White folk sometimes wonder, "If I'd been alive during the Civil War, or in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust, or in America during the Civil Rights Movement, what would I have done?" It's a self-examination where those of us who have not been historically marginalized and oppressed hope we are living righteous lives, walking upright in the sight of God and neighbor.

Since last Saturday's events in Charlotesville, Virginia, I've applied this questioning to Christian doctrine. The church incorporates an accountability of self to the crucifixion of Jesus during Holy Week. Good Friday services highlight the story of Pontius Pilate asking the people for their decision about whether to release Barabbas or Jesus, and they chant for Jesus to be crucified. Christians ask, "Would we have been among that crowd?" as we sing perhaps the most self-reflective hymn ever written: Were You There (When they Crucified my Lord)?

Today, I'm pondering a different moment in Jesus' ministry and what I would've done. It's in Luke's gospel. I'm sitting in the synagogue on the Sabbath day when Jesus, Joseph's boy, stands up and reads from the prophet Isaiah about the Spirit of the Lord being upon him to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to liberate the oppressed and to proclaim the year of God's favor. He sits down and says the reading has been fulfilled in our hearing. We're amazed, so Jesus capitalizes by teaching us that being blessed by God isn't just for us; it's also for outsiders, like those gentiles we customarily despise. The thought of extending blessings to people we're taught to revile, that we might be historically wrong about how we treat them and the thought of equality in the eyes of our God make us mad. We refuse to hear anymore of this offensive talk. The congregation is so filled with anger in defense of our pride that we drive Jesus out of the synagogue and out of town. We force him to the edge of a cliff and try to throw him over. That's when something inside me -- could it be the voice of God? -- says, "You might want to reconsider what you're doing."

I wasn't in Charlotesville last Saturday, but with news stories exposing what happened, I've been imagining it. There's a crowd of white supremacists waving Confederate and Nazi flags chanting, "Jews will not replace us," "blood and soil," and, "white lives matter." They have mobilized to defend the statue of Robert E. Lee from being taken down in the newly named Emancipation Park.

Some have come to counter this narrative, including an interfaith group of clergy. They are proclaiming the work that has yet to be done since the abolition of slavery: liberating people of color from living under the oppression of institutionalized racism in America. They admonish the white supremacists with a message that cuts to the core of the human condition: we belong to each other, and God made us to be equally included in the circle of this world's provisions, resources and all matter of dignity and goodness, that everyone would have access to those blessings. It sounds like Jesus echoing from a synagogue in antiquity to a town square in 21st century America.

Someone behind the wheel of a car doesn't want to hear any more of that offensive proclamation. He's so angry that he drives into that crowd of loud mouths. He injures some and kills a 32-year-old woman named Heather Heyer.

In the aftermath, a KKK leader tells WBTV in North Carolina he is "glad" people were injured and that Heyer died: "They were a bunch of communists out there protesting against somebody's freedom of speech, so it doesn't bother me that they got hurt at all." At Heyer's funeral, her parents call for forgiveness because "that is what the Lord would want us to do -- just love one another." They remember her life, saying that all she wanted was to show compassion, fight for equality, and put down hate. Pondering what to do now, one of Heyer's friends said, "What would Heather do? Heather would go harder. So that's what we're going to do. We're going to preach love. We're going to preach equality, and Heather's death won't be in vain."

If the spirit of the Lord was upon Jesus, and if Mother Teresa was right, that Christ has no hands or feet on earth but ours, then that still-speaking spirit is urgently upon us all. Last Saturday exposed that our questions of "What would I have done then?" have become "What will I do now?"

These are the days that test our standing before God and neighbor. "I call heaven and earth as my witnesses against you right now: I have set life and death, blessing and curse before you" (Deuteronomy 30:19a). So, what will it be? Will we choose to passively accept the self-inflating pride of systemic racism that deals in death toward historically and presently marginalized and oppressed people with whom our communal salvation is bound; or will we choose life by standing with and for our neighbors of color who are more terrified by our self-involved silence than by those of us who proudly defend hatred without wearing hoods?

The Rev. Dan De Leon is the pastor of Friends Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, College Station.

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God calls us to stand against inequality - Bryan-College Station Eagle