Pastoral Letter: When Justice Becomes Life
Dear Simsbury UMC family,
When I moved from Greenwich to Simsbury last summer, I did not realize how much a change of place would reshape my focus. These days, in our backyard, the snow hollows my children have dug remain like small fortresses. When I frame that scene through a viewfinder, my fingers grow cold as I press the shutter.
And yet outside this peaceful angle, lives are being asked to justify their own existence before systems of power—and they are being exposed in the process. Some carry this fear at a kitchen table. Some in a hospital waiting room. Some near the edges where belonging is questioned.
“Am I allowed to be here?”
This is the question the foreigner within me asks each morning in the mirror. And in 2026, as I witness enforcement in the name of immigration policy that has, at times, turned violent, I see how this same question presses on the lives of many neighbors. When the law is carried out in ways that do not protect the vulnerable, it no longer feels like shelter. It begins to feel like a threat. In those moments, we are not simply debating ideas. We are facing a matter of life.
I am angry. And I pray that this doesn’t consume me.
The prophet Amos cries, “Let justice roll down like waters.” These words are not a slogan. They are God’s protest against a society where worship is loud, but justice has decayed at the gates—where the place meant to protect the weak has become a place of distortion. God does not reject worship itself. But God will not be soothed by worship that leaves the vulnerable exposed. Songs sung over suffering do not rise as a pleasing offering; they deepen God’s grief.
Friends, we are SUM. We are different lives, gathered into one community. Because of that, we do not arrive easily at perfect agreement. We stand in different places, speak different languages of fear and hope, and carry different histories in our bodies. Yet within all this difference, we refuse to lose sight of one commitment: in a world where human dignity and life can be quickly reduced to means, the church will not become complicit in that reduction.
Sanctification is not simply about sounding kinder. It is a steady discipline—a refusal to imitate the world’s habit of turning people into problems to manage. It is resistance against any logic that treats a person as disposable. And I must confess: how easily I benefit from systems that promise safety and convenience while leaving others wounded; how quickly I can turn another person’s suffering into “someone else’s issue.” I am not writing to accuse. I am writing so that we may be reformed—together—by grace. Let us ask for the Spirit’s help: the Spirit who convicts, comforts, and sends.
And here we must ask one more question: as followers of Jesus, how do we respond when God’s name is spoken, but God’s children are not treated with love?
I believe this: when those with power stir up fear and division, when the vulnerable are treated as disposable, when force is excused as “necessary,” disciples of Jesus are called to resist injustice in the spirit of God’s Kin-dom—God’s reign of belonging and life. This is not a slogan; it is discipleship. But our resistance cannot mirror the very harm we oppose.
Nonviolence is not silence. It is disciplined resistance for the sake of life.
That resistance will take different forms. We use the gifts God has entrusted to us with wisdom—to tell the truth, to refuse dehumanizing speech, to insist on responsibility and due process, and to protect those most exposed. Whatever our political commitments may be, this is not a partisan matter; it is a matter of life.
Above all, let us hold fast to the grace that came to us first. We do not generate this love; we receive it, and then we practice it. Let us remember the One who walked toward the cross. The cross is Jesus’ resistance to the misuse of God’s name—when religion becomes a tool of power and aligns with authority to crush life. Jesus did not answer violence with violence, nor did he establish justice by erasing his opponents. Instead, through self-giving love, he revealed the very life of God.
And we believe in resurrection beyond death. Because God raises the crucified, we do not have to imitate the logic of death. We can walk—boldly, humbly—on the path that safeguards life.
A recent conversation with a church member keeps returning to me. We imagined having a magic wand—one wish God would grant for our church.
For a moment, many thoughts crossed my mind. Safer spaces. More comfortable facilities. A church once again filled with children’s laughter. Ministries we have long dreamed of. All of these are worthy hopes. And yet, beneath that question, I heard something deeper.
What is the one thing we refuse to give up, no matter the circumstances?
Here, I want to speak plainly. We refuse to let go of the conviction that in any policy or public debate, human dignity and human life must never be reduced to tools. This conviction is not a static statement. It is shaped by grace, formed through sanctification, and lived out as we love God and love our neighbors in the most faithful ways we can, right where we are. This is the direction of faith we choose together.
We are not a community of perfect agreement. Yet we hold fast to this shared boundary: no vision of justice can ever be justified if it sacrifices human dignity and human life. This conviction is what makes our worship truly worship, and our faith truly faith.
And so, we choose again:
to translate anger into care for life,
to steady fear through prayer,
and to live out love of God and love of neighbor in the most concrete ways possible.
May the peace of Christ dwell in your hearts, your homes, and your daily lives. And may that peace—like frozen ground slowly thawing into small streams—flow quietly yet unmistakably into the lives of those around us.
In Christ’s grace,
Pastor DH