God is Love in the Margins

God is Love in the margins. I felt that love at our annual convention. Bishop Smith opened the convention with a call to serve with Jesus in the margins. The video “Ministering on the Margins,” highlighted a number of places congregations are doing that work in our diocese.

Then we were inspired by the Rev. Becca Stevens and her ministry to the incarcerated through Thistle Farms. Her talk on Friday and her sermon on Saturday moved many to tears, and more importantly, to action. She created a buzz for ministry to the incarcerated and that was made visible in the outpouring of offering to send children of incarcerated parents to Chapel Rock.

Saturday morning’s worship was the highlight for me. Tears welled up in my soul, listening to two young people read the scripture, one has Downs Syndrome and the other from a Spanish congregation. They represent the marginalized, the very presence of God. For you see, God is disabled, marginalized, wounded, and dying. I left our annual convention elated, feeling I had seen and felt God’s presence in the margins.

Sunday night, that elation turned to horror. In Las Vegas, in a rain of bullets, the God inside 22,000 souls would be wounded and killed. The God that is part of every physical body would become disabled and marginalized. More than five hundred of God’s children would have the life they had known, taken away; some killed, some wounded, some disabled. And their families are now suffering disabling grief that marginalizes people beyond words. Why? Because this country refuses to admit that it has an addiction to guns.

There are an estimated 310 million guns in the US. There are as many guns as people in the US. One in three people in the US, own a gun. Estimates report that in the US there are 86 million shotguns, 114 million handguns, and 110 million rifles, of which 3.5 million are assault rifles. It would cost the US $400 million to repurchase all the assault rifles in the US. I wonder if the families of the people who have died from the 1500 mass shootings since Sandy Hook in 2012 would think that was money well spent?

I, like many of you, have been personally affected by gun violence. Friends and parishioners who have died from mass shootings, random acts of hate, accidents, and suicide. One is too many to count. And any amount of money would be well spent to prevent one more death from gun violence.

As followers of Jesus, we are called to be God’s love in the margins; to be a people of peace, a people who turn the other cheek, a people who take up our cross, which includes action to prevent more gun violence. My wife and I support and contribute regularly to “Americans for Responsible Solutions,” founded by Gabby Giffords, former Congresswoman, fellow Arizonian, and gun violence victim. Her and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, are working hard to bring about responsible gun control. As well, I have written countless letters to our legislators and to three Presidents.

Many of us are grieving. And many of us may be growing weary. But now is not the time to give up—because God is Love in the margins and that’s where we should spend our time, talent, and resources.

You can find more information about the theology behind my remarks in Nancy Eisland’s, The Disabled God and Miguel De La Torre’s, Reading the Bible from the Margins.

You can get more information about Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly’s foundation at their website http://americansforresponsiblesolutions.org/stand-with-gabby/.

And for resources about writing letters and taking peaceful actions, you can find some excellent resources at the Episcopal Peace Foundation’s website http://epfnational.org/.