Well, I had a sermon all prepared for this morning. I was feeling pretty smug that I had finished it on Thursday, clearing my weekend.
And then about 11:30 last night I looked at the news before going to bed, and immediately realized that the sermon I had prepared for today was not the sermon that I would preach.
For Christians, for all people of faith, there is only one response to the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump at a political rally last night, an attempt that wounded him, killed one rally goer, and critically injured two others. In addition, the shooter was killed.
That response is to condemn it in the strongest possible terms.
Our prayers this morning are for the former president, for those injured and killed, for their families and those who love them.
And we prayer for our nation. These are perilous days in America. We are deeply divided, maybe more so than at any time since the Civil War. We have been soaking in a toxic marinade of inflammatory rhetoric that dehumanizes those who differ from us, that often encourages violence against those with whom disagree, that cannot tell or doesn’t care about the difference between truth and fact, right and wrong.
And all too often guns are part of this toxicity.
We need to name all of this for what it is — a profoundly sinful brew.
We say that we as a country are better than this, and we should be. But right now this is who we are, and it must change.
We can start that change with prayer, beginning with a statement last night from our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry. “The way of love — not the way of violence — is the way we bind up our nation’s wounds,” he said “We decry political violence in any form, and our call as followers of Jesus of Nazareth is always to love.
“We pray for the families of those who were killed. We pray for former President Trump and his family and for all who were harmed or impacted by this incident. I pray that we as a nation and a world may see each other as the beloved children of God.”
This prayer is from the Catholic Health Association:
“God who is beyond politics and nations, Christ who transcends the power of violence, Holy Spirit who animates all people, be with us in this moment of violence, division, and turmoil. Transform our rage and hate that we might see our brothers and sisters with your eyes. Break our hearts of stone, give us hearts of love and understanding, that your peace may prevail.”
And from our Book of Common Prayer:
Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit ay so move every human heart and especially the hearts of the people of this land, that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace.
O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggles and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that in your good time all races, nations, and creeds may serve you in harmony.
Amen.