Reflections for the National Day of Prayer Interfaith Service

Reflections for the National Day of Prayer Interfaith Service

Following Terror Attacks in Sri Lanka and San Diego

Emmanuel Episcopal Church

Wakefield, Mass.

May 2, 2019

Thank you for your presence tonight as we come together on this National Day of Prayer. National Days of Prayer have been called for from the earliest days of our nation, as we have fought wars, discerned our future, and struggled with what it means to be American. Since 1988, the date has been established by Congress as the first Thursday in May. It is a reminder that we as a people are stronger when we come together, as we do tonight, under the providence and love of God. This is not a Christian observance, nor a Jewish one, nor Muslim or Buddhist. But instead is meant to unite us across our diverse and distinct faith traditions.

Tonight, we honor and remember, in particular, those killed on Easter morning in a horrific massacre in Sri Lanka, now Christian martyrs, and subsequently near San Diego as Passover came to its close, another American Jewish martyr, who took bullets to protect her rabbi. We also hold in our hearts those killed this week in Charlotte, North Carolina. While we don’t know the motivation behind the latter, we do know that religious hatred fueled the shootings in Sri Lanka and San Diego. Just as it did in Pittsburgh and Christchurch, New Zealand, and in so many other places across the world.

Unfortunately, religious faith—meant to provide life and hope—has become for some a weapon. This is not new. Just look to the history of the crusades, or the inquisition, the Reformation or the Holocaust. Consider Northern Ireland, too. Somewhere along the way many have come to believe that only those who look like them, live like them, and pray like them, deserve God, and even deserve to live.

But here’s the problem with that perspective. Whenever we limit acceptability to those just like us, we end up excluding everyone but us. Because no one believes in exactly the same way. No one lives in exactly the same way. And often times, even those we love find themselves drawn in new directions. Your Catholic daughter falls in love with a Protestant. Your Orthodox Jewish son discerns that he is gay. Your Democratic mother marries a Republican. A Muslim family moves next door. Your uncle announces he finds life in practicing Buddhism. We are all different. We are all unique. And from a faith perspective, we believe that God made us all—in our rainbow of diversity.

And so, our unity as a human family—a Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, gay and straight, Native American and African American, Swedish and Italian and even Irish family—our unity must be deeper than our outward appearance or the prayer books we use. Our unity must even be deeper than the many names we use for God. Rather, from a faith perspective, we have to realize that our unity is in God and from God, in the humanity we share.

We’ve got to figure that out, we’ve got to live it. Because we can’t afford to lose more sons and daughters of faith to brutal violence. We need them. We need their witness. And we can’t afford to lose any black brothers and native sisters, or LGBTQ sons or daughters to violence or suicide. We need them. God needs them. God needs us all. God must. Because God made us all.

And so, tonight we come together in faith, in sorrow, and also in hope. Hope that our prayers, and then our action, will help to transform this dark and all-too deadly world into something else. Something filled with light and love. It starts here. And it starts with us. Right now.   

© The Rev. Matthew P. Cadwell, PhD