Date: November 16, 2014
To: The Northern Illinois United Methodist Churches
From: Bishop Sally Dyck
Re: Anticipation of the Ferguson decision (Press Conference & Time of Prayer on Nov. 18th)
Peace and grace to you as you gather to worship this Sunday. May the Spirit of God give you inner peace and also a desire for peace in our communities and world.
I am writing to you because a decision is expected soon from the grand jury in the Ferguson, MO shooting of an unarmed African American 18-year-old, Michael Brown, by a police officer on August 9th. As you know, not only the city of Ferguson, but our whole nation has been wrestling with the ongoing reality of racism in all our communities. Racism exists not only outside the doors of our churches but also within our churches even though we as United Methodists aspire to “love our neighbors.”
In anticipation of the decision, I am calling upon us, as United Methodists, to be grounded in our Wesleyan roots for prayer (personal holiness) and action (social holiness). I am writing to United Methodists in Northern Illinois of many colors and races but my message is to you all.
No matter what the verdict is, I would ask that we “put legs to our prayers,” as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once said in light of his community’s partnership with Martin Luther King, Jr. during the civil rights movement in our country. So he prayed, marched and protested with King and thousands of blacks and whites to seek an end to segregation and racism.
I call upon you to pray……
……Pray for God’s mercy on all who are immediately affected in Ferguson but also in all our communities where racial injustice continues to inflict itself daily on the lives of people of color, including our own members and family.
……Pray for God’s mercy on all of us of white privilege that we not judge our brothers’ and sisters’ anger and outrage but seek to understand and honor its tears of humiliation and pain.
As United Methodists we are also people of action. No matter what the verdict is, I call upon each congregation to act…
……To learn more about the injustices that occur in our communities, including but not exclusively, those of profiling and violence.
……To have meaningful conversations in our churches and wherever we meet with our neighbors, relevant to our racial make-up, that address the hurts and fears of those who live with racial prejudice.
……Should the verdict be no indictment, people’s anger and outrage may spill over into the streets. As United Methodists in those communities, again I encourage you to live out our Wesleyan roots!
……Open our churches for prayer to gather with people in your community to share the tears and anguished cries.
……Join with others in prayerful, non-violent, peaceful protest with signs that tell others who we are as well as to remind us that we are all children of God!
……Let us join our ecumenical and interfaith neighbors who share our commitment to non-violent protest.
On Tuesday morning, November 18 at 9:30am, I am calling people to join me outside the Chicago Temple (First United Methodist Church, 77 W. Washington St.) for a press conference and a time of prayer. Please come and show the diversity of our church in our support for justice as well as mercy.
May the God of mercy and peace empower and strengthen us as United Methodists to be witnesses of love!
Bishop Sally Dyck
Chicago Area Episcopal Office, 77 W. Washington Street, Suite 1820, Chicago, IL 60602
312-346-9766 x702; Fax 312-214-9031