Transcript:
Greetings, beloved in Christ. I hope that you are well on this day. You might notice that something seems different about me from the last video that I did. This is part of my sabbatical commitment to try new things. Trust me. Mark is still shocked to wake up to a blonde. As I prepare for the third and final leg of my sabbatical, where I will travel to Mexico City and spend time with Bishop Sally Sue Hernandez and the people of the Anglican Church of Mexico, I wanted to take some time to greet you today. I know that the news is shocking and terrifying and perhaps depressing, but I want to offer you a few words of encouragement. Before I left for sabbatical, I preached a sermon in which I told a story of my twins' time at Canterbury Cathedral, where they went through the martyrs exhibit slowly and intentionally, reading all of the stories of the martyrs in that time.
After we left, one of my twins said to me, "It seems that those people were killed for trying to help others." My other twin said to me, "Mom, this Jesus business seems a little dangerous. You might want to rethink it." Little did he know I had thought about it. In the days before my own confirmation, I sat down and reread the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail. And I remembered the sacrifices that members of my family made, risking their lives and their livelihood to fight for equal rights and justice. I read that letter alongside my baptismal covenant, recognizing that, if I am going to follow the way my Lord Jesus Christ says to walk in this world, that I might run afoul of the powers and principalities, that I might have to live the way God is calling me to live in spite of what the world thinks about me.
In these times where injustice is so obvious, we, as Christ followers, have to stand up for justice. In our baptismal covenant, we promise we'll strive for justice. And that means that we work for it, not just with words, but with action. And we have to recognize that we cannot use the world's means to accomplish the kingdom's ends. Violence only begets violence. And so, if we are to resist, we must do so with love and with peace in our hearts and with a determination that this world can be a more just and righteous place. Before we do anything, we must ground ourselves in prayer. We must discern the spirit because not every spirit is of God. In these days, I encourage you, if you haven't read the Letter from a Birmingham Jail, that you read it, that you read it alongside your baptismal covenant, and you pray and you act in the ways of Christ's love, promoting the kingdom of God.
Blessings.