August 2nd Pastoral Letter

Read on for a pastoral letter from Renée. The “Saints of Selma” icon is by Kelly Latimore. John Lewis is to the left of Rev. Dr. MLK Jr., and the Rev. C.T. Vivian is in the upper right corner (not visible above, but visible in full icon with the names of each of these saints here).

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Dear Beloved Friends,

Rep. John Lewis, a man of faith, hope, and action, inspires us in his essay, that was published on the day of his memorial, to live into our better selves as Beloved Community, people living our highest calling, standing up for what we truly believe. In another writing, he provided a prophetic view of God’s humanity:

"Nothing can stop the power of a committed and determined people to make a difference in our society. Why? Because human beings are the most dynamic link to the divine on this planet." Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America

As life continues to be disrupted, may we be emboldened by John Lewis’ life and witness, that we are created to be God’s dynamic link that brings healing through our acts of love, courage, and peaceful protest of injustice (in the various ways we are called).

As our friend, Jojo reminds us frequently, letters matter. Today we invite you to pause and see the Bible as a love letter to YOU, as a part of God’s Beloved Community. Here is a love letter from Romans 8 that you can read with confidence because Jesus Christ, who is Lord, showed love to the full extent for YOU.

Dear Beloved Child,

I invite you to journey with me today. No matter what comes your way - I will never leave you nor forsake you. No matter what comes your way – my Spirit is with you empowering you, comforting you, guiding you. No matter what comes your way – You belong to me and nothing can separate you from me.

Love,

Your Creator, who knows everything about you and LOVES you.

Immigration is a Biblical Issue

Paul & Mary Ehrlich were the first people to meet Jojo and invite him into our Union community. Along with so many, they’ve continued to faithfully walk alongside him while at NWDC. Please continue to pray that he will soon be assigned a lawyer for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Here is a reflection from the Ehrlichs:

“Do not oppress an alien, you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens because you were aliens in Egypt” — Exodus 24.5

We are reminded by this text that how we care for immigrants/refugees/and the undocumented matters to God. Immigration is as much a major issue today as ever and our individual part in supporting immigrants is important as we move toward a more just society. Jesus reminded people of the commandment: love your neighbor as yourself. Who should we love? The story of the Good Samaritan gives us a biblical view of how to be a neighbor and to welcome as Christ has welcomed us.

Firsthand, we know the blessing of engaging in the work of welcoming refugees and immigrants. Thirty years ago, we sponsored a refugee family from the USSR through World Relief. Our country was more welcoming then, providing a few months of funding to help with the transition. We walked with the family and supported their ups and downs of getting settled. This gave them time to adjust in the transition. We are still in touch with the family. Their children have families and are contributing members of our society.

Our Union family now is aware of JoJo and his story of being undocumented in the US for more than 27 years. We were able to walk alongside him during the six months he was under ICE supervision but not in detention. Going to his appointments with ICE was revealing of how the current system does not work well. Though we persistently asked, we were unable to get answers as to how we could help in moving through the process. There were no answers; just another appointment. Then one day he was told to come to a supervision appointment and instead was picked up by ICE.

The outcome of Jo Jo’s hearing at the NW Detention Center last fall was disappointing. But the amazing response of the Union family with so many that came that it overwhelmed the waiting area, encouraged Jojo greatly. It was a visual demonstration of the heart of Union, living in response to God’s invitation of welcome. This work is not done. “Those who hope in the Lord shall renew their strength” (Isaiah 40.31). We need to continue to hope, work and pray for JoJo. He currently is waiting for a lawyer to present his appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

In the past year, we’ve met people being released from the Detention Center (even as Jojo still waits) and been able to provide welcome, support and encouragement. Now, a group of Union folks are coming alongside another undocumented gentleman who is incarcerated at Monroe Correction Facility and helping us discover how to support him and his family.

On Sundays we’ve been learning the Bible verse Micah 6:8:

“What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God”

It is most applicable to immigration issues. Our prayer is that all of us and our country act justly, love and show mercy to immigrants and our neighbors of the world.

In Step with Jesus {based on Matthew 7:29-8:17}

A follow up to our message from 2nd Sunday by Renée Notkin

Recently I’ve been ruminating on the title of Eugene Peterson’s 1980 book A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. (I highly recommend this timeless book). How do we stay the course and keep in step with Jesus in this time of grief and uncertainty as we pray for a new day of justice?  I am convinced that prayer is vital to keeping our eyes on Jesus and living as people who believe it can “be on earth as it is in heaven.”

Dr. Rev. William Barber, co-founder of the Poor People’s Campaign states: “To be a person of faith is to be ever at protest against injustice” as he echoes Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere.”

By his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus protests against injustice to break down the walls of hostility, that we as humans erect, and becomes our peace to restore a new humanity.

As the Wednesday Evening Conversation group has been studying together The Acts of the Apostles (and I would add, the Holy Spirit), this verse has become foundational for me: Acts 1:12, “(they) were constantly devoting themselves to prayer” while they waited in Jerusalem as Jesus invited them to wait.  The disciples (and this includes the women) will act but they begin with a devotion to prayer.

Prayer is a form of protest as we pray to our Lord in humility, repentance, despair, and hope to guide us into a new way of being. Our prayers join the choruses of voices that go before us to say “NO,” to that which destroys and dehumanizes and discards and “YES” to God’s Kingdom of life, restoration and reconciliation. 

You may be asking, in this time of pandemic, as your heart is grieving over the realities of racial and socioeconomic injustice that still permeates our nation, what can I do?  Please do not hear this as a trite answer….You can pray.  And, in your prayers, listen to where God is guiding you to act.  

This summer we want to become even more a community that prays. We are posting prayers on our webpage.  We are providing multiple opportunities to pray together throughout the week and there will be more coming. Some of us are gathering to pray at CHOP (Cap Hill Occuppied Protest) and while we protest; others of us pray from our homes. We want to know how we can pray for you. What helps you pray? We want to know.

As we continue to grieve, repent and seek to act counterculturally to that which destroys and dehumanizes, Jesus invites us to confess, to face ourselves -- our racism, our prejudice, our biases, and our fears that prevent us from seeing people through Jesus’ love.  In Matthew 8, as we watch Jesus heal three people who would be viewed on the outskirts of society, we are given a vision to live in a new way that defies systems of oppression and to embrace a just way of living as Jesus showed, as Jesus lived and Jesus gave his life for.  This same Jesus Christ, our Advocate, now empowers us to walk in his steps by his Spirit.  This same Jesus Christ invites us to pray for the bonds of injustice to be broken and for God’s Spirit to bring healing between people.

This same Jesus Christ invites you to trust he has already said “YES” to you. Jesus invites you to be in dialogue with him.  And then, Jesus invites you on a journey to say “yes” to one another and to join with him in reaching across walls of injustice, barriers of hate, and systems that divide us. To love one another as Jesus loved.

Prayers by Caroline Lu

As we continue to digest news, social media, and larger social change around race in the United States, may these simple yet powerful prayers be balm for you.

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“Prayer”

O Divine Lord,

Calm my clamoring thoughts

Of grief, and anger,

That in the quiet,

I may abide with them

And come to abide in You.

May the ins and outs of my breath

Connect me to the Holy Spirit,

Dwelling deep in my soul

In the very still place

Where lives Your wisdom,

peace and comfort.

So the deep pain, in and around me.

May be etched on my very heart,

That You divinely crafted

As you have All Your children, in Your creation;

Your Beloved, whom You know by the hairs of our heads.

Bind us together, Lord, in You.

“Creator Divine”

How you weep with us

Show us the way to lament,

The pain in our hearts.

Show us how to breathe

That your indwelling Spirit

Be felt in our bones.

Your reassurance

That we’re worthy of your love,

Humbled on our knees.

Whisper from our hearts

That our minds may awaken

To your Divine love

That belongs to All

Eco-Act 005: Center Black EJ activists

center Black EJ* activists

Black Lives Matter. *Environmental Justice

This week as we continue to lament, reflect, and act on police brutality and white supremacy in our communities and country, we want to amplify and share Black voices in the environmental justice field. We invite you to read “A Little Patch of Something” by Imani Perry (written 6/3/20), where she talks about the long history of Black planting and tending alongside racialized atrocity and grief. Closer to home, you can also read more about Seattle’s Black womxn farmers and support some of their work.

Here are other people to learn from and support in the Black environmental justice community…

In Seattle:

• Black Farmers Collective: Seattle-based YES Farm!! BFC is a group of urban food system activists dedicated to providing opportunities to improve the health of [Black] communities through all aspects of the food system. Donate!!

• FEEST: is an organization led by youth of color in South Seattle and South King County working to improve health in our schools. Youth leaders celebrate food and culture at community dinners and build power to win policy changes that increase food access for all students. Donate & volunteer!

• Feed The People: Chef Tarrik Abdullah & others in the Seattle Kitchen Collective have been providing AMAZING free meals in Seattle to any who need it.

• Nurturing Roots Farm: is a community farming program focused on educating youth & community members on healthy food choices. Creating community through gardening.

Elsewhere:

• Natl. Black Food & Justice Alliance: NBFJA organizes for Black food and land, by increasing the visibility of visionary Black leadership, advancing Black people’s struggle for just and sustainable communities, and building power in our food systems and land stewardship. On their Support page, you can donate and support other actions; check their resources on the Info page.

• Soul Fire Farm: Soul Fire Farm is committed to ending racism and injustice in the food system.

• Aja Barber: is a writer and fashion consultant. “[Her] expertise is in race, intersectional feminism and ... fashion (focusing mostly on sustainable and ethical fashion)”. (Patreon)

• Amber Tamm: farmer, horticulturalist, floral designer

• Black With Plants: D’Real learns from plants and works in concert with communities to make strategic gains towards Indigenous Sovereignty and Black Liberation. Donate (Venmo, Paypal, Patreon, Cash App) @blackwithplants.

• Leah Thomas: intersectional environmentalist, activist, eco-communicator. She has a helpful article on the Good Trade, created the text graphics shared in this post, and is the subject of the other illustration by Alja Horvat. She also has a great list of other intersectional environmentalists on her Instagram feed!

These are a few of MANY Black folks doing this work (and admittedly, many here are young)! Who else do you follow and support? Drop their info in the comments below! To close, we share this list from Leah Thomas and commit to a more intersectional environmental justice. #blacklivesmatter

A Prayer from David Owens

Lord, my heart aches from the news of George Floyd's death and murder.

I struggle to find words that capture my prayers to you:

• Lord, enter into this long history of brokenness and racism in America.

• Lord, start with me -- put in me a new and right spirit.

• Lord, don't stop there -- be at work within and through your people to stand and speak up against racism and injustice.

• Lord, don't stop there -- be a work in and through faith, community, political, judicial and law enforcement leaders to change and heal our culture and our country.

Lord, help me and others to pray, to stand up, and to speak for JUSTICE for all and HEALING from hate and fear in America.

Amen.

The Moving Walkway of Racism

Because racism is ingrained in the fabric of American institutions, it is easily self-perpetuating. All that is required to maintain it is business as usual.

I sometimes visualize the ongoing cycle of racism as a moving walkway at the airport.
Active racist behavior is equivalent to walking fast on the conveyor belt. The person engaged in active racist behavior has identified with the ideology of white supremacy and is moving with it. Passive racist behavior is equivalent to standing still on the walkway. No overt effort is being made, but the conveyor belt moves the bystanders along to the same destination as those who are actively walking. Some of the bystanders may feel the motion of the conveyor belt, see the active racists ahead of them, and choose to turn around, unwilling to go in the same destination as the White supremacists. But unless they are walking actively in the opposite direction at a speed faster than the conveyor belt—unless they are actively antiracist—they will find themselves carried along with the others.

~ Tatum, Beverly Daniel. “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? and Other Conversations About Race.” New York: Basic Books, 199

You can find more about Anti-Racism at Union on our Truth & Justice and Lament & Response pages.

Below are statements from the Presbyterian Church (USA) & our local Seattle Presbytery:

PCUSA VIDEO | SEATTLE PRESBYTERY DOCUMENT OF LAMENT & RESOLVE

Union Church belongs to the PCUSA church, is locally a part of the Seattle Presbytery and actively involved in their Race & Equity Task Force.