This is a tense and troubled moment, as we await the jury’s verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin for the killing of George Floyd. Please pray for the soul of George Floyd, for his family, and for everyone everywhere who has suffered because of the sin of racism and oppression.
Pray for all the people of Minneapolis/St. Paul. Pray for this nation that we may find the ways of both justice and healing. Pray for us all.
Whatever comes with the verdict, there is no celebration. Nothing will bring George Floyd back to his family or his community back to us. The struggle continues. If the verdict does not establish guilt, and even if it does, our pain persists and our grief goes on.
May we not be paralyzed by our pain, our fear, and our anger. May we learn, as the Bible teaches, to “love not in word and speech but in truth and in action,” truth and action that leads to justice and healing.
Let us pray.
O God, you have bound us together in a common life. Help us, in the midst of our struggles for justice and truth, to confront one another without hatred or bitterness, and to work together with mutual forbearance and respect; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
God bless you.
Video: @PB_Curry Statement in Time of Waiting for Chauvin Trial Verdict
This evening, the President of the United States stood in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church, lifted up a bible, and had pictures of himself taken. In so doing, he used a church building and the Holy Bible for partisan political purposes.
This was done in a time of deep hurt and pain in our country, and his action did nothing to help us or to heal us.
The bible teaches us that “God is love.” Jesus of Nazareth taught, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The prophet Micah taught that the Lord requires us to “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.”
We really do observe this #Pentecost in the midst of a pandemic. The pandemic of #COVID19 is real. It is painful. And we pray that scientists and researchers and all of the folk who are working hard will find a way to bring this pandemic to an end.
But there's another pandemic, not of the viral kind, but of the spiritual kind. It is a pandemic of the human spirit, when our lives are focused on ourselves, when the self becomes the center of the world and of the universe. And it may be even more destructive than a virus.
This pandemic of self-centeredness, if you will, has been the root cause of every humanly created evil that has ever hurt or harmed any child of God or even the earth itself.