Today the Episcopal Church commemorates Jonathan Myrick Daniels, a seminarian killed during the civil rights protests in Selma, Alabama in 1965.

Daniels died protecting a girl from a man pointing a shotgun at her. He took the blast meant for her, and was killed instantly.

The pictures today from Ferguson, Missouri make it look like not much has changed in the last 50 years.

Today, protestors are lined up against police armed with automatic weapons, tear gas, and the kind of military vehicles made near where I live.

I believe we Christians (perhaps especially in America) must always strive to remember that we serve in the name of Jesus, an innocent man who was killed during a time of protest and civil disturbance by the military occupiers of his country.

Looking again at pictures like this, we may also have to think again about which side we’re standing on.

Collect for Jonathan Myrick Daniels

O God of justice and compassion, you put down the proud and the mighty from their place, and lift up the poor and afflicted: We give you thanks for your faithful witness Jonathan Myrick Daniels, who, in the midst of injustice and violence, risked and gave his life for another; and we pray that we, following his example, may make no peace with oppression; through Jesus Christ the just one: who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.