Transcript:
Greetings, beloved in Christ. I hope that you are well. This past week, I spent time with the House of Bishops in the Dominican Republic. It was a joy for me to be with our siblings there and to see all that the Episcopal Church in the Dominican Republic is doing in and for its communities. The Episcopal Church there is responsible for schools, for hospitals, for care to those who are going hungry, and seeking to soothe those who suffer. While we were there, we also talked about the escalating violence in this country, the shootings in Minnesota, in Utah, and the shootings here in Evergreen.
We prayed for all persons who are grieving, who were injured, who died. We prayed for those perpetrators of violence as we reminded ourselves that violence is never the answer. We reminded ourselves that our baptismal covenant is to seek and serve Christ in all persons, to strive for justice and peace and respect the dignity of every human being. All persons and every human being means that we cannot decry violence against one person while we tacitly accept violence against others. It reminded us that it's not okay to accept violence against people because they don't agree with us or they don't look like us. But that violence in all its forms is to be abhorred, to be spoken out against, to be resisted.
In our world, we are tempted to divide ourselves into those who deserve violence and those who don't. But the truth of the matter is simply this, violence is never an answer, and all that violence accomplishes is more violence. And so we who claim Christ must stand firm and following Christ. We must stand firm in being people of peace, and we must resist violence and hatred in all its forms. The good news is we do not have to do this on our own. We do it all with God's help. Blessings.