The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost - Matthew 18:21-35 - The Rev. Colette Hammesfahr
September 13, 2026 - Matthew 18:21-35 John Lewis was a civil rights leader who later served for more than thirty years as a congressman from Georgia. But before he became a congressman, he was an activist who worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr. He participated in the Freedom Rides and helped organize the March on Washington. He was beaten while leading marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma on what became known as “Bloody Sunday.” There’s a story about his life that is not very well-known. It happened in 1961, when Lewis was just 21 years old. Lewis entered the whites-only waiting room of a bus station in Rock Hill, SC. A group of white men attacked him. One of those men was Elwin Wilson. Wilson was known for his support of segregation. Wilson was arrested for the attack and later admitted to his involvement with the Ku Klux Klan. Even though Wilson and the other men who beat him were in custody, Lewis chose not to press charges. He shows Wilson grace and mercy...