A Note from the Priest-in-Charge

Greetings to all the saints of All Saints’!

As many of you may have noticed, the Black Lives Matter banner at the front of the church has a tear in it, and the others are a little worse for wear.

We will be replacing them soon. And we hope to have the new ones up in time for Easter.

So I wanted to make this a teaching/learning moment for our congregation.

I know that there are people in the world who think the phrase “Black Lives Matter” is exclusive and divisive: an implicit statement that black lives matter more than white lives or blue lives or any other lives.

I would like to frame it a different way: that “Black Lives Matter” is shorthand for “Black Lives Matter as Much as Any Other Lives.”

Because as a person who was born in 1952 in the city of Lubbock in west Texas, I can tell you from personal experience that for several centuries, black lives in my hometown and state (and in many other parts of our country) were treated as though they DID NOT MATTER AS MUCH AS WHITE LIVES. The last time a black man was lynched – tortured, hung, and burned while white folk in their Sunday best celebrated – was in my lifetime. I know this because one of my aunts on my dad’s (non-Jewish, ostensibly Christian) side of the family sent me a picture postcard of it. And the last lynching of any kind in my home state happened IN THIS CENTURY. And just because lynchings haven’t happened in 20 years (that we know of) does not mean that our black brothers and sisters are consistently being treated with the dignity that all human beings deserve.

So this is to say that the Black Live Matter banner that will soon hang above our front door is not a statement that black lives matter more than other lives. Rather, it is a declaration that God calls us–our congregation, our town, our state, our country–to do better than they have been, and a pledge that we as a community of Christ-followers intend to do all that we can to make that a reality.

Ask the PIC. If you have an issue you’d like me to address in a future eblast, send them to me at khoward@allsaintmd.org. I can’t promise I can respond to every suggestion, but I do promise that I will read them.

Well, that’s all the news that’s fit to print.
Blessings and see you Sunday!
Ken+