Grace Cathedral

Statement originally posted on episcopalchurch.org.

You may know me as the pastor who is always talking about love, and I am. But today I am mindful that the urgency of love—true, sacrificial love that respects all of humanity—is not just a good feeling, and it is not easy.

We are called to a love that demands much from us. We are called to a love that tells the truth.

Today I raise my voice for love because more than 10,000 people have died in Gaza, including more than 4,000 children.

The violence is horrific, and the geopolitics are complex, but my call to love is simple: Stop the killing. Stop all of it. Stop it today.

We will not be silent while an entire population is denied food, water, electricity, and fuel needed to run hospitals. We cannot stand by while thousands of civilians die. Our partners in the region tell us they live in terror—that they feel they have died even while alive. They feel that the international community is tacitly sanctioning the killing of civilians and the bombing of schools, hospitals, and refugee camps.

Staying quiet in this moment would be a stain upon our souls and would deepen our complicity.

U.S. leadership must tell Israel to stop bombing civilian areas and allow access for full humanitarian aid to flow freely into Gaza.

Every human child of God—Palestinian and Israeli—deserves safety and security. We need to stop the killing. Today.  

Vengeance will not bring back the dead. Retaliation will not repair the harms and the hurt. We are called to love, even and especially when it seems impossible.  

We must stop the next 10,000 from being killed. As Episcopalians, we must call upon our leaders—President Biden, members of Congress, and others—to be unequivocal that we need to stop the killing. Today. This is clearly what love demands of us.