Dearly Beloved,
The speed with which things are changing on the national and international level feels overwhelming. I constantly feel like I’m two steps behind, trying to catch up with what is happening. Continued war, devastating flooding in Hawaii, rising gas and grocery prices, so much uncertainty.
Cameron Trimble writes: “We are all holding such grief these days. Grief for the ways power is being exercised without accountability. Grief for how quickly we are expected to adjust. Grief for a culture that is losing its ability to pause and ask what kind of society it is becoming.
People of faith are not asked to stand outside this moment. We are asked to show up. To tell the truth about what we see. To refuse the quiet drift into accepting what we know is not right.”
There are parallels to Jesus’ time: resistance to empire that demanded silence and complicity. In Sunday, we celebrate a protest march to Jerusalem, one that we mark with waving palm branches and sung Hosannas.
And on Saturday, across our nation, people will gather to protest the lessening of rights, the continued value of individual profit over common good, state sanctioned violence, and disregard for the rights of all of our neighbors.
Trimble offers this invitation to us: “Across the country, people will gather for No Kings protests as a public act of witness, a way of saying that power is not beyond question, and this country does not belong to one person. I hope you will be there because there are moments when clarity has to move beyond reflection. It has to take shape in public.”
If you attend a No Kings protest, you’re invited to bring your protest signs to church to include in our Palm Processional, as a way of proclaiming that our faith has much to say about how we are to live together and care for one another in our communities and as a nation.
In addition to marking Palm Sunday and hearing some of the stories of Holy Week, we will also take some time to close our shared ministry together. Rev. Chuck Wright will join us from the Metro Denver Association of the Rocky Mountain Conference (RMC), Rev. Ginger Taylor will represent the RMC Committee in Ministry, and Rev. Kathy Bullard will represent the wider faith community of Loveland during our service. You’re invited to celebrate our shared ministry at a reception following worship. I hope I’ll see you there.
I am holding each of you and our beloved community of faith in love and prayer,
Thandiwe
