When we think about sin, we usually think about words or actions that break God’s commandments. For example, looting breaks the Seventh Commandment, “You shall not steal.” Such actions are classified as “sins of commission.”
There are also “sins of omission,” times we don’t do something we should. So Martin Luther’s explanation to the Seventh Commandment says, “We should fear and love God so that we do not take our neighbor’s money or possessions or get them in any dishonest way (i.e. sins of commission) but help him to improve and protect his possessions and income (i.e. sins of omission).” “Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (James 4:17).
Let’s go now from “those looters” to ourselves, from the Seventh Commandment to the Fifth Commandment. Keep George Floyd in mind. “You shall not murder. What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we do not hurt or harm our neighbor in his body (i.e. sins of commission) but help and support him in every physical need (i.e. sins of omission).” When it comes to race relations, I assume that you and I have not committed outward sins of commission, but are we committing sins of omission?
How many people of color are your Facebook friends? I have very few. That means that while we’re keeping up with what “our own kind of people” are doing, we are not being sensitive and informed about our other neighbors, people of color. Is this a sin of omission? I think so. Like the priest and Levite in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, we are passing by on the other side of the road absorbed with our self-chosen pursuits and friends on social media (Luke 10:25-37).
Michelle Saahene calls our attention to a video of two black men arrested in Starbucks in 2018. “The reason the Starbucks video went viral was because a white woman had shared it, and her social media was very white. She didn’t have that many friends of color. So, all these white people were seeing this video of racial discrimination that they normally wouldn’t otherwise see… So many people that live segregated lives, but still go to Starbucks, started saying, ‘I can’t believe this is actually going on. I can’t believe this is happening.’ And people of color were asking, ‘Where have you been? You know, it’s in our timelines every single day.’” (Christian Capatides, CBS News).
Something to think about…