Paying the price for daring to speak
On Sunday, at the very moment that I was standing in this pulpit talking about the price people pay for daring to speak with prophetic voices, fellow Unitarian Universalists in Knoxville, Tennessee were PAYING the price.
The Rev. Peter House
A man entered their sanctuary at 10:15 and opened fire. Two are dead and more are injured. The man who was responsible for this did this because he hates liberals.
It is a sobering and uncomfortable thought and one that I never considered – that the very act of sitting in a UU church is a political act and one that could court danger.
We have taken lots of unpopular stances for justice. We have dared to speak the truth to power, and we have been out-spoken when people are disenfranchised.
But most of us have never considered the possibility that our words and deeds could get us killed. This is what is at stake. And if we have ever doubted our mission, an event like this shows us how high the stakes are and how much work needs to be done.
The other inescapable fact we have to face is that of our own fragility and vulnerability. This shooting could have been in any kind of church. If it had been in a Presbyterian church or Mosque, we would have felt badly. We would have said, “What a shame.” But the fact that it happened in a UU congregation brought it right to the threshold of our very souls. It really could have been any one of us.
There will be those in our movement who will say, “Well, we pushed this justice thing far enough. It’s time to back off. The stakes are getting too high.”
We must listen tot hem. We must acknowledge their concerns. We must have compassion for their terror. But we must never give in to their fear. The moment we do that will be the moment of our true death. For we don’t think about it often, but our words and deeds live on long after our bodies die.
The politics of oppression are always the same. And they nearly always include violence as a way to silence those who speak out for justice and speak the truth to power. Let us resolve right here and now to press on in spite of any feeling sof fear or vulnerability. A life lived in fear is a life not worth living.
I also ask that we try to find some compassion for the man who was so filled with fear that he acted out in such a destructive and self-destructive way. An act like his is an act of fear. Fear of people and causes that he does not understand and fueled by misinformation by so-called religious leaders on the right.
Most of all, we must hold the victims of this tragedy in our thoughts and prayers. They paid the ultimate price simply for associating themselves with a liberal institution which stands for justice.