Christ Church +Washington Parish
620 G Street SE
Washington, DC 20003
Christ Church is just two and a half blocks south of the Eastern Market Metro station

Click here to return to the Christ Church Home Page

  

 

September 11, 2005 Home Coming Sunday
in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina
 Judith Davis, Rector of Christ Church+Washington Parish ©

While we remember that tragic day of terrorism four years ago in our reflections this morning, we also remember the current tragic natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina. As Hurricane Katrina has dramatically exposed the urban poverty in southern cities, it is important to remember that poverty is a national and global problem, and a growing one, according to these statistics:

37 million - total number of people living in poverty in the U.S.
13 million - number of children living in poverty
1.1 million - number of people who fell below the poverty threshold between 2003 and 2004

Why would I mention this on this Homecoming Sunday, a day in which we celebrate our life as a parish family and a day we remember these tragedies in our country?  I think it’s because what I love about our parish family is that we embody the maxim that “prayer without action is only poetry.”  Our church has a history of action for those who are disenfranchised and forgotten and individuals in our parish are always working behind the scenes to carry out Christ’s justice-love in our community and in our country and in the world.

I wrote these thoughts before I knew what Bill and Carolyn and Gary would say, but I know how much this parish family meant to me on September 11, 2001 as we gathered that day to pray, to fix lunch, to hang out together, to be glued to the TV, to feel lost and hopeless and confused that our very country and neighborhood were vulnerable to terrorist attacks.  I found the series of 15 “fireside chats” that fall at the Rectory to be so meaningful for us, for I remembered Jesus’ words that where two or three are gathered together in his name, he is in our midst.

While we have not gathered to pray so much these past two weeks, we will gather at noon on Friday to honor the President’s National Day of Prayer and Remembrance for the Victims of Hurricane Katrina.  While we have not had formal prayer services every day at Church, we have been busy preparing supplies for the DC Armory, sending donations to Episcopal Relief and Development, working to adopt a parish in the Gulf Coast and thinking of ways we can welcome displaced people to our city.  While we don’t have a plan in place as yet, what I hope we will do is what we did after Hurricane Floyd in East Carolina: that we will go and help the least of our brothers and sisters in their recovery from tragedy.   As we unloaded our truck of food for the Snow Hill Farm workers Relief Fund in East Carolina in 1999, we met some of the saints of God who were working to help the farm workers.  We believed Albert Schweitzer’s statement, “the only ones among you who will be truly happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”

There will be much work to do after this incredible disaster in the Gulf Coast, as there is incredible work to be done to relieve poverty and feed the hungry in our world. 

We have many opportunities help with relief efforts through the Red Cross and other agencies like Episcopal Relief and Development.  If you log onto the diocesan website (listed on the back of this purple prayer list), you will find ways to help.  And as the fall moves on, we want to join the ONE campaign as well to relive world poverty and hunger.

This afternoon, you are invited to the Cathedral to an interfaith service with Secretary Albright, Presiding Bishop Griswold, Bishop Ndungane of Cape Town and our own Bishop Chane for worship focusing on ending poverty in the world and certainly those reflections will include the poverty revealed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.  As Bishop Chane reminded some of us at a diocesan meeting yesterday, even though we have been caught up in the possible deaths of thousands from Hurricane Katrina, we need to be aware that more than 30,000 people die of starvation in sub-Saharan Africa every single day.  Maybe Hurricane Katrina is a wake-up call for all Americans to open our eyes.

Finally, I would call your attention to page 6 of the new “Parish People” of Christ Church, which you will find in the parish hall this morning if you have not already picked one up.  The Parish Goals of Christ Church include this one: “Now in its fourth century, Christ Church and its parishioners renew a sense of mission and commitment to encouraging and empowering our members, individually and collectively, to work and witness in Christ’s name within and beyond our parish community, especially to comfort and aid those who are homeless, hungry, ill, or in any kind of trouble, sorrow, or need.” That’s what Christ Church does.  That’s what it means to be a community of faith.  That’s what being a Christian is about.  We promised in our baptismal covenant, as I said last week, that we would seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves. 

That’s what I love about Christ Church! Let us recommit ourselves to that goal for this fall and renew our commitment to our parish family as well this morning.  And let us celebrate our love for our fellow members, our neighbors and all those Jesus called to be our brothers and sisters as we come home this day.  And as our worship ends this day, let us remember that as our worship ends, our service begins. Amen.