I CAN'T BREATHE

Job hadn’t done anything to deserve this.  His friends insisted that he must have violated the law in some way, he must have done something suspicious---- why else would he have been thrown down and put into this position?

But God knows Job didn’t deserve this.  Literally, God knew.

Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?” (Job 1:8)

Job didn’t deserve this; and in chapter 9 when he searched for the words to describe the wretchedness of the injustice he was experiencing, Job found these:

He crushes me with a tempest,

And multiplies my wounds without cause.

He will not allow me to catch my breath,

But fills me with bitterness.

If it is a matter of strength, indeed he is strong;

And if of justice, who will appoint my day in court?

Though I were righteous, my own mouth would condemn me;

Though I were blameless, it would pronounce me guilty.   

Job experienced his suffering as an act of divine brutality.  He felt like God had assaulted him without cause.  He felt like God had jumped on top of him with  the immovable weight of supreme legal authority.  Like God had  wrapped his strong arms around him in malice and  he will not allow me to catch my breath. 

Job cried out:

“I can’t breathe.”

We have the whole story in Scripture, so we know that God was working out a long term strategy with Job. We know that God was addressing Job’s slow drift into self-worship.  We know that God had a plan to return all that Job had lost and make his end greater than his beginning.    WE know all of this.  But at the time, all Job knew was:

I can’t breathe.

On July 17, 2014, Eric Garner, a tall, strongly built African-American husband and father was standing on a sidewalk in Staten Island, New York.  The police confronted him about supposedly selling loose, single cigarettes.  He insisted he was innocent.  They insisted he had done something wrong.   Eric put his hands up.  He backed away.  He didn’t yell.  He didn’t curse.  He called the officers, “Sir.”  He called the officers “brother.”

They threw him down.  They jumped on top of him. One of them wrapped his strong arms around Eric’s throat and used his legal authority to illegally apply a chokehold.  And all Eric could say was:

“I can’t breathe.”

But he was not allowed to catch his breath. 

Eric died.

The officer who killed him will not answer to Eric, or to his widow, or to his children, or to the courts for what happened. 

So right now, there’s a weight on my heart.

Right now, I don’t understand.

I feel like any minute the one or ones who are supposed to protect me from the enemy may beat a hole through my hedge of professionalism and respectability and put their weight on me.  And if I raise up in my full strength and throw them off, I’ll only provoke more lethal thorns against my flesh.

What can I do?

I am sad

And angry

So angry

You can’t be this angry all the time.  You gotta work and talk to your children and give attention to your wife.  You’ve got friends and social obligations.

But why IS that officer still looking at me? 

What exactly does that Facebook comment mean?

I gotta get it together.

I can’t ….

I can’t…

He crushes me with a tempest,

And multiplies my wounds without cause.

He will not allow me to catch my breath

Oh!  My God!

I can’t breathe.

And then I do.

I close my eyes and breathe a prayer.  A litany of groans too deep for words.

And somehow, I know.

I know that my Redeemer lives,

And He shall stand at last on the earth;

And after my skin is destroyed, this I know,

That in my flesh I shall see God,  (Job 19: 25-26)

Job trusted God for justice. So do I.

I’m still hurt, still angry. But I can breathe.

Breathe with me

...

Amen.

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

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