Presbyterians remember Breonna Taylor with a vigil for justice

Hour-long prayerful event punctuated with music, shouts of “Amen!”

by Mike Ferguson | Presbyterian News Service

National staff of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) teamed with Mid-Kentucky Presbytery Sunday to hold an hour-long vigil at Beulah Presbyterian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, remembering Breonna Taylor. (Photo by Rich Copley)

LOUISVILLE — “We are here holding up the life of Breonna Taylor, one who gave her life not intentionally, but a life that will be remembered for the movement she has now created,” the Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II said during a vigil Sunday honoring the woman killed in her apartment March 13 at the hands of Louisville police.

Nelson, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), spoke to nearly 100 socially distanced worshipers outdoors at Beulah Presbyterian Church in Louisville Sunday. Musicians sang and played, the words of the prophets Jeremiah and Micah were read, and the crowd prayed and shouted “Amen!” many times during comments by Nelson; the Rev. Dr. Diane Moffett, president and executive director of the Presbyterian Mission Agency; and the Rev. Dr. Angela Johnson, Moderator of Mid-Kentucky Presbytery and pastor of Grace Hope Presbyterian Church in Louisville.

The Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), spoke Sunday during a vigil for justice for Breonna Taylor. (Photo by Rich Copley)

Nelson said many Americans have lost the kind of hope that buoyed prophets like Jeremiah and the Reformer John Calvin, “the belief that things will get better and that we can bring about change. They were people with stouthearted vision, an unrelenting desire to transform people and the world.”

“We are facing a wakeup call,” Nelson said, “and Breonna is helping us wake up from our sleep.”

The challenge of the 21^st century church, he said, is to help eradicate the violence that claims 30,000 per year in gun violence alone.

“We are all made in the image and likeness of God,” Nelson said. “God is love, and anything oppositional to love is oppositional to God.”

“This is the way of God. God’s love manifests itself even with those standing on the streets in the middle of a pandemic,” he said. “I am convinced it is the responsibility of Christian witness to call people into accountability, the powers and the principalities who make up all kinds of stories to clean their hands, just like Pilate did.”

The Rev. John Gulden of Covenant Community Church in Louisville held a Justice for Breonna sign throughout the vigil. (Photo by Rich Copley)

“It’s time for the church of Jesus Christ to stop clapping and singing and carrying on Sunday morning and sending people back to hell on Monday morning because of our silence,” he said. “It’s not enough to sit comfortably and not realize that one day, it could be our child, our grandchild. It could be our neighbor or friend, our nephew or our niece.”

“And don’t believe it’s all restricted to color and race,” he told the crowd, many seated on lawn chairs while others took in the vigil from their vehicles. “The powers don’t really care what color you are.”

Musicians punctuated Sunday’s vigil with hymns crying out for God’s justice. (Photo by Rich Copley)

Nelson quoted the words of another Stated Clerk, the Rev. Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, who told reporters on the day of the March on Washington in 1963, which he helped organize, “As Presbyterians we have come late — but we are here now.”

“In the name of Jesus, let us never be late again,” Nelson said. “The opportunity is ours right now, to claim the dignity and possibility of who we can be right now, to stand for a young lady named Breonna and countless people before her.”

“Lives are being taken day after day because we are late, because the church is late,” Nelson said. “Let us remember the time is now.”

The Rev. Dr. Angela Johnson, pastor of Grace Hope Presbyterian Church in Louisville and Moderator of Mid-Kentucky Presbytery, welcomed nearly 100 people to Sunday’s vigil. (Photo by Rich Copley)

“Remember Breonna and stand in solidarity against the gross and negligent miscarriage of justice that happened last Wednesday, along with the loss of her life at the hands of militaristic policing,” Johnson told the crowd. “This is nothing new, but now is the time for it to stop.”

Our siblings, she said, “continue to be murdered with impunity, and equity and justice for Black people remains a dream deferred.”

The Rev. Dr. Diane Moffett, president and executive director of the Presbyterian Mission Agency, offered up an impassioned prayer during Sunday’s vigil. (Photo by Rich Copley)

In her prayer, Moffett reminded those gathered that God’s eye is on the sparrow, and God’s ear hears the cries of the people. “Even as we pray from our hearts,” she said, “we want to work with our feet.”

“Comfort your people,” she asked the Almighty. “Speak tenderly to us in the midst of this. May our holy agitation give us an inner calm to do the work you would have us do.”

The Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson II, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), was interviewed by WDRB-TV in Louisville and several other local TV stations that covered the vigil. (Photo by Rich Copley)

“Touch the people in authority,” she prayed, “that the truth will be the truth and not a lie … Help us know that we are able. Though we are weary, we will not give up. We will stand up when someone says to sit down. We will do whatever is necessary so your word, your love and your salvation will be known.”