Leading the flock in difficult times

GLEN RIDGE, NJ — In houses of worship across the nation, clerics grappled with what to say to offer moral leadership to their congregants following the mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, the weekend of Aug. 3.

In Glen Ridge, at Christ Episcopal Church, that responsibility fell to the Rev. Sharon Sheridan Hausman, a priest associate who is assisting while the Rev. Diana Wilcox is on sabbatical.

In an interview at the church last week ahead of her Aug. 11 sermon, Hausman said she had briefly mentioned the mass murders during the previous week’s service, offering prayers for the victims and explaining the meaning of the orange gun violence awareness stole she was wearing. The color is what hunters wear to avoid being mistaken for game and accidentally shot.
“I will encourage people to wear an orange ribbon for awareness,” she said. “There will be readings about faith and hope and keeping alert.”

She said these readings would be taken from Hebrews and Luke. From Luke 12:32-40, Hausman said she will tell the congregates to keep their lamps trimmed and burning because the time is drawing near. Be like those who are waiting for the return of their master from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door as soon as he knocks.

“In other words,” Hausman said, “keep awake, pay attention to what’s happening around you and be prepared to act when the time is right.”

Hausman said she would tell her congregants that when they do act, to act in faith.
“As Christians, when we are baptised, a vow we take is to resist evil, proclaim God and respect the dignity of others,” she said. “If we stay alert, it’s not difficult to notice the evil in the world around us.”

This baptismal vow, she said, is taken by the parents and godparents of the child.
The reading from Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16, is about “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” she said.
The reading speaks of faith, and Hausman said having faith and remaining alert are connected and the two readings provide guidance for acting under the current circumstances. Faith in someone means they are trusted to do the right thing. But having faith is not enough. A person must remain vigilant to a trust being broken regardless of faith.

Hausman, who is part of a prison ministry, said that in her sermon she would discuss the death of a 16-year-old girl involved in the prison ministry.
“I spoke with her when she attended a Christmas party at the Essex County Jail for kids and their parents in December,” Hausman said.

When she returned to the jail in February, she learned from the girl’s father that she had been shot in the head and killed at a candlelight vigil. Statistics are abstract, Hausman said, but violence can touch any one. She had statistics for her congregants.
In the Dayton and El Paso shootings, 30 people died. According to the Gun Violence Archives, there were 255 mass shootings in the United States during the first 220 days of this year.

“Overall, there have been 33,702 incidents of gun violence, resulting in 8,939 deaths and 17,672 injuried, in this country so far this year,” Hausman said, adding, “There were 398 children ages 0 to 11 and 1,842 children ages 12 to 17 killed or injured by gunfire.”

But even when things seem dark, she said, we have hope because things have been dark before.
“Hope is not just some pie-in-the-sky emotion. Hope comes from experience.”

Hausman quoted Episcopal Bishop Steven Charleston, who said that a major source of hope for people is their own brokenness.
“It is not the absence of hurt in our lives, but just the opposite that gives us strength,” she said. “We have been through many struggles. We have known loss, grief and fear. Because we have lived through these challenges, we believe in the power of the spirit to bring us healing, reconciliation and renewal. Hope is not a wish, but a lesson learned.”
The church, Hausman said, encompasses all its people.

“The clerics have a responsibility to provide moral leadership,” she said. “One of my mentors expressed it this way: ‘Sometimes you have to take the first nail.’ Popular or unpopular, we have to provide the leadership and invite society to stand with us.”

Hausman planned to make orange ribbons available to those attending the service in the hope of beginning a conversation about gun violence, but she acknowledged that a person can talk for only so long.

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