The trials in the tragic death of Freddie Gray are just beginning. Already one has resulted in a hung jury and another has been postponed. These delays are frustrating, but once the trials take place, hopefully, they will play a big role in helping to heal some of the wounds in our community.  On May 1, a group of more than 100 people gathered at Trinity Presbyterian Church near the epicenter of the April 27 unrest to pray for justice and peace. At that service we prayed:

 

...for justice for Freddie Gray and all people who have been mistreated by the enforcers of our-human-made laws. We recognize that the large majority of those who patrol our streets are good men and women who care about justice, but there are some who do not. We pray today for the Baltimore police, the State's Attorney's office, the courts, the governor, the legislature, the mayor and the City Council that they may become the true instruments of justice that God calls them to be.

 

Whatever the verdicts eventually reached, that is our prayer again today.

 

These trials are just a small part of what must be a long-term process of changing the normal way of doing things in Baltimore. Every person who loves justice and peace must dedicate themselves to finding practical ways to end the sentence of a lifetime in the strait jackets of poverty, injustice and oppression that many of our citizens face. For example, a recent Harvard study found that African American children in Baltimore, especially boys, were the least likely in the entire country to move out of poverty. A Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Medicine study found many of Baltimore's youth suffer from symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome. The Baltimore Sun has reported on the systematic housing segregation in the city and the horrible conditions people have to live under each day.

 

This is not how God intended for people to live. God commands us in the book of Isaiah to "Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause." 

 

Today, let us make sure that whatever happens to the six officers in the courtroom we are all working long-term for a change in the streets, alleys and households where our neighbors are suffering. That's the most Christ-like thing to do as it fits how Jesus himself defined his mission in Luke 4: 18-19:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the  prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.