On June 17th, 2015, a young
white man was welcomed into a Bible study at Emmanuel AME Church in
Charleston, S.C. A short time later, nine people were dead, victims
of hate. The shooter, 21~year~old Dylann Roof, reportedly said
afterward that he almost didn't go through with the murders because
the people he killed had been so nice.
How do we remain open~hearted in the
face of atrocities such as this? By listening to those who have
experienced them for centuries.
Mother Emmanuel, as the church is
affectionately called, was formed in 1818 when over 4,000 free blacks
and slaves, weary of discriminatory practices at the city's three
Methodist churches, broke away to form their own congregation. As
ordinances banned all~black religious gatherings, 140 members were
soon arrested and 8 church leaders were subjected to more brutal
punishment.
Over the next few years, raids on the
church and violence toward the congregation were commonplace. In
1822, 6 members were executed after a secret trial found them guilty
of planning a slave revolt, and the church was burned to the ground.
Over the next 43 years, congregants continued to meet, often in
secret, particularly when all black churches were formally banned in
1834.
Things began to change following the
Civil War. In 1872, Emmanuel's first post~war pastor, Richard H.
Cain, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Throughout
the next century, the church continued to press for human rights,
hosting such speakers as Booker T. Washington and Martin Luther King,
Jr.
As we know, though, terror, violence
and other forms of intimidation continued, giving the people of
Mother Emmanuel the right to tutor us now in the proper response to
hatred. Hopelessness, cynicism and retaliation are not options they
endorse. Rather, in their astonishing willingness to forgive Roof and
welcome unknown whites into Sunday service only a few days after the
shootings, their example urges us to open to grace and let it move
through us as love.
President Obama, another recipient of
hate, spoke of the amazing power of grace in his eulogy for the
now~deceased Clementa Pinckney, pastor of Emmanuel AME. He reminded
us that though we have not
“earned...this grace, with our rancor and complacency and
short~sightedness and fear of each other...we got it all the same.”
Yes,
we do. Grace is not earned, and neither is the light of the sun, the
bounty of the Earth, or the air that fills our lungs. But these gifts
flow to us anyway. And what shall we do with them? We can choose to
feed hate and the fear that gives rise to it. Or we can, again and
again, add our small thimble~full to a love that endures and is able
to forgive in the face of unimaginable pain.
Emmanuel
translates as “God is with us.” May know
that this is so, as we open our hearts to fully receive the grace
offered. And may we offer our small light to that larger
flame, again and again, this day and always. Amen.
Namaste!
(in this context translating as “My small light greets your own!")
Leia Marie
If you haven't heard President Obama's eulogy, I'd say it's well worth the time. Click here!
