Increasingly I am on the lookout for signs of hope and reconciliation in our world. So, as I checked the box scores for the Atlanta Braves this morning, I was thrilled to read a pair of articles on the front of the sports section about athletes trying to make a difference.
 
Apparently retired basketball great Michael Jordan is giving a million dollars to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and another million to the Institute for Community-Police Relations. At the same time, current basketball star Carmelo Anthony gathered other Olympic athletes for a conversation with young people about respect, community, and safety.
 
I love the fact that famous Black men are using their bully pulpit to speak to Black and White people about racial justice and ways to improve the strained relations between the police and the Black community. Moving forward will surely require a lot of honest conversations. Black people need to talk together. White people need to do the same. The Police—Black and White—too. And, of course, we all need to be talking to each other.
 
Conversations like that will be difficult. But it is wonderful that famous Black men are doing what they can to get the process started and to keep it going. Articles like these two keep my hope alive. I am just sorry they are on the sports page rather the front page!
 
As it turns out, I particularly needed good news this morning. The Braves lost their last game, and still have the worst record in baseball….

Awful things keep happening in our world. On the morning I am writing this post, the headline in my local newspaper was “Three Officers Die in Shooting.” Apparently this shooting was motivated by anger at the death of yet another Black man two weeks earlier. And so the cycle of violence continues.
 
The ugliness and violence of our world can be a challenge to our faith. But Christians are a resurrection people. We take seriously the horror of suffering and pain, evil and death. But as Christians, we insist that suffering and pain and evil and death are not the end of the story, that God is at work, bringing new life even out of death, that love wins in the end.
 
That faith can keep us going. Our world sometimes seems to be coming apart. But in his letter to the Colossians, Paul writes, “in Christ all things hold together” (1:17). Our world sometimes seems to be defined by alienation and brokenness. But, Paul tells us, “Through [Christ] God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross” (1:20). All things.
 
It is not always easy to see Christ at work in the world around us. It is not always easy to see the reconciliation that Christ is bringing about even now. But as people of faith, we do our best to look beyond the horrific violence of our world to the One who is constantly at work in our midst, bringing about reconciliation and wholeness.
 
Ultimate reconciliation is God’s work, not ours. But, as people of faith, we are called to join in Christ’s work of reconciliation. We are called to speak a word of peace. We are called to share God’s vision of reconciliation and hope. We are called “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God” Micah 6:8). We are called to act as Christ’s hands in the world, doing our small part to transform the world from the nightmare it is for some into the dream that God has for it.
 
My own part in transforming the world is small indeed. But each of us can at least continue to hope and to work for reconciliation in our personal lives by refusing to submit to hatred or anger or simple incivility, by striving for forgiveness and love and mercy.
 
And we can pray. We pray for the victims of violence. We pray for the victims of hopelessness. We pray for the victims of poverty and injustice and oppression. We pray for all people who suffer. We pray that they will know the healing love of God. We pray for the reconciliation that Christ is bringing about.
 

In Christ all things hold together.
Colossians 1:17


During his lifetime, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. saw terrible violence and lost his life for speaking the truth to our nation. I find myself wondering what he would say to us today. His way of nonviolence – Jesus’ way – meant that we had to watch Selma and Birmingham on the evening news as police and guardsmen beat and bloodied young protesters. Fifty years later, people we look to for protection - motivated by fear – become judge, jury and executioner in viral video. The more this happens, the less their lives seem to matter. We stand against racism.
Violence will never end violence. Hate only feeds hate. The news from Baton Rouge and St. Paul – captured by cell phones - must force us to speak to one another about race in America. We must admit the ugly truth that Black lives are in danger. We must look long and hard at the way we hire and train our Law Enforcement Officers. Something is broken and we must have the courage to fix it. Dallas - the city that still bears the weight of another killing more than fifty years ago – today, her streets are marked with the blood of heroes. When hatred fuels the heart of a man with an assault-style weapon, innocent people are gunned down in the streets – people who put their lives at risk for us every day.  We stand with those who keep the peace. Those sworn to protect our lives and property are grieving. We must carry the families of the dead in our hearts. We weep with those who weep.
Make no mistake that hatred plus an automatic weapon equals death. Gun violence in America is now, God help us, part of the fabric of our lives. We cannot let fear take hold – though fear is the right feeling. Whether we “sit in” or stand up or speak truth until we have no words left, we must DO something to end the carnage. We cry out for an end to the violence - for Baton Rouge, for St. Paul, and for Dallas. In Christ all things hold together. In his name I pray.

+ Doug

The Rt. Rev. Douglas J. Fisher
IX Bishop of Western Massachusetts