Every year during Holy Week when we hear the story of Jesus's unjust trial, torture, and death I like to think that could never happen today in America.
But then I think of Matthew 25 and that famous story Jesus told about the sheep and the goats. He sorts out good people from bad people based on how they treated others.
At one point, the condemned ask, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry, lonely, or naked and fail to help you?' And Jesus says, 'Whenever you failed to help somebody, anybody, in that situation, you failed to help me.'
A prison reformer named Henry Brubaker once said that, "The treatment society affords its outcasts reveals the way its members view one another—and themselves."
In other words, when we allow 4,000 people to be homeless in our county, half of whom are children; when we build a health care system that allows the poor and people of color a substandard level of care that increases their suffering and shortens their life span; when we legally kill the incarcerated, we're not just doing this to other people, we're doing this to Jesus.
Friends, how we treat others is how we treat God.
Holy Week isn't just about an unjust killing 2,000 years ago, it's about the George Floyds and Breonna Taylors of today - it's about how we love others as we love ourselves - personally and communally.
The question Holy Week asks of us is, 'How are we treating others?' Is it 'me first?' Or is it 'God first,' which means 'Others first?'
This week, Jesus was put to death in his quest to care about others, how can we go and do likewise?
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