“Seeking Racial Equity and a Just Economy”
The theme for Just Peace Sunday 2020 is based on the lectionary passage in Matthew 20 in which the owner of the vineyard suggests a form of economic relations not based on a transactional sense of fairness, but a deeper call to justice and restoration. “You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” (Matthew 20:4)
This year, Just Peace Sunday takes place at a time in which systemic racism is being exposed not only through the repeated examples of physical violence against black lives as witnessed in the shootings of Jacob Blake, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others; but also through the generational economic violence that has come sharply into focus this year. The economic violence of slavery, white supremacy, and racism has had a generational impact on black communities and has created the racial wealth gap we see today, a gap in which the net worth of white households is about 10 times that of black households. We are only now starting to uncover the full impact of this gap, but one such metric today are the unequal health outcomes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The inequities of today have never been so clear, challenging us to seek a deeper call to reparative justice and that is based not on what is owed, but on what is “right.” As a Just Peace Church, we are called to take seriously this call to do what is right, seeking racial equity and a just economy for all.
- excepted from the United Church of Christ