For Such A Time As This

One action of General Synod 30 in Cleveland was adopting an emergency resolution expressing solidarity with, and support for, the Mother Emanuel congregation in Charleston, South Carolina. Unfortunately, there has been a separate hate-filled response to the murders at the Emanuel AME Church - the burning of other predominantly African American churches. The United Church of Christ has established a fund to help with the rebuilding of those churches (http://www.ucc.org/ucc_responds_to_burned_churches). The Michigan Conference Board of Directors voted to donate $500 to this fund and to encourage local churches to consider an offering to support the rebuilding efforts as well.

The United Church of Christ has long sought to be a voice of tolerance, inclusion, equality, justice and peace. We've done this while straddling the line between offering a place of sanctuary and engaging in prophetic ministry. And yet, we seem to live in a time when intolerance, exclusion, inequality, injustice and violence prevail - too often expressed along with gun violence. Sanctuaries are destroyed by those with agendas of fear, suspicion and hate; and there is a panicked retreat from serving the common good.

I surely don't have any easy answers - or hard ones for that matter. What I do know is that Jesus promised the disciples that he would be with them, "even to the close of the age." With the encouragement that Jesus never abandons us, I am hopeful that we can see this not as a time of retreat, but as a time to reclaim our faith and live it with love, mercy, compassion, forbearance, presence and prayer. In the spirit of Esther, perhaps it is "for such a time as this" that we have been preparing ourselves as disciples.

May this concluding sentence of an Offertory Prayer from the UCC Book of Worship be our witness in this time:

We offer our varied ministries in the days ahead

that each of us may be part of your answer

to the cries of the world. Amen.