June 11th, 2026

Please join me this coming Wednesday night at 7:00 p.m., June 17 for the Mother Emanuel Commemorative Prayer service. We are hosting the service and there are folks from five other congregations participating. The event has been advertised in the Synod Friday Updates as well as our own social media sites. You can help in getting the word out and inviting your friends.

The challenge with inviting folks to this service is that, while there are some beautiful songs to sing and we will be together in community, the purpose is a somber tone. We are gathering to remember people who openly welcomed the stranger into their midst. Nine people “were murdered by a self-professed white supremacist while they were gathered for Bible study and prayer at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church (often referred to as Mother Emanuel) in Charleston, South Carolina. Pastors Pinckney and Simmons were both graduates of the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary.” [The man responsible for these deaths is Dylan Roof, a baptized/confirmed member of an ELCA church.] A resolution to commemorate June 17 as a day of repentance for the martyrdom of the Emanuel Nine was adopted by the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on August 8, 2019.”

We pause each year to honor and commemorate those who were killed. The service includes an opportunity to repent of the ways in which we continue to perpetuate harm toward our BIPOC (Black Indigenous People of Color) siblings. We also are reminded of Langston Hughes’ dream for America. After the service we will be stepping outside for ten minutes of silence to light a candle in solidary and hope. This is how we show up and support one another: praying, singing, eating (we will have Communion), lamenting, and promising to do better.

In our Gospel this week, Jesus has compassion on those who are harassed and helpless. He prepares his disciples to go out to those who are outside the shelter of the sheepfold. Dylan Roof had wondered outside the teachings and faithful support of his ELCA congregation. I wonder who else has slipped away and is need of the compassion that we, as followers of Jesus, can offer. Where can we meet people on their journey to remind them of their belovedness? How do we convince those who are hellbent on harming others that there is another way? Who might be feeling left out and needing the reminder, there is always more room at the table? When was the last time you reminded someone who was struggling, they are loved no matter what?