Dear Friends of Harvard-Epworth Church–

Barb and I heard the news late on Saturday about the assassination attempt on former President Trump.  We were profoundly grateful it was unsuccessful. And we were deeply dismayed by the reactions that show the divided state of our nation: the almost instantaneous comments by some politicians to blame President Joe Biden for the attack, ugly sentiments from both right and left after the shooting, and very few paragraphs written about the firefighter who was killed and two others seriously injured in the shooting. 

Everything, it seems, even tragedy, must fit into a widening political binary of mutual contempt.

The next morning at worship my Pastoral Prayer was vague, decrying in overly general ways the violence that threatens our fragile democratic experience. In trying to avoid that same political binary, my words were like weak tea. I apologize.

Five days on, however, I want to share the strong, bracing words of 20th century prophet Dorothy Day, who reminds us that in these times of much heat and little light, our calling as followers of Jesus is to love. It is as simple and as difficult a job as there is:

Whenever I groan within myself and think how hard it is to keep writing about love in these times of tension and strife which may, at any moment, become for us all a time of terror, I think to myself: what else is the world interested in?  What else do we all want, each one of us, except to love and be loved, in our families, in our work, in all our relationships?

God is Love.  Love casts out fear.  Even the most ardent, seeking to change the world, to overturn the tables of the money changers, is trying to make a world where it is easier for people to love, to stand in that relationship to each other. There can never be enough of it.

May we, as people of faith, renew our commitment to stand in relationship with each other.  Especially when we do not agree, we commit to love.

In Christ’s Deep Peace,
Pastor Mitch