A Letter from Lindy June 7
Pilgrims,
Where do we find words to name the moment in which our nation and our world stand. For the past two Sundays I have used the eagle’s wings of God’s Word in the hopes that I help us grope together through the complexities of this horror. I end each worship service staring at that little black camera—my audience of one—and pray God transcends what we have worshipfully done into something...anything...that gifts us with holy hope when all feels so unbearably bleak.
My Sunday Jacobean wrestling match brought me to the couch last week where I flipped onto the bigger screen the UCC presentation of The Cross and the Lynching Tree: a Requiem for Ahmaud Arbery. A 90 minute journey of weeping, anger, shame, and amens that left Lanny and I as drained as the presenters named themselves to be in the week after George Floyd’s homicide. Later that evening, I saw a text from Felix exclaiming the stirring it also caused within her. Out of the 4400 viewers, I wondered how many were Pilgrims. One of the panelists, Linda Sarsour, a lead organizer of the women’s march, a New Yorker of the Muslim faith, when asked what to do from this presentation forward, directed her comments to her fellow white viewers. “Go home. Begin this conversation with your family. Your loved ones. Your friends. It will be hard, but it’s on us.”
She’s right. Racism is on us. Our black and brown brothers and sisters are exhausted and enraged. They are not ok. They should not be. It’s on us to lift our voices in chorus, even if we feel helpless, impotent, discomforted to look at, talk about, and begin naming and claiming our participation in racist systems and structures—in our communities, in our country. I truly believe that this moment is God’s call on God’s beloved community to become something new and to work toward God’s vision of shalom which cannot come into being without justice.
First steps are wobbly. Scary. We will stumble and fall. We need to take one. Now. My hope is a community-wide, authentic conversation borne from this sermon and ensuing webinar. It is on the UCC YouTube channel, HERE. My prayer is, over the coming week, you will watch it. Take notes, ask questions, journal reaction/reflection. Then let’s come together for a beginning conversation about how God is calling Pilgrim to do our part....to be a piece....of the unfolding of God’s hope for God’s people. For God is calling us.
Pastor Lindy