I wrote these words two weeks after I got a text from a colleague, the pastor of a historic African American congregation in the Capital Region, asking if I would participate in a vigil that evening. When I got the text, I was in the middle of writing on my notebook what I would say to encourage the moment of confession during Sunday worship. When I must share thoughts about things that are heart and soul deep, I have learned to write them down. Clarity and transparency are paramount in any form of leadership, but especially in leadership that seeks to organize and encourage for discernment and action.
“I know that the power of love can move the actions and resources of whole communities and ensure wellbeing, creativity, and sustainability... Love does not promise the possibility to pursue happiness. Love promises that the beloved community is possible and that it is imminent.”
On May 14, 2022, two Saturdays before I wrote these lines, an 18-year-old drove hundreds of miles to target people, violently and deadly, who were not of his race. 10 died. 3 were wounded. 11 of those were African Americans.
As I was driving that Sunday evening to the vigil I was invited to, a man had driven hundreds of miles, and walked into the fellowship time of a Taiwanese Presbyterian congregation. 1 died. 4 were wounded. All were over 65 years of age.
Houses of worship. Food markets. Places of daily living. Spaces for grounded belonging.
Worship of guns and individualism. Most of the wealth accumulation by less than 10% of the population. Places built by oppression, colonization, and marginalization. Spaces for hateful rhetoric and strategic disenfranchisement.
That is the reality in the United States. That is the tension in which this country was founded, and still operates. Perhaps needless to say, that reality and tension is not sustainable. Should we let things continue to unravel without question, examination, and remediation, the tension will either break or undue itself on the backs, lives, and dignity of those the promise of this nation identified as distinct from the established norm.
Two weeks later, on Tuesday, May 24, 2022, an 18-year-old walked into an elementary school, and opened fire in a classroom full of 4th graders. 21 died. 19 of them were children. Several were wounded. Most of them had last names that read and skin colors that look like mine.
Houses of worship. Food markets. Schools. Places of daily living. Spaces for grounded belonging.
Worship of guns and individualism. Most of the wealth accumulation by less than 10% of the population. Places built by oppression, colonization, and marginalization. Spaces for hateful rhetoric and strategic disenfranchisement.
Americans need to come to grips with the fact that the country was not built as a land of the free and home of the brave for everyone. Americans, and those of us that made our way to this land to pursue its promise, need to realize that the promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness was not a promise for all.
What is more, those of us that practice American Christianity – especially the Protestant, Evangelical and Roman Catholic kind – need to realize that our religious traditions gave theological foundation and practical sustenance to the US pursuits of individualism, capitalism, slavery, expansionism, and colonialism. The 222nd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, USA, in 2016, called the church to “confess its complicity and repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery.” The Church was called to confess its participation in over 500 years of white supremacist action and violence. What happened two weekends ago in Buffalo and Orange County, and what happened in Uvalde this week are not isolated occurrences. Violent and deadly gun violence is as American as the Star-Spangled Banner, and it has over five centuries of groundedness. And the American Church has participated of that rugged individualism, accumulation of wealth, oppression, colonization, and marginalization all along.
I pray that by now you realize that finding the good news in the midst of all of this is difficult, and I know that this is a clear expectation of my job and vocation. And let me get even more personal, a part of me was scared to even be standing in the pulpit that Sunday. I am clearly not white. My accent is clearly not stereotypical American. I could not ignore one of the voices in my head saying that I am an easy target.
I refuse to allow my being swayed by fear. I would much rather allow myself to be vulnerable with you and with my colleagues in community engagement and religious service, to be open about the profound concerns I have regarding the rotten state of the American ethos. And I will continue to refuse to let fear lead. As profoundly concerned as I am, I also know that the power of love we have known in Jesus Christ is not only more powerful than fear, it can transform my life, it can transform your life, and it can transform the lives of whole communities.
I know that the power of love can move the actions and resources of whole communities and ensure wellbeing, creativity, and sustainability. I know that the power of love is more powerful than the promise of this country. I know the power of love calls into question the promise of this country, because love does not give anyone an opportunity to pursue happiness. Love, as we have learned it from Jesus of Nazareth, assures that we will have life, and have it abundantly. That we will be free and be redeemed and our dignities restored. That we will have happiness, and what is more, we will have joy, peace, and justice. Love does not promise the possibility to pursue happiness. Love promises that the beloved community is possible, and that it is imminent. We read that promise in the prayer of Jesus for us, as found in the Gospel of John (17: 20-26)
‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
‘Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’
The followers of Jesus have the opportunity to seize this moment and be what we have been called to be as witnesses of Jesus – a community of love that proclaims love and lives out love as our way to sharing with the world all that Jesus has done in us, for us, and through us. We have an opportunity to stand in this place because of who we fully are, even when we are othered, ostracized and marginalized by the social and political norms, for we know that as the community of Jesus, gathered by God’s love and peace, we are fearfully and wonderfully made to welcome others into that redeemed and reconciled reality.
As I refuse to be swayed by fear, I affirm that I will be led by love. I will stand in this place because of and in spite of my fears for I know that “the one who is in us is greater than the one who is in the world.” (I John 4:4b) When I wrote this sermon, FPC was also in preparation to celebrate Pride Month. I encouraged the congregation to celebrate the pride of diversity because Scripture gives us testimony that when God saw everything that was created, as it was created, God determined that everything was supremely good. (Genesis 1:31b) We were all encouraged to live as followers of Jesus, gather for worship, and go live and serve in the world courageously because we know that:
Against the pervasiveness of fear, God’s love is triumphant
Against the intentionality to marginalize, God’s justice is triumphant
Against the reality of guns, violence, and war, God’s peace is triumphant
Against the boot of oppression, God’s embrace, grace and salvation is triumphant
Against the insidiousness of the Doctrine of Discovery, of Manifest Destiny, and of Just War Theory, Emmanuel, God with us, is triumphant
I believe it is so. I pray you to believe it to be so.
Amen.
This text is based on a sermon shared with the First Presbyterian Church of Albany on May 29, 2022. To access the sermon, please, click here. Sermon begins around minute 33:00