Preacher: The Rev Dr. Valori Mulvey Sherer, Rector
En el nombre del Dios: Padre, Hijo, y Espiritu Santo. Amen.
A storm is raging in our land and it’s causing us to perish. It’s been building for years… decades… centuries… and last Wednesday night it blew wide open when nine people were murdered at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, SC.
On Thursday morning, our church called for a prayerful response to this tragedy (as we generally do) and we began planning a Candlelight Compline on the court square. I had to go to Charlotte for an appointment that day, so I spent the car ride calling my friends and colleagues at the NAACP, the CCG (Cross Cultural Gathering – a local anti-racism group), and both ministerial associations to invite them to our prayer service.
Then the suspect in this mass shooting was captured here in Shelby. Dylann Roof, a 21-year old – barely more than a boy, still wearing a child’s haircut – admitted to killing those innocents because of the color of their skin. I stopped in Gastonia to pray and process how I felt. My heart was broken thinking about the pain the families of the victims must be in and how such hate could infect that fair-haired young man.
As I prayed, God gave me this phrase: “One people, one voice for justice, freedom, and peace.” It became the tag line for our prayer service.
I called everyone back I had spoken to earlier and opened our prayer service to our sisters and brothers in the community. About 100 people gathered that evening on the court square. Six local ministers, including two bishops, a deacon, this priest, and two lay people co-led the prayer service. We sang Amazing Grace as we lit the candles and read the names of the lambs of God slaughtered at Mother Emanuel Church. We read from Holy Scripture and prayed like Episcopalians, Pentecostals, and Baptists – manifesting unity in all our diversity. It was a very healing moment.
As the story continued to unfold, the light of Christ shone brighter and brighter. The families of the victims publicly forgave the shooter. If you haven’t seen it yet, please watch the YouTube video (posted on my Facebook page) in which you can hear the families of the murdered victims addressing Dylann Roof and forgiving him, praying for him, and calling down God’s mercy on him. It was like listening to the voice of Jesus as he hung on his cross, forgiving over and over.
I cried as I listened to the mother of murdered 26 year old Tywanda Sanders who had just graduated from college say, “Every fiber of my body hurts…” It was too close for my comfort - my own 25 year old son also just graduated from college. I was slain by her words and shared, to the degree that I could, in the absolute aching she described.
I was totally moved by the words of the sister of Depayne Middleton Doctor, the 49 year old mother and minister of the church murdered that night. The sister shared honestly about the anger she felt. You could hear it in her voice – but then her anger gave way and her faith rose up as she cried out: “We are the family that love built!” then concluded with the softly spoken, honestly given blessing, “May God bless you.”
And suddenly, the gospel made sense to me. In the midst of the storm, it is our faith in Jesus Christ that will bring about peace, because he can still the raging storm. But more than that – as temples of his Holy Spirit, WE have been given the authority to still the storm in his name now, in our time.
So how do we do that? I think we begin by following the example of the families of the Emanuel Church victims, and we forgive Dylann Roof. That doesn’t mean condoning his actions or relieving him of his accountability for them, but we, like the families of his victims, must pray for the transformation of his soul through the love of God in Christ.
Then we must let the reality of the systemic nature of this problem enter our minds and hearts undefended. We are good people, but we are also complicit in the system that created Dylann Roof if we remain silent and let this moment pass by so that we can return to our comfortable lives. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu has said, if we are silent in the face of oppression, we have taken the side of the oppressor.
Today, I call us to remember the nine persons murdered last Wednesday by a hate-filled boy, but we must put them in the context of a larger picture. We must also remember:
• 18 year old Michael Brown, killed by the police in Ferguson, Mo last August;
• 17 year old Trayvon Martin, shot by neighborhood watch volunteer, George Zimmerman;
• Dontre Hamilton, 31, killed by police in Milwaukee;
• Eric Garner, 43, killed by police in NYC;
• John Crawford, 22, killed by police in Dayton,
• OH; Ezell Ford, 25, killed by police in Florence,
• CA; Akai Gurley, 28, killed by police in Brooklyn, NY;
• Tamir Rice, 12 years old, killed by police in Cleveland, OH…
This list of black deaths at the hands of white cops just last year goes on and on. (See this site: http://www.buzzfeed.com/nicholasquah/heres-a-timeline-of-unarmed-black-men-killed-by-police-over#.yhBgmAJxO)
Add to that the mass shootings at the army base at Fort Hood, TX, the Sikh temple in Wisconsin, the 12 people killed at a movie theater in Aurora, CO, and Sandy Hook elementary school, where 20 children and 6 adults died in Newtown, CT. Sadly, this list goes on and on too.
We have a problem, two problems, actually, which our bishop, The Rt. Rev. G. Porter Taylor, names in his letter to the diocese (see the insert in your service bulletin). The first is the “sin of racism” and the second is “the lack of the political will to take any effective action against the sea of guns” in our country. Our country is complicit, he says, because “our commitment for effective action against racism is not sustained.”
A storm is raging in our land and we are perishing in it.
I know that dropping our defenses and letting this reality sink in is uncomfortable. Of course it is. Otherwise, what will rouse us from our slumber?
My colleague Mike Kinman, the Dean of the Episcopal Cathedral in St. Louis, MO, answers this question well. Speaking to those heading to our General Convention in Salt Lake City this week, Mike says,
“… what my heart longs for is an Exodus 3 moment. I long for us to hear God saying: ‘I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt. I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver the… and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey.’… I long for us to recognize that our hearts have been hard but they need be hard no longer … but that will not happen unless we forswear the original sin of self-concern and, not with a well-written statement or a brief public handwringing, but with all that we have and all that we are commit ourselves to listening deeply to the voices who have been crying for too long and… with all that we have and all that we are, honor them and follow the Jesus we meet in them…. I am praying for you to not be afraid to upset a church that truly needs to be made upset, to bring discomfort to a church that is far too comfortable and to be agents of the Holy Spirit rousing the Body of Christ from her slumber.” (Source: http://cccdean.blogspot.com/2015/06/at-general-convention-our-chance-for.html)
That’s another thing we can do: pray for our church that meets in convention this week, that we may choose to have an Exodus 3 moment.
Finally, we can get involved. You also have a flyer in your bulletin about a picnic on June 30 sponsored by CCG. We can be a part of the discussion and help bring about unity in our diversity here in Cleveland County.
My beloved family, we are the living members of the living Christ, and we are asleep in the boat. We are the ones who must awaken to the cries of those who are suffering and afraid, those who are perishing. We must awaken and still the raging storm by claiming the authority given to us by our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Now let us take a moment of silence and let the Spirit of God disturb us, , comfort us, and awaken us to act. In this moment, we will remember the names of those who died Wednesday night. (A bell is tolled at the reading of the names of each victim.)
Rev. Sharonda Singleton, age 45; Mira Thompson, age 59; Tywanza Sanders, age 26; Ethel Lee Lance, age 70; Cynthia Hurd, age 54; Daniel Simmons, Sr., age 74; Susie Jackson, age 87; Depayne Middleton Doctor, age 49; Rev Clementa Pinckney, age 41, pastor of Emanuel AME Church, and Senator for the state of SC. (A moment of silence is kept.)
In a moment we will renew our Baptismal Covenant and re-commit to being sisters and brothers of the living Christ who are willing to awaken, to still the raging storm, and be one people, one voice for justice, freedom, and peace. Amen.
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