“Never Look Down” (02/19/2026)

This week, the civil rights leader Jesse Jackson passed away. He was with Martin Luther King, Jr. on the Selma to Montgomery marches and was in the hotel when King was assassinated. When I think of him, his various roles in our history’s march for equality, I recognize his leadership, but what I remember most were his words like “Never look down on anybody unless you’re helping him up.”

As we enter our second day of our Lenten journey, it is good to look at ourselves and how we have been looking upon others and treating others. Our LORD calls us closer during this season, but we know that to draw closer to our LORD we must also mend fences with our neighbors and enlarge our hearts to take in all the children of God. Jackson’s words, “Never look down on anybody unless you’re helping him up” remind me that I am called to see in my sisters and brothers their God-given integrity. And I wonder how our world could change if we all took this command seriously, to love one another.

Love is more than the absence of hate. Love is a verb of action that calls us to seek good for the other. And it begins with seeing value in the other regardless of their location, skin color, education, or religion. We are called to love one another as Christ has loved us. He died for all of us, not just for a certain ethnicity or religion. And when we study Christ’s parables, we find the Good Samaritan who went beyond simply not looking down on the robbery victim but authentically caring for him at great expense to the Samaritan. And I am reminded of the two books by Pseudo-Dionysius: The Celestial Hierarchy and The Ecclesial Hierarchy. In both, the author explained that the whole purpose of hierarchy was not power or prestige but rather “the lifting up of a lower member” in love.

Jackson went on Sesame Street and taught the children with a moving poem and asking the children to join in by shouting out “I am somebody.” The poem read:

I am Somebody!

I am Somebody!

I may be poor,

But I am Somebody.

I may be young,

But I am Somebody.

I may be on welfare,

But I am Somebody.

I may be small,

But I am Somebody.

I may have made mistakes,

But I am Somebody.

My clothes are different,

My face is different,

My hair is different,

But I am Somebody.

I am black,

Brown or white.

I speak a different language

But I must be respected,

Protected,

Never rejected.

I am God’s child!

Today, as we go about our ways, let us commit to seeing the other, to recognizing their value and that our beloved Savior died for them as well as us, and realize that those we encounter are “somebody.” And let us promise to not look down unless we’re helping another up.

Prayers for Jackson and his family.

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.