Dear Siblings in Christ,
One of the elders in the small village where I grew up, Mrs. Demmert was a regular presence in my elementary school. She came to our second and third grade classes once a month and taught us the stories and songs of the Tlingit people. “We learn the stories” she would tell us, “to remember who we are.”
Even though I wasn’t Tlingit, like many of my classmates and friends, this idea still made sense to me. My parents told stories of our family’s history. We told stories at church about our ancestors in the faith and about Jesus. In school we were taught stories about our history as a country. The stories we tell about ourselves, as a nation, as people of faith, as fellow human beings, shape our lives in profound ways. When we remember who we are, it shapes how we act.
Many of the stories that are attempting to shape our present moment are not the stories I will choose to remind me of who and whose I am. Since the inauguration of our 47th president, we’ve watched as many in our government try to retell the story of who we are as a people. Elected officials have used the power of their office to attempt to erase the identity of trans folks; label undocumented immigrants as a poison in the blood of our nation; describe gay, lesbian and bisexual citizens as evil; and obscure the truth of our sometimes violent and hateful past as a nation. We’ve seen, in short order, the return to stories like “Manifest Destiny”, an appeal to God to bless and sanction our history of colonization and expansion – as if we could take by force then and now, lands, waters, places, and things that we deem necessary for us, because God is supposedly on our side.
If you’ve found yourself despairing or hopeless in the past weeks, it is understandable – these stories are coming at us fast and furious and it is all meant to disorient and overwhelm. And, while we live in a real world with real politics and the need for real and tangible solutions, we must also come to recognize that our hope in this moment is not going to come simply through political power, from one party or another, one leader or another. Yes, political resistance, organizing, and strong leadership are needed. But, they are not the whole answer to what ails us. In order to resist the lies of this and any moment, to not let them shape and redefine who we are, to not erase and mar the dignity of so many others we love and care for, we must dig deep into the faith we’ve inherited, into the truest story we know. As people made in God’s image, each of you are a beloved, gracefilled, and beautiful reflection of the Divine. What’s more, through the waters of baptism you have been given a freedom that cannot be taken away. You are “sealed by the Holy Spirit…and marked as Christ’s own forever.” This is your story! This is our story!
So, what does that mean? It means we have been given power beyond ourselves to resist evil. We have been given courage to face any fear. We have been given hope for we are bound together with the whole of the body of Christ, saints both living and who have gone before, who will walk with us in resisting evil. It means that any story that mars the dignity of our fellow humans, any story that promotes injustice, foments violence, or denies love for our neighbors, we will actively resist, we will show it for the lie it is. Our story is shaped by the living God who teaches us that true strength is manifested in vulnerability and sacrifice, that love and only love is a power worth wielding, that humility and grace and mercy should define our actions. Everything else is false.
In the days and months ahead we will hear even more attempts to distort the story by which we as Christians have been called to live our lives. Like many of you, the thought of responding to each and every lie, each and every indignity, each and every blasphemy seems exhausting. I want to affirm we cannot live in a state of reactivity and hyper-vigilance. Remember that our Day 1 plan affirmed that the challenges of this moment are not necessarily new, and our work as disciples who seek justice and peace is long work and deep work. So, as our Day 1 plan points us here at St. John’s, we will commit instead to the work of practicing our true and defining story, through the habits and rites of our faith, learning from the saints and our scriptures, welcoming strangers into our midst, serving our unhoused and migrant neighbors, praying for one another, growing in faith and giving generously for the needs of others. In short, we will need to go deep in our faith in Jesus, following his way of love, strengthening our resolve, growing in trust in God’s abundance, so that in acts small and large, now and long into the future, we can resist the lies that would seek to reshape us and the world around us. We will learn and relearn the stories so that we can remember who and whose we are. As our former Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry, was fond of reminding us, we will do these things so that we can help the world become the dream God has for it, instead of the nightmare it so often is.
I’m praying for each of you in these days. God bless each of you as together we seek to be the people our stories promise us we can be in this and every moment!
Faithfully,
Jered
