In solidarity with those
who feel voiceless, sick and tired of prejudice of any kind, sick and tired of
sickness and separation and quarantine and hopelessnesss, we pray and
pray. Now is not the time to hide from one another. It is a time to be
vigilant and come together, for our King beckons us and leads us forth into
battle. On one side are those forces within us and without that sow division,
discord, and isolation. On the other side there are all those forces that
nurture attachment, connection, and solidarity. And that’s where Jesus wants us
to be, that’s where his kingdom is going to happen. It’s a showdown between
cynics and optimists, a war between “rippers and weavers,” (David
Brooks) that runs down the middle of every heart. With Jesus we need to
be weavers, creating a tapestry of loving relatedness and bonds of trust. We
must keep connecting and reconnecting and deferring to one another out of love.
God is with us, God among us; God like
us in everything but our accusing and self-absorption. His sovereignty is
realized in his littleness, his nothingness, his emptying out, his self-forgetful
love, his sin-bearing. He only wants to be loved, and he desperately wants us to
go and do likewise; our promise to compassion and mercy one another is our
pledge of devotion to him. Life in the kingdom does not tolerate individuals,
anybody on the fringes. His mercy always gathers, binds up, heals, and
connects; it never excludes. That is his truth. God always wants to wash our
feet and entice us to go and do likewise. And so, we live and rejoice in the
“hard truth and ridiculous grace” (Tauren Wells) that
abusers and abused, demagogues and peacemakers, well-heeled, solid citizens and
weary refugees and migrants, black and white and brown and all colors and hues,
bigots and oppressors and terrorists along with their victims, the sick and the
healthy-for-now are all being invited with us to have a change of heart and
come together for the feast in the kingdom.
Photograph by Father Emmanuel.