May 30, 2020

Beloveds in Christ,

On this Pentecost weekend, we celebrate the Holy Spirit’s coming and empowering the followers of Jesus. We celebrate the Breath of God breathing upon us.

Earlier this week on the corner of 38th and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis we watched as George Floyd pleaded for his own breath. “Please, please, I can’t breathe,” were George’s last words. In an act of brash cruelty, God-given breath was taken away from George Floyd.

We were formed from the Breath of God given to each so that we might know we are all of one body, intricately interconnected, one to another. As the Body of Christ, we cannot pretend we have not seen the unwarranted violence done to George Floyd and multitudes of other black and brown lives. We do not have the luxury of averting our eyes: nine generations of systemic, institutionalized racism live in all of our individual bodies, whether black, brown or white, and, thus, the collective body of the church.

Dismantling racism is our collective work. Beginning today, and in the weeks to come this summer, let us commit ourselves to birthing a church dedicated to quelling racism at its roots, to ensure a gospel-shaped future for our generation, and the nine generations after us. As we come together as the Body of Christ to celebrate Pentecost, let us open ourselves to the deep work of the Holy Spirit that seeks to heal the trauma of racism within each of us and our world, that racism may finally be no more.

Breathe, Holy Spirit, Breathe, that all may have breath.

In the Spirit of the Living Christ, Rev. Sue Artt, Conference Minister, Rocky Mountain Conference
Rev. Erin Gilmore, Associate Conference Minister, Rocky Mountain Conference
Rev. Kay Grice, Moderator – Board of Directors, Rocky Mountain Conference