September 12, 2024

On our Conference’s Rejoice in our Welcome Sunday, I rejoiced with the saints at Trinity United Church of Christ in Manchester MD. Rev. Katie Penick, the author of last week’s reflection here in Happenings, and a member of our Conference Board of Directors, serves there as pastor.  The service was uplifting, liturgically thoughtful and creative, and well done in execution. I felt the church feeling better than when I entered, which for me was a mark of a good day at Church.

The above picture is from what I found to be a moment of worship that at some level took me by surprise in its poignancy. Pastor Katie invited first the children and youth to come for a time in which they spoke about their first week of school. Then she invited anyone in the congregation that worked in a school - teachers, school bus drivers, nurses, cafeteria workers to come forward.  In the above circle, Pastor Katie, invited the children and youth to lay hands on the adults, and led them in a blessing and prayer for the school year.  

This moment in the service at first felt rather ordinary.  It was hardly the first time I had witnessed such moments where children were prayed for at the beginning of the school year, or backpacks dedicated for students in their churches or to meet the supply needs of students in their communities.  Yet as these students and school workers were being blessed in worship, I thought of the school shooting last week at Apalachee High School in Winder GA, in which fourteen-year-old Colt Gray used a semi-automatic AR-15 style rifle, a Christmas gift from his father (who does that?) to end the lives of two of his fellow students and two teachers. Then I thought of a lesser publicized fatal shooting, but closer to home, of 15-year-old Warren Curtis Grant in the bathroom at Joppatowne High School in suburban Baltimore by 16-year-old Jaylen RaShawn Prince because of a dispute.  Then my mind turned to places like Sandy Hook, Columbine, Parkland, Uvalde, and the times in which we live. I realized in that moment in worship that we needed to bless these children, youth, and school workers, because they are in going to places that can be downright dangerous. During my school years there were disputes, occasional fights, and troubled students, but things like metal detectors, active shooter simulation drills, and any prospect of a shooting were nowhere on the radar. As I watched this communal blessing, I was moved by the need to pray not only for their success in the upcoming school year, but for their safety and their very lives.

As you may know if you have read our newsletter for several weeks, our Faith and Democracy Sunday is September 22nd. Clergy and lay leaders throughout the Conference will focus that Sunday on the importance of exercising our right to vote and make our voices heard, regardless of political affiliation, on November 5th.  In witnessing the blessing of the children and school workers on Sunday, it dawned on me why we must express our faith at the polls. We must vote for our children. We must vote as an expression of our hope for a country where children can go to school to learn and grow in their God given personhood. Commenting on the shooting at Joppatowne High School, a parent said “To send my child out in that environment. It’s very scary. You want to lock your children up and keep them safe, but you can’t . You have to send them to school but it’s hard.”  A parent should not have to send their child to school one day and wonder if they will return home. We must vote a future in which these children and youth in Manchester MD, and all cities, suburbs, towns, villages, and hamlets in this country can attend school in peace and safety.

Thanks to the good work of Lead Organizer John Kasander, Rev. Holly Jackson of UCC of Seneca Valley, and Rev. Rebecca Shillingburg of Evangelical and Reformed UCC, we have a packet of excellent liturgical resources that you can find here.  If not on September 22nd, please take a Sunday between now and the election to recognize the importance of faith in the political process. The gospel is not partisan, but as Jesus taught and lived it, is profoundly political.  Our faith is a moral compass that calls us as the Church to uphold the gospel of Jesus Christ and its message of love, equality, justice, and freedom.  

I encourage all of you to vote, guided by your faith, conscience, and values, and do so, for the future of our children, and all God’s children.

Let the children come, and do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the reign of heaven belongs th (Matthew 19:14).”

Blessings and Shalom,