I am pleased and proud to say that First Congregational Church (Moline, IL) raised $4,100 to send to the Mother Emanuel AME Church Hope Fund. Money is not all we have to give, but it is privilege and honor to contribute to this fund for hope as we look for other ways to fight against racial terrorism and Christian passivity.
This was again an important Sunday for churches across America. We came to church for the second Sunday with Mother Emanuel heavy on our hearts, and only a few days earlier the Supreme Court made Marriage Equality the law of the land. On a day that combined celebration with mourning, the theme of our texts brought us to the the connection between desperation, grief, and healing.
Here are the first 3 paragraphs of my sermon last Sunday. I wrote this for you to share with your friends who are hearing a lot of nonsense about the church and religion and Christians, and they are again hearing preachers quoting the bible to hurt others. You know better, but a lot of your friends don’t:
David, not yet a king, mourns the death of King Saul and his son, David’s beloved friend, Jonathan, of whom he says: …”Greatly beloved were you to me; your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women” (2 Sam. 1:26b), not a text quoted by those claiming their religion and their gospel is under attack because the Supreme Court at last made Marriage Equality the law of the land, but then cowardly and unfaithful people have long resorted to religion to justify bigotry.
If I am offending anyone, I do not apologize, for I believe that in time, when you have a child or grandchild, a niece or nephew, a dear friend or loved one who is born to love differently than you love, then your love will move you to advocate on their behalf, and though it may take you awhile, you will remember and appreciate this day, this Sunday, when many join with me in saying “Praise God for this victory on behalf of all God’s children,” and you will join me in praying that Christians like us would raise up our voices to show the world that those who take to the airways to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit do not represent the God of love we serve.
Love is love. God is love. Jesus Christ revealed God’s love, and religious people of his day killed him for it. I stand in, with, and through Christ, and I say, “Praise God for that the United States of America has dignified all love as equal.”
The media is playing President Obama’s singing of Amazing Grace in his eulogy for the Rev. Clementa Pinkney. But the President’s eulogy offers much more than this song: he calls us to express God’s grace today, in our world; he tells the truth about racism in the United States–about the Confederate Flag, Gun Control, the prison system, poverty–all within the context of faith.
I invite all of my friends: those who have not lost their faith in the church and who seek to express God’s grace with their lives; those who have left the church because it has worshiped its own traditions, because has been too slow to engage the movements for human dignity and justice of our age, because it has loved comfort and feared conflict; and those who see faith as weakness and belief as a sham; I invite all of my friends to watch the entire video of President Obama’s eulogy, or download the full text ( .pdf | .docx ): the President puts into words what I believe and what Christians in my life see as the heart of faith.
This was an important Sunday for churches across America. Four days earlier, Rev. Clementa Pinckney was assassinated and eight parishioners were massacred during a bible study at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The story of David and Goliath provides a way view of how we as people of faith will slay the giant of racial terrorism.
I am indebted to Malcom Gladwell’s recent book, David and Goliath. Gladwell’s reading of the story is available as a TED talk: The Unheard Story of David and Goliath.
Slinging Stones for Mother Emanuel (pdf sermon manuscript)
I count as friends many of you who grew up in church but have left it. No matter the reasons you left, no matter whether you “believe,” no matter how you practice your faith as you live your life, raise your children, bury your loved ones, this moment calls for action from us to say to the good people of Mother Emanuel AME that we see that they have been victims of racial terrorism and we love them and support them in this time of grief.
There is a donation button on the Mother Emanuel webpage:
I encourage you to make a donation.
Peace,
Pr. Craig Jan-McMahon
I am hearing parishioners asking about security in our churches–in white churches.
If you have seen my Facebook posts, you know that I am heartbroken by the assassination of Pr. Clementa Pinckney and the murder of 8 people during a bible study. I need to say something that will be difficult for you to hear.
We are safe. What happened in Charleston was racial terrorism. We need to see that we are safe from this kind of terror being directed at us–we will not be targeted because we are not black.
Let us pray to be open to what we might hear and see through this horrifying event, asking how we can respond to our brothers and sisters in Christ who are in fact targets of racial terror, and confessing how through silence or passivity we have permitted this terror to live in American soil.
“Though usually regarded as a result of trying to give too much, burnout…results from trying to give what I do not possess–the ultimate in giving too little. Burnout is the state of emptiness to be sure, but it does not result from giving all I have; it merely reveals the nothingness from which I was trying to give in the first place”
–Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak, 49
We remember the story of the unnamed woman who pours perfume on Christ’s head. While others call her wasteful, we know that she was extravagant and beautiful. As the unnamed woman annointed Christ for burial, so we were anointed by Nicole’s extravagance and beauty.
What is your wilderness and what is your marshmallow? How do we give up and give in? How do we distract ourselves? And how do we nibble a little bit?
Suppose It Matters 