Like most everyone across the country, I am saddened and deeply troubled by the events unfolding today across the river in DC. We live five miles, as the crow flies or the tear gas drifts, from the U.S. Capitol, and my beloved normally works on the Hill in an office that has been closed due to Covid since March. Several members of the congregation I serve work on the Hill, and at least one has spent the past few hours in lockdown in a basement of the Capitol complex. Clearly this strikes close to home for those of us who call metro DC home.
I don’t have any great wisdom to offer, and my immediate reactions reflect that. I long for accountability for those who fomented and participated in the violence.
But I also know that sometimes the most immediate thing most of us can do is take a deep breath and engage in some acts of hope and faith. Personally, we went for a walk and then went to church.
Both of these responses felt both wholly inadequate and entirely necessary.
The walk was a visceral reminder of how limited and feeble today’s hideous actions downtown really are. We’re obviously quite close, in global terms, to the events of the day. But here in south Arlington it’s just another winter day. It was quiet out, and we exchanged a few greetings with neighbors as we walked our dogs. It was good to move our bodies, and be reminded that we have grace sufficient to the day.
By that grace, I had already planned to join the Wild Goose worshipping community for their Zoom worship this evening. Wild Goose is a small gathering that meets, when meeting in-person is possible, in Indian Valley, Virginia, down toward the southwestern corner of the commonwealth. They center their common life on Appalachian traditions and their Celtic roots with a great emphasis on the music culture of the area.
Their in-person worship always begins with a shared meal and ends with communion. Building relationships and community at the table is the heart of their understanding of church.
It’s probably safe to say, given the demographics and voting patterns of the area, that their community includes a fair number of folks who do not see American politics the same way that I do, so it was particularly good to share some time in worship, song, and prayer with them tonight.
The table – metaphorical as it may be in this days of pandemic distancing – is central to my understanding of the faith that I proclaim. Because Jesus welcomed everybody, so do we.
But the events on Capitol Hill beg the question of limits, and that brings me, on this final day of Christmastide, on this day when we recall the journey of the magi and the gifts they brought, to a gift that we gave our daughter for Christmas this year.
It’s a t-shirt emblazoned with the words “abide no hatred.” It’s from the good folks at The Bitter Southerner. We can abide everyone who comes to table, but we cannot abide hatred. We must not abide hatred.
Hatred breaks community and destroys neighborliness. We can disagree. We can protest. We can engage in civil disobedience. But when we act with the kind of hatred on naked display at the Capitol today we break the commonweal.
Everyone who abides in love abides in Christ. All are welcome to such abiding. No matter what you believe or profess, we can abide so long as we are rooted and grounded in love. No matter what you believe or profess we can break bread together if our gathering comes in response to an invitation to love. But we cannot long abide or endure in love’s absence, and hatred will break every relationship and will break the bonds that bind us as a nation. Abide no hatred.
