Their lives still matter
St. Paul, Minn. Hundreds of mourners leave silently from the chapel at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, and begin a long, slow walk to the place where Philando Castile was killed. The sound of hundreds of footfalls accompanies the silence, broken from time to time by song—“We shall overcome some day ….”
The large turnout was the result of Lutheran institutions in the Twin Cities leveraging their strength and sponsoring this assembly together: Luther; Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota; Augsburg College, Minneapolis; and the St. Paul Area and Minneapolis Area synods.
We arrive at the obscenity of an ordinary street corner surrounded by open fi elds and apartments that was transformed as a place of death and sorrow. We all witnessed this death through the lens of his brave partner. We had watched him die. A 4-year-old child of God in the back seat watched him die. Here.
Philando Castile’s life still matters.
Baton Rouge We walked to the parking lot of the store where Alton Sterling was selling CDs when he was killed. People at the site greeted us with hospitality. One man who witnessed Alton’s death told the story, pointing out the bullet holes in the building and air conditioning unit. He and others told us again and again the details.
Lamentation, again and again, that’s the only way we can ever begin to heal. We were there to be quiet and listen. And we were guests in church. A street preacher poured out his heart and faith: “Jesus didn’t call his disciples to baby- sit buildings and guard off erings. Right here in the street is where Jesus calls us.”
I left my heart in the parking lot where Alton died, a huge mural portrait of him looming over it. “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?” (Lamentations 1:12)
Alton Sterling’s life still matters. On July 14, the ELCA
delegation prayed with members of the Baton Rouge, La., community at the parking lot where Alton Sterling was killed.
Dallas Bishop Erik Gronberg of the Northern Texas- Northern Louisiana Synod and Presiding Bishop Elizabeth A. Eaton wrote with great pastoral heart about the deaths of the police offi cers. We are a church together with many voices, and we convened these voices and made them public.
An African-American pastor said her grandson has been profi led by police. She taught him how to survive these encounters. She also talked about his respect for the police who keep them safe and his revulsion over the death of these fi ve public servants. A pastor from Sierra Leone shared the perspective of violence in the civil war of his country. A Latino pastor spoke of being “in the middle,” his people called “wetbacks and illegals” by the white community and sometimes by the African-American community. Bishop Michael Rinehart of the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod linked the Dallas tragedies to the ones in his synod and shared the solidarity of love and presence throughout the church in Dallas.
I was there to honor fi ve victims who lost their lives while protecting those speaking out against the loss of lives. I named the names: Brent Thompson, Patrick Zamarripa, Michael Krol, Michael J. Smith and Lorne Ahrens. These lives still matter.
Ernie Hinojosa, pastor of Rejoice Lutheran, Coppell, Texas, preached to a church in agony, putting the questions in our hearts starkly in front of us. We all got up and walked to the table with open, outstretched hands. This is where the church lives, where meaning is etched in the life of the church hitting the streets everywhere.
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Photo: WBRZ-TV
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