Resist. Insist. Persist

Wednesday, April 1

Readings: Dn 3:14-20, 91-92, 95; Jn 8:31-42

The first reading from Daniel brings us back to the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. As you likely remember, they refused to worship the gods of Babylon and were thrown into the furnace.  Miraculously, a “fourth person” shows up in the furnace with them (described as an angel) who protects them from harm.

And then in the gospel, Jesus is engaging in intense conversation with the Jews about who he is and what his mission is.  He’s getting a lot of pushback, but he refuses to give in to their limited understandings and accusations.

I think about that word refusal a lot.

Refusals generally cost us something because they fly in the face of power.  They can be small refusals (like not going along with some common social practice) but they can also be bigger, public refusals (in our families, workplaces and society).

The readings today invite us to think about the need to say, “No,” to something so that we can say a bigger, “Yes,” to something else.  This is not always easy, because there will be costs.  Yet if we do not refuse things, part of our value system gets compromised, and there is a cost for that too.

In recent times I have witnessed the phrase “resist” grow in its popularity.  I have loved the slogans that emerged associated with this as well.  Phrases like, “We exist, we resist, we rise!” or “Resist. Insist.  Persist.”  These really inspire me. 

But do we know how to resist?  

Do we know what to resist?

To what degree are we part of the power systems that others are resisting against?

Because I have so much privilege in my life, I am not entirely sure that I know how to answer questions like those very well.  In recent years, I have tried to apprentice myself more and more to learn about contemporary and historical struggles for justice and equity and connect with local expressions of those struggles.  This helps to educate me more fully on what “refusals” look like.  And for so many groups, a refusal is directly tied to survival (personal and collective) and is not a luxury or something we do when we have the time.  These are the people I need and want to be in touch with to teach me both how to refuse and what refusals I need to support.

Just the other night I watched a documentary on Netflix called Crip Camp.  It was an amazing story about people with disabilities fighting for rights in the 1970’s.  It had a profound impact on me as I watched it.  One of those impacts was that it highlighted for me that so many stories of resistance and refusal were never taught to me by “the system” because as the saying goes, “the system doesn’t teach you how to undermine the system.”   Collectively, we need to keep highlighting stories of refusal and resistance so that we may keep learning, and our biblical tradition gives us many examples.

For today, think of a refusal that you are already engaging and how you came to decide to do that.  What value is it based on?  And then think of another refusal that you have been hesitant to engage and lean in to that one.