They told us stories.....

The 6th annual On the Road with Jesus is now in the books and it was uniquely its own.  A new team leader stepped up at the last minute with a project.  She is passionate about this organization and wanted to help them and it was so easy and lots of folks helped out....and wow!  4000 cookies were baked and boxed beautifully and plated like professionals and delivered all over greater Syracuse.  I finally did the math.  4000 = 333.3 dozen, and of course that is an estimate.  I'm not sure if they counted the one or two I ate before worship began.

When it was time to tell our stories, it was the children who wanted the microphone.  We went to nursing homes.  We helped to paint.  We sang.  The adults might hesitate to talk in front of the group but the children know that they are loved and accepted and they had stories to tell.

It was beautiful.  We are growing spiritually every year that we step out in this project.  We are living out our faith and helping to shape the faith of our children.  Thanks be to God.

And yet, all that we celebrated was surrounded by yet another horrific loss of life rooted in the sin of racism.  Brothers and sisters in Christ, gathered for Bible study, welcoming a stranger were gunned down where they sat.  The shooter sat and studied with them for an hour before pulling out his automatic pistol.  When arrested he said he almost didn't do it because they were so nice.  Yet he did.  Nine dead and more wounded.

When we go on the road with Jesus, this is the world into which we travel.  It is a culture that gives privilege to white folk and puts our African-American brothers and sisters at risk.  It is a culture that is so underground, so ingrained, so assumed that most of us don't recognize it and believe we are not a part of it.

On the Road with Jesus 2015.  The songs were lovely, the flowers in bloom and the cookies delicious.  Yet at the same time, the sin of racism - the sin we do not recognize in ourselves and disown whenever possible - continues to flourish.  If we are to grow spiritually, perhaps it is exactly the place we need to start because it is eating our society alive.

We continue to remember. Lord, help us take that remembrance into our confessional and start seeking the change in ourselves that is necessary.

Lord have mercy.