Reflections on the Gospels from a Justice Perspective written for St. Andrew's Episcopal Church by members of the congregation

Sunday, March 31, 2013

John 20:19-31

Thomas made a good point when he insisted on seeing and touching the wounds caused by Christ's violent death. When violence deeply wounds the body of Christ, as it is doing in our own time, it demands our attention.

On the day after Palm Sunday about forty Madison Episcopalians participated in the same Way of the Cross liturgy that our bishop and other church leaders were enacting that day in Washington, D. C. Besides lamenting recent victims of violence in Sandy Hook and Chicago, we confessed the ways in which our own actions and inactions have contributed to our "culture of violence" and asked God to help us change. Here are some brief excerpts from the First Station:

"We are reduced to weeping silence [when children are massacred in their school], even as we breed a violent culture, even as we kill the sons and daughters of our so-called 'enemies,' even as we fail to cherish and protect the forgotten in our common life."

"Loving God, we beseech you to move powerfully in our body politic. Move us toward peaceableness that does not want to hurt or kill; move us toward justice so that the troubled and the forgotten may know mercy; move us toward forgiveness, so that we may escape the trap of revenge."

"Open our mouths to speak and our lives to act in ways that affirm, build up, and rejoice in every one of your children. Give us a voice to call for just laws, for an end to hatred and violence, for ready access to mental health services . . . Let us never wash our hands of any life lost and never cease to witness to your love until all are safe and living in peace."

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