Lynching

When Paul reached the steps, the violence of the mob was so great he had to be carried by the soldiers. The crowd that followed kept shouting, “Get rid of him!” – Acts 21-35

It was a lynching, pure and simple.

In the 21st chapter of Acts, Paul falls victim to a crowd of Jews who falsely accuse him of crimes against the Temple and being an Egyptian who led a thousand terrorists. As the allegations mount, it is not long before the whole city has formed a mob. In the midst of a  crowd trying to kill him, it took Roman soldiers to not only to stop the beating but extricate him from the crowd. And even that was a feat.

A lynching is defined as an extrajudicial killing by an informal mob in order to punish an alleged criminal, punish a convicted transgressor, and, most importantly, intimidate people. According to the NAACP, over 4700 lynching occurred in the U.S. from 1882 to 1968, although most historians between the true number is underreported. And while many people believe that lynching is a thing of the past, we have plenty of recent and local examples that prove differently.

It was a lynching in 1998 when James Byrd was dragged behind a car in Jasper, Texas.

It was a lynching in 2020 when white men accused Ahmaud Arbery of trespassing and confronted him with bullets. In that same year, a white police officer knelt on George Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes.

In 2019, some evangelical Christians wanted LGBTQ victims to be excluded from an anti-lynching bill. Thirty trans and gender diverse people were killed that year in the U.S.

In the court of Pontius Pilate, a mob brought false charges against our Lord and demanded he be crucified. In the Temple years later, another mob took matters into their own hands against Paul.

Whether the targets be immigrants seeking asylum or queer persons living their lives or women protesting for their health care rights or persons of color fearing a traffic stop, our faith calls us to be about the work of dispersing the crowd, to protecting the innocent, and bringing justice to the victims and their loved ones.

Let us pray a Prayer for Deliverance of the Colored People, written in 1922 in NAACP papers:

Have mercy upon any of our legislators who may be so embittered with the gall of race hatred and fettered by the bonds of political iniquity as to advocated or apologize for lynching, raping and murder. Hear our prayer, relieve our distress, preserve our nation and save the world. We ask it all for Jesus’ sake. Amen.