A Message About This Week’s Protests

What we professed on Christmas Eve we are now called to practice on Epiphany, January 6th; “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” 

Tuesday and Wednesday white supremacist groups are assembling in our nation’s capital, many of whom are threatening to bring firearms.  Mayor Muriel Bowser reminded residents to avoid confrontations with antagonists like these.

“I am asking Washingtonians and those who live in the region to stay out of the downtown area on Tuesday and Wednesday and not to engage with demonstrators who come to our city seeking confrontation, and we will do what we must to ensure all who attend remain peaceful.”

Our Baltimore Washington Conference similarly encourages people of faith to avoid engaging these protestors, even by staying away from sister churches which were vandalized the last time these same groups assembled.

“We will always privilege life and safety above every other consideration. The decision not to stage a counter-protest does not mean that United Methodists are in any way stepping away from their commitment to the democratic process or to justice and peace. Rather, leaders have discerned that a heated confrontation with those planning to descend on the capital does not further our stand for justice. Quite to the contrary, it detracts from law enforcement personnel being able to maintain the peace. If the circumstances necessitate a gathering in the coming days, we will organize ourselves in a more systemic, well-reasoned, and faithful witness that better accomplishes the Wesleyan mandate to do good, do no evil, and stay in love with God.”

This feels counterintuitive to most of us who wish to actively stand with the marginalized and to resist injustice and oppression.  In a recent online fellowship hour I shared that I recently removed outdated worship information from the Wesley Campus sign and invited participants to consider the message we wish to broadcast from that sign out into the neighborhood surrounding the Wesley Campus.  A member of NUMC created a homemade message for that sign “We are with you Asbury,” referencing the historically Black Asbury United Methodist Church whose Black Lives Matter sign was ripped from its frame and burned just weeks ago.  Today we learned that the Miami man who took responsibility for that act of terrorism was arrested returning to Washington DC with weaponry.  We are grateful that terrorism is being taken seriously and that law enforcement are prepared to risk their own lives protecting us from any who have planned to do harm in these next few days.  Join us in praying for the safety of all of those converging not only in our nation’s capital but around the country today and tomorrow as our nation slowly rises from a deep slumber. 

What more can we do?

When I invited ideas for messaging in the Wesley campus neighborhood, another member of the church suggested our message could be “Better to light a candle than curse the darkness”.   January 6th is the ancient commemoration of Epiphany, a day of light celebrating the theophany in Matthew 2:1-12.  The wise magi see the love of God manifest in Jesus!  In the thirteenth chapter of Romans, the Apostle Paul wrote: “The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.”  He advised believers not to be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

What we can do is meet on Wednesday evening at 6pm, virtually, for National@Wesley Wednesday Worship to recenter ourselves on love revealed by armor and not by sword.  We can recommit ourselves to opening and closing each day in prayer which replaces the shadows of personal and systemic racism, classism, homophobia, misogyny, and egotistical pride with the light of Christ.  We can represent that prayerful posture through candles in our windows, illuminated through the night which is slowly lifting.  We continually ask God how each of us individually is called to announce Good News even in the early morning hours of dawn when few are ready to hear it.

Grace and Peace,

Pastor Doug