Let us pray:
Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant Charlie. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive him into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light. Amen.
That is a prayer from the Episcopal liturgy for burial of the dead and we pray it today for Charlie Kirk.
In full transparency, I find it difficult to pray for him. To say I disagreed with him in many ways is true, but not really the issue. I disagree with everyone about something or other. If disagreement hindered my prayers for others, I’d never pray again. It goes deeper than that.
I find it difficult to pray for him because he actively, openly, and consistently worked for and promoted racist, White supremacist ideas and policies; because he advanced rhetoric that marginalized queer people; because he knowingly spread misinformation about COVID; because he helped lead the charge in the movement for Christian Nationalism – a movement that is both unchristian and unamerican; because he made his name by contributing to the extreme divisiveness of our current culture.
None of what I’ve just written, by the way, is hidden, secret, or conspiratorial – it’s all a matter of public record. Which means that I have for most of the time that I have even known who Charlie Kirk is, seen him not as someone with whom I simply disagree – but as someone at complete odds with the things I hold most dear in my personal, spiritual, and national life. I believe his work has harmed many people both directly and indirectly.
With all this being said, I have to acknowledge that the difficulty I have in praying for him says far more about me than it does about him. And what it says about me is not something righteous or noble. It says I have not allowed myself to be transformed by Jesus such that I know how to love my enemy and pray for those who hate me – as Jesus commanded. It says that I prefer to reserve my prayers for people with whom I feel simpatico.
I am a Christian. This means I have committed my life to following Jesus, to love like Jesus loves, and, for lack of a more attractive term, to obey Jesus. Jesus is crystal clear in his command that I love others the way he has loved me. It’s a good time to remember that the command to love is not a command to feel a certain way about someone. It is impossible for us to control all our feelings, and I don’t believe Jesus would give us impossible commands.
To love Charlie Kirk does not mean to ignore or rationalize the things about him I find objectionable or harmful. To love him is to honor the dignity of his humanity – to recognize that he and I are both creations of the same God. To love Charlie Kirk is to be for him – and this is tricky, I acknowledge. I do not mean it means to accept or go along with everything he says, or to hope he gets what he wants. No, to love him is to hope for his heart to be filled with love, for him to experience liberation from hatred, for him to know true joy.
This is a non-starter for a lot of people I love and respect. Because we are all caught up in the condition of believing love, liberation, and joy are only for people we think deserve it – that love, liberation, and joy are rewards for good behavior. But what if true love, liberation, and joy are the things that enable us to let go of hatred in the first place?
We need to get over the idea that love is a warm gushy feeling so that we may embrace the truth that love is the most powerful force in all creation. We need to get over the idea that love is a reward for good behavior so that we may embrace the truth that love is the only way we can experience any kind of real goodness at all. God is love. So if you want to know how magnificent, how potent love is, start there: It is the essence of the divine. Love is the only way forward.
So how do I love Charlie Kirk?
Here is a quote worth considering in this conversation: “I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, New age term that — it does a lot of damage.” Charlie Kirk said those words. They are a fundamental misunderstanding of Jesus Christ. Empathy is not made-up. It is not New Age. Empathy is at the core of the Christian understanding of God – the God who, in joining humanity in the person of Jesus, literally embodied empathy for the human condition.
Think of empathy – like love – not as a feeling or sentiment: Think of empathy as a frame of mind. Empathy is the decision to seek the humanity in the other no matter what. This is how we conquer hate. This is how we build real unity. This is how we love.
In Jesus’ name, I reject Charlie Kirk’s description of empathy, and it is in Jesus’ name that I am held accountable to praying for Charlie Kirk’s soul, that he may find peace and reconciliation in the life to come, that his family, friends, and followers might be consoled in their grief by the empathetic God who sees and knows our lamentations, who lives in solidarity with us all in our frailty, and who has promised to wipe away every tear.
Charlie Kirk was and is a child of God – not because of what he was or what he did, but because of who God is and what God has done and is doing. His murder was horrific. Period. Debates about whether or not he deserved such a gruesome end say more about the debaters than they do about him. When I take Jesus seriously, all arguments of who deserves what, of punishment or praise, they all fall apart. Jesus has never worked within the cozy confines of that binary. Even in Jesus’ most trenchant, critical moments, he is appealing to people’s humanity, to their dignity, for them to recognize the belonging of the person right in front of them.
We live in evil times. We do. We live in a time where demonizing and objectifying others is a commonly accepted practice on all levels of society. The only way to break the cycle is to insist on the humanity of our neighbor. It is the only way forward for our own souls. Redeeming Charlie Kirk is not my job. It’s above my pay grade. My job is to recognize and honor his humanity. To pray for his peace in the resurrection, to pray for peace for his family and friends in the days to come. My job is to love him.
Father of all, we pray to you for Charlie Kirk, and for all those whom we love but see no longer. Grant to them eternal rest. Let light perpetual shine upon them. May his soul and the souls of all the departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.
