Bishop Brian Cole reflects on the recent shootings in Buffalo, NY and Uvalde, TX in light of the Easter season Gospel. Below the transcript are two other recommended publications. First, a video from Presiding Bishop Michael Curry with a prayer for Uvalde, TX. Second, a link to a letter from the Bishop of West Texas, The Rt. Rev. David Reed.
Transcript
Hi. I’m Bishop Brian speaking to you from the Rosslyn Retreat Center in Richmond, Virginia on Wednesday afternoon, May 25th. Last week, in anticipation of being here this week, I recorded a video, a reflection on the recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, where African-Americans were targeted and murdered because of the color of their skin. That horrific act was in contrast to the call to love one another and to the vision of Peter seeing a sheet come from heaven and a call to eat unclean things with the sense that God’s vision for us is so much bigger than white or black it is much bigger than Jew or Gentile.
It is all God’s children. That video was prepared to be sent today. But, yesterday in Texas, 19 children and two adults were murdered in an elementary school. We continue to be a people who live in a culture where the crisis of gun violence goes on and on and on. And it would be so easy for us to become numb and to close our hearts, to be open to pain, to grief, and our brothers and sisters.
I would invite us as a people of God, as a people still captive to the vision, to love each other, to that vision of God’s people being so broad and so wide, including each one, particularly the least of these, and the innocent to keep our hearts open, to continue to pray, to continue to seek from our public officials that they take actions that will reduce gun violence in our land, where we can walk safely in our streets.
Be those the streets of East Knoxville or Buffalo, or rural Texas. You and I continue to have work to do in this Easter season, particularly as we move towards Ascension and Pentecost. To be a people of good news, but of people knowing that good news comes with pain, the pain of the cross where Mary stood at the foot and understood what it was to be a mother who watched her innocent child die. My brothers and sisters, we are a people of prayer, but we’re also a people of prayer who rise from our knees to seek action, to seek justice.
To seek safety in this broken world. I commend to you to pray, and then I commend to you to take action to help us in gun violence in this land and build up a culture of safety, of welcoming, of hospitality, a possibility that Easter season will continue beyond these days and that resurrection will grow in our land.
It is a great honor and joy to serve as your bishop. I look forward to returning home to you soon, to being with you in the Diocese of East Tennessee. Amen.
A Prayer for Uvalde from Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
Letter from The Rt. Rev. David Reed, Bishop of West Texas
We also commend the letter from The Rt. Rev. David Reed, Bishop of West Texas, issued on the night of the shooting, Tuesday, May 24, 2022.
“Because I believe in Jesus, I am convinced that sin and death are defeated and darkness will never prevail over the light of resurrection. Because I believe in eternal life, I trust that the senseless murder of these innocent children is not the final thing to be said about them. If the Gospel is true, it is true in all times and in all places, including in Uvalde tonight. If God is with us, then he is with us even in those times and places where it seems that death and darkness have prevailed.”