Dear People of St. James’,
I want to thank you for gathering for prayer and a sense of communion on Wednesday night. To all who offered words, prayer, song, questions, thank you. To all who listened and prayed with us, thank you. To all who showed your faces that we might see you and feel your presence somehow, knowing you are there, thank you. I am personally grateful to be part of a community that comes together to listen deeply and patiently to each other, to find words to speak to God in prayer, to be silent when words fail, to sing of hope and healing even when we’re not feeling it, and to lean on each other’s faith and wisdom.
You do not need me to tell you that, on Wednesday, we saw, in the bright light of day, how white supremacy both deforms and threatens our democracy and our common humanity. This is no new revelation. And yet, on Wednesday, we saw some things we had not seen before.
We saw the President of the United States incite his followers to attack legitimate processes of government and speak gracious words to them afterwards, while continuing to employ the dangerous and false rhetoric that drew them to DC in the first place.
We saw unholy symbols and unholy weapons brandished inside the US Capitol building.
We bore witness to the consequences of continuously underestimating the real threat to life and liberty posed by white nationalism.
We wondered at the disparity between the treatment of BLM protesters and these mostly white insurrectionists.
These events, such as we had not seen before, were not discontinuous with what we have seen and heard intensifying in recent years or the long legacy of white supremacy in this country.
Many have voiced particular outrage at this event, regarding it as an attack upon something sacred: the hallowed ground of our Capitol, the sacred processes of our democracy. This is but a part of the lament, because we have seen how these things can become mere idols if their promise of life and breath and voice and freedom from terror have no power for the immigrant and refugee, for the poor, for the marginalized and oppressed.
In this season, we, as Christians, give thanks to the God who came down to walk and make a home among those at the margins, proclaiming that this ground upon which the last, the least, and the lost stand is sacred as well. We give thanks to the God who came down to reveal to us, through his suffering, the violence of our hearts and of our tribes and to call us to new ways of being a people together – by using our freedom as children of God for the service and healing of the other. We give thanks to the God who comes to rescue us from our tragic brokenness and blindness through the healing and liberating power of love.
Love is the way: love that aches with those who suffer loss, love that desires justice even when that means that we too must stand under judgment for our own waywardness, love that does mercy and forgives without hiding its face from the destructive realities of sin. Love is the way of the God whom we have seen in Jesus.
O God, teach our hearts to walk in the way of Love.
The Rev. Eileen O’Brien
