelist Dwight Moody’s crusades in the South said, “Our American Christians are too busy saving the souls of white Christians from burning in hellfire to save the lives of black ones from present burning in fires kindled by white Christians.” (James Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, 132)

As theologian James Cone observed, “For Ida B. Wells, Christian identity had to be validated by opposing mob violence against a powerless people, and no amount of theological sophistry could convince her otherwise.” (Ibid.)

According to Ida B. Wells, we’ve failed that test time and again.

But you don’t even have to go back that far. There are close to 500 children who’ve been ripped from the arms of their parents who are still separated from them. Those parents and children waited for what must have—I’m sure—felt like eternity for someone to acknowledge that they’re children of God, someone who would be willing to say “no” to the powers and principalities. Too often they’ve looked around, and there’s been no one.

This is the same charge laid at the feet of the children of Israel as they languished in exile in Babylon all the way back in the sixth century BCE. Isaiah writes in chapter 59:

Good judgment is turned back, and justice stands at a distance; for truth stumbles in the public square, and uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking, and whoever turns from evil is despoiled. The LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice. God saw that there was no one, and was appalled that there was no one to intervene (Is. 59:14–16a).

The children of Israel have committed grave sins by the powerful against the weak. Isaiah says: