Letter to the Congregation - Epiphany - January 6th, 2021

Dear Friends,

I write to you on a sad and frightening day in our nation. All afternoon I watched the news from our nation’s capital with shock and sadness as a mob scaled the walls of the Capital and broke windows and doors to gain entry while lawmakers barricaded themselves their offices. The footage left me incredulous and horrified as people broke into offices and the floors of Congress to take selfies and show disrespect. Then as the mayor of the District of Columbia announced a curfew the insurrectionists continued to show disregard for the police and the laws of our nation.

Later in early evening I heard an interview that gave me hope. It was with Rev. Raphael Warnock, the new senator-elect from Georgia, who quoted Dr. King, the famous Civil Rights’ Leader, whose father’s pulpit, Warnock holds in Atlanta. King said, “We must learn to live together as brothers {and sisters} or perish together as fools.” In this moment Warnock said, “We need to summon the best in America, because we are all we’ve got.”

In this time of challenge it will be easy to be overwhelmed and frightened, but I write to send a reminder of the power of our faith. I write to remind you that though we have been isolated and worship at a distance due to the pandemic, we are one in spirit. Tonight, I write to ask you join me in praying for our nation.

Let us take comfort in the words of a minister from Georgia, the eleventh child of a poor family of twelve, who attended college on a scholarship. He said that his mother was 80 and had grown up picking cotton, but this week she voted to send her youngest son to the United States Senate.

That is the America we all cherish. It is a place of opportunity and promise. It’s a place of honesty and decency. It’s a place where democracy works because there is a balance of power and we all abide by the rule of law. Its a place where we need the principles of our faith to inform our public life.

Please continue to stay safe. Join us for worship on Sunday, when we will remember again how much we need our faith, especially now.

Blessings,

Rev. Susan