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Commentary: A message of hope in the face of hopelessness (Berkshire Eagle, April 2025)

By the Southern Berkshire Interfaith Clergy Council

The celebrations of both Passover and Easter overlap this weekend. As leaders of faith communities throughout the South-ern Berkshires, we wanted to give voice to the message of hope in the face of hopelessness that these celebrations proclaim.

Passover and Easter celebrate God’s dramatic reversal of situations that the people in those times experienced as being completely hopeless. The people of Israel could not imagine a way they might be set free from an oppressive ruler all too willing to wield the greatest military force of that era to keep them enslaved.

The disciples of Jesus could not imagine a way that they might go forward after the oppressive government, which commanded the largest military force of their time, had brutally murdered their leader.

As we, the clergy of the Southern Berkshire Interfaith Clergy Council, look out at our world, we too struggle with hopelessness in the face of the actions of oppressive governments. We recoil as political leaders appropriate our sacred religious imagery, language, and displays to grow their own power — creating an us-against-them fervor targetingthose who are in the minority, live at the margins and already live as oppressed peoples. The compassion, empathy, care and love of neighbor to which we are called is being demonized. Struggling against this relentless march of hatred and cruelty has left even the most faithful drained. When people are suffering in our neighborhood or around the world, when people are living scared, we are all impacted. It can make all of us feel less safe, secure and hopeful.

It is more important than ever for us to gather in community in these days that are holy across lines of belief and tell one another once again the stories of our faith. It is vital that we remember and lift up stories of release from captivity, life being stronger than death and light shining even in the ultimate darkness. These stories that give meaning to the past also serve as sources from which we glean hope for the future.

The Southern Berkshire Interfaith Clergy Council includes the Rev. Carol Allman-Morton, Unitarian Universalist Meeting of South Berkshire, Housatonic; the Rev. Tadd Allman-Morton, First Congregational Church of Great Barrington, UCC; the Rev. Brent Damrow, The First Congregational Church, UCC, Stockbridge; the Rev. Liz Goodman, Monterey Church, UCC; Rabbi Jodie Gordon, Hevreh of Southern Berkshire; the Rev Jill Graham, First Congregational Church of Sheffield, UCC; the Rev. Erik Karas, Christ Trinity Church, Sheffield, Episcopal and Lutheran; the Rev. Marisa Brown Ludwig, First Congregational Church of Lee, UCC; and the Rev. Samuel T. Vaught, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Stockbridge.

“It is vital that we remember and lift up stories of release from captivity, life being stronger than death and light shining even in the ultimate darkness,” writes the Southern Berkshire Interfaith Clergy Council.

STEPHANIE ZOLLSHAN — THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE