I’m an enneagram four, which is defined as an individualist, so I have always enjoyed defying the status quo, and rebelling against rules. Before I was a follower of Jesus, I just liked breaking rules. I broke a lot of them and it almost broke me! After becoming a follower of Christ, I’ve been led on a journey of the Spirit leading me to find unrighteous, and unjust rules to break. That’s a big part of who the Lord made me to be.
That’s why I love movements in history where people have defied the status quo when the status quo was just plain wrong! The Greensboro Sit-In was one such example of this.
The Greensboro sit-in was a civil rights protest that started in 1960, when young African American students staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to leave after being denied service. The sit-in movement soon spread to college towns throughout the South. Though many of the protesters were arrested for trespassing, disorderly conduct or disturbing the peace, their actions made an immediate and lasting impact, forcing Woolworth’s and other establishments to change their segregationist policies. Protesters were abused, mocked, jeered at, and had liquids and foods dumped on them by racist resistors.
I love the people at the Greensboro sit-in. It was an evil law to not allow black folks to sit at lunch counters. They should have stood up to it, even though many of the elite in the culture didn’t agree. Even though it meant they’d get food dumped on them and drinks poured on them. They were bringing radical change where it was needed by standing up for righteousness very publicly in a way that was largely unwanted.
And the civil rights movement was wildly inspired by Jesus Christ. Many of the earliest Civil Rights leaders were Christ followers and deeply connected to the black Church. These leaders of the time were reading about Jesus and applying what He did to situations in their time.
In Luke 6, we see Jesus, once again defying the religious status quo of His time, and challenging the religious elites of His day…
