Clementa Pinckney and Sharonda Coleman-Singleton performing a baptism at Mother Emanuel
Fr. Scott Russell, Rector of St Brendan’s Episcopal Church, preached his sermon this Sunday on the shootings in Charleston, at Mother Emanuel.
Russell focuses on racism and the real cost in human lives that white fear enacts, quoting Maya Angelou’s response to the September 11th attacks, and noting that most white Americans don’t have the lived experiences or awareness of racism.
From the sermon:
For one thing, I think many if not most of us are truly unaware what it is like to live as a racial minority, to be judged and then treated differently because of your outward appearance first. We don’t know the stories of our black and Asian and Latino neighbors. Right after 9/11, Maya Angelou was asked in an interview how we would be changed now that terrorism had affected the lives of Americans, she said as only she could, “My people have lived with terrorism for over 300 years. Aren’t we Americans too?”
His sermon is beautiful and moving, and can be read on his blog, “Life is a journey, not a guided tour.”
Have you heard other sermons addressing this horrific hate crime? Do you have any you’d like to share with us via the comments?
Posted by David Streever
All Content © 2017 Episcopal Café
Sermons from Susanna Singer and Sara Miles preached on 6/21 at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco:
http://www.saintgregorys.org/worship
“My people have lived with terrorism for over 300 years. Aren’t we Americans too?”
I had a Sociology professor from Sierra Leone. He and his wife had three daughters over here. He would ask us what sort of racial memory his daughters would have. Would they remember selling their family members into slavery? Would they have some sort of genetic recall of 400 years of bondage? Would they be first generation Americans that had nothing to do with it all? Would they have all three plus how many more???
https://gracerector.wordpress.com/2015/06/21/we-are-perishing-a-sermon-for-the-sunday-after-the-charlestonmassacre-proper-7-year-b/
I led Morning Prayer and preached at All Saints Chapel in Elkhart Lake, WI on Sunday. Here’s my sermon on Charleston, the cycle of Gospel living, and the peace that passes all understanding.
http://dailyofficeanchorsociety.com/2015/06/21/sermon-at-morning-prayer-sunday-june-21-2015/
Here is the audio and text of the one I preached,
“Getting Across the Lake”
http://www.stjohnsepiscopal.com/sermons/getting-across-the-lake-sermon-for-proper-7-year-b/