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July/August response: Responsively Yours
We Have Work to Do
by Sally Vonner
Greetings in faith, hope, and love. Summertime is here! Growing up in Texas, summers were nice, but the heat could be overbearing and the air thick and balmy. It never stopped my friends and me from going to the park, having fun, feeling free and alive.
General Secretary and CEO
United Women in Faith
Thinking about today’s environment and how many families and children are afraid to leave their homes—to travel, to simply live and thrive—is disheartening. Many are overwhelmed by fear and the loss of freedom, no matter if they are U.S. citizens, legal permanent residents, documented, or undocumented. The welfare of those who are labeled different carries a burden to simply exist and the right to experience freedom as whole persons in Jesus Christ.
United Women in Faith, we believe that every person is created in the image of God and should have equal rights, no matter their location, identity, religion, or status. For 156 years, we have been working for justice and advocating for change to policies or systems that prevent all God’s children from thriving. If you look back over our history, our foremothers were part of every movement for equal and civil rights and peace building in society and the church.
Recently, at our senior leadership team meeting, I shared a devotional reading titled “We Have Work to Do,” from Vincent Harding. He had just shared with young people at a Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., observance, when a young man asked, “If Dr. King knew his life was at risk, why didn’t he step back? Why didn’t he just chill out?” Before Harding responded, a young woman spoke up with great wisdom, saying, “Dr. King couldn’t just chill out. He knew he had work to do!”
My sisters and anyone reading this column, United Women in Faith must continue to do the hard work of advocating and seeking justice for the oppressed and the marginalized. Like King, who risked his life for God’s call to all, we must love kindness, seek justice, and walk humbly with God. Jesus also risked his life to overcome roadblocks of difference and evil that prevented the vulnerable from being part of the body of God. Micah 6:8 and Jesus’ advocacy for the vulnerable and challenging unjust systems tells us what is right in the eyes of God.
As United Methodists, we vow to resist evil in all its forms, through the sacrament of baptism and reaffirmation. Until unjust systems, policies, and actions at the federal, state, and local levels of our country afford human and civil rights to all, we have work to do for God’s kin-dom to come on earth as it is in heaven. This July 4, Independence Day, let’s commit to engage with more zeal, putting our love in action through our social justice priorities: Ending Mass Incarceration and Criminalization of Communities of Color, and Climate Justice.
There is always a Call to Action in which you can participate. Go to uwfaith.org to sign up for alerts or to take the Micah 6:8 pledge. Or participate in Mission u, Practicing Hope Together. Change is possible if we do this work together. We believe love in action can change the world. May it be so.
SALLY VONNER
General Secretary and CEO
United Women in Faith
