Black Lives Matter and the Good Samaritan

Yesterday, our pastor, Rev. Dr. Shawn Zambrows, preached a powerful and timely sermon on the Good Samaritan. I highly recommend listening to it, if you're so inclined. In it, she cites Martin Luther King, Jr's I've Been to the Mountaintop sermon, where he states:

And so the first question that the priest asked, the first question that the Levite asked was, "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But then the Good Samaritan came by, and he reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"

During the sermon, I reflected on the many debates and memes I've seen on social media, the blogosphere, etc. on Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, All Lives Matter, and so on. Some have argued the historical and systemic problems that require an emphasis on the lives of African-Americans, without diminishing the importance of all lives. Others say that singling out any group fundamentally diminishes the values of others.

What if we're asking the wrong question in this debate? Could King's hypotheses about the underlying questions of the priest, Levite, and Samaritan be at work again?

I understand the All Lives Matter argument quite well. In it, there's a bit of, "What about me? Doesn't my life matter?" That's a fair and valid reaction. But it's also a little bit of the "What will happen to me?" side.

At the moment, the people in need of particular systemic assistance and change are African-Americans. We should be not be asking in response, "what will happen to me if I help individually and/or systemically." We should ask, "What will happen to them if I don't help?" And part of that help is acknowledging that Black Lives Matter in the face of a myriad of experiences that indicate otherwise.

What will happen to them if we just continue to generically say All Lives Matter? What will happen to them if we say Black Lives Matter? What harm would come by calling out a constantly invalidated group by agreeing that Black Lives Matter? We have to put ourselves aside a bit for that to happen.