Dear Friends in Christ,

This Saturday, March 28, expectations of 15 million Americans across the country will gather for No Kings 3—a day of peaceful, nonviolent witness against the concentration of power in one person and the abuse of those most vulnerable among us. We at Saint Philip’s will be among those 15 million.

All are invited to meet at the Great Doors of the church at 9:45am before walking together to the four corners of Campbell and River. You don’t need a sign. You don’t need experience. You need only a willing heart and your feet.

The prophets would recognize this moment.

Micah did not ask us to master theology. He asked us to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8).

Amos thundered on behalf of those crushed at the gate: let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream (Amos 5:24).

Isaiah offered a way of action: to loose the bands of injustice, to let the oppressed go free (Isaiah 58:6).

These were not metaphors. They were instructions.

Jesus stepped into that prophetic stream. In his first sermon in Nazareth, he read from Isaiah and declared the text fulfilled in their hearing—good news to the poor, release to the captives, freedom for the oppressed (Luke 4:18).

When he rode into Jerusalem, he did so not on a warhorse but on a donkey—a deliberate counter—procession to Pilate’s imperial parade entering from the other side of the city intending to further subjugate and threaten a captive population. Jesus blessed the peacemakers. He warned against those who lord it over others and called his disciples to a different way (Matthew 20:25-26).

Paul, writing from a prison cell to communities living under Caesar, told the Philippians to let their gentleness, their reasonableness, their nonviolent dignity be known to everyone (Phil. 4:5). He told the Romans not to be overcome by evil but to overcome evil with good (12:21). He called them to weep with those who weep (Rom 12:15), and to not think more highly of themselves than the lowliest among them.

This tradition did not end with the New Testament.

Ghandi drew on it.

Martin Luther King, Jr. build a movement on it—not despite his Christian faith but because of it.

Nonviolent witness is not passivity. It is the most demanding spiritual discipline there is: to stand in the street with your body, refusing both violence and silence, trusting that love is stronger than fear.

If you have never been to a demonstration, I invite you to “test drive” this one. I understand the hesitation. I feel that hesitation every time I consider becoming more of a participant than an observer.

We pay a price for feeling into the unfamiliar, being exposed, and uncertain. I invite you to consider what it might mean to show up—not as a partisan but as a Christian. Not with rage but with the quiet conviction that in America we do not do kings or strongmen and that the God of the Exodus, the God of the prophets, the God made flesh in Jesus of Nazareth, has always taken the side of the vulnerable against the powerful.

We will walk together. We will be peaceful. We will be prayerful. And we will return together.

If you would like to join us, meet at the Great Doors of the church at 9:45am Saturday morning. If able, stay from 10:00am-12:00pm.

“Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good,” (Rom. 12:21).

Your fellow traveler,

—Richard