Most folk donāt take nearly enough time to notice it. These days way too much ugliness hides the beauty thatās always around us. Even when we donāt pay attention, beauty surprises us with magic and mystery. Beauty is a lot like hope.
The magical appearance of beauty is, indeed, in the eye of the beholder. For me, beauty can inspire me by color and movement, by the shimmering stars on a clear night, by the magnificence of a treeās movement in the breeze, by looking into the eyes of my grandchildren. Beauty is there for us alwaysāto be seen, to be heard, to be sensed deeply in our bodies and in our spirits.
These days, I need more of itāmore hope, more beauty. I need more visions of beauty to supersede the ugliness of injustice, division, racism, misogyny, homophobia, political warring, brokenhearted immigrants looking for life, mass shootings, Covid, gun violence, child trafficking, suffering in Ukraineāall the varied chaos around the world.
And then there are the people here and there who bring grace to us all by transforming ugliness into beautyand hope.
As for the beauty revealed in the opening photo, I donāt know who created it or photographed it. I do know that he or she is a person who finds beauty in unlikely places at unexpected times, and translates that beauty into grace to be shared with those who most need it.
Who knows about that image? The striking silhouette of the trees, the birds flying above, the twinkling stars in the sky, and all of that with swirls of color that seem to me like holy movement. Regardless of the source of that photograph, I like to believe that its beautyāall beautyācomes directly from God as grace for me, and for you.
Canadian sculptor Timothy Schmalzās work on a sculpture depicting modern-day trafficking in humans titled āLet the Oppressed Go Freeā ā a commentary on how slavery, via human trafficking, continues today. Schmalz laments that the modern-day travesty of forced labor, including for sex, is often ignored, not unlike slavery of the past.
Do you wonder sometimes where God is while people are being oppressed? I mean all kinds of oppression ā racial injustice, human trafficking, violence and abuse, prison injustice, sexism, cissexism, classism, ableism, heterosexism. The list can go on and on, all the way down to specific stories about specific oppressed individuals. At that level, the down to earth level where we see a living person suffering, is the heartrending place. Itās the place where we find ourselves face to face and up-close with someone pouring out their story. Itās the place where we learn to talk less and listen more. It is for us an experience of holy listening with just one person.
Have you ever been in that kind of space listening to just one person? Have you ever been with a person suffering oppression who is freely sharing a heartbreaking story with you? I know that this kind of face to face encounter can be intimidating, even frightening. It can be beyond frustrating to listen to someone when youāre pretty sure you canāt do much to help.
There are at least two options for those of us who have a deep desire or calling to liberate those who are oppressed. We can offer what we have, even when we do not have a way to fix things. What do we have? Our presence, our emotional and spiritual support, our ability to advocate, housing assistance, financial assistance, employment assistance, safe shelter, understanding, constancy, presence, presence, presence . . .
The other option is to rail against a God who makes pronouncements about caring for oppressed people, yet seemingly does nothing to liberate them. This may not be our best option. Scripture reveals that God has a way of dealing with complaining people, and it is almost never a positive experience for the complainer. Moses comes to mind, and Miriam, and Job.
Poor, pitiful Job had a rough go of it and he wanted God to do some explaining and answer some questions. After all, he was a devout and faithful man, so why would God allow him to suffer so many losses? Right after Job is schooled by his three āfriendsā on several theological matters, including that he should never question God, God appears to Job out of a whirlwind. It was probably grand entrance, and then God basically says to him, āIāll ask the questions, buddy!ā
Hereās a snippet of the long exchange between God and Job.
Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the whirlwind.
2 āWho is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? 3 Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.
4 āWhere were you when I laid the earthās foundation? Tell me, if you understand. 5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? 6 On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstoneā 7 while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?
ā Job 38:1; 4-7 (NIV)
Job was oppressed. God was aware of it. God seemed unconcerned for too long, but there actually is a redeeming conclusion for Job. As the story goes in the last chapter of Job, God restored Jobās fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before. All of Jobās brothers and sisters, and everyone else he knew, went to his house for Sunday dinner and they consoled him for all the trouble he had been through. Then each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring. It worked out!
Canadian sculptor Timothy Schmalzās sculpture, āMonument of Oppressionā depicts hands emerging desperately from behind bars.
āI canāt think of one single nation of the world that did not practise slavery, including among Indigenous people,ā the sculptor says.
(Photo by Handout)
What does Jobās story say to us? What does it teach us about oppression? In my mind, in order to confront oppression and free persons from every yoke on a societal scale, we must first be aware that systemic oppression exists. It is stark reality! It darkens our world! Right now, approximately 40 million people are trapped in slavery in the world. One in four of these is a child. This shame that pervades and plagues the planet does not seem to disturb people very much. Unfortunately, it is in some peopleās best interest to maintain the oppressive systems that benefit them, that is fill their pockets with wealth (which is the primary reason for trafficking human beings, for instance).
Systems of oppression are very large, very complex and very powerful. Ending oppression is way too big for us to tackle alone. After sincerely asking the all-powerful God to help us bring down these all-powerful oppressive systems, we can add our hands and feet to the holy project. Contact senators, representatives, governors, mayors. Urge them, persist with them to use their position to help break down injustice. Know what youāre talking about when you contact them by reading about the work the many of anti-oppression organizations that exist. Join in their work. Look for those resources at this link.
āAngels Unawaresā by Canadian sculptor Timothy Schmalz portrays the saga of Migrants and Refugees. Among the 140 faces in the sculpture are Africans, Vietnamese, a Cherokee, Jews, Irish immigrants, and Syrians. The Holy Family is also included in the sculpture. St. Joseph can be identified by his toolbox.
Finally, we must open our eyes to the people in our own communities who need our compassion, our concern, our caring presence and our advocacy on their behalf. It takes some creativity, some committment and compassion, a lot of courage and a covenant with our God of justice to change an unjust world. The outcome might just look something like what the prophet Isaiah described:
Is this not the fast that I choose: To release the bonds of wickedness, To undo the ropes of the yoke, And to let the oppressed go free, And break every yoke?
7 Is it not to break your bread with the hungry And bring the homeless poor into the house; When you see the naked, to cover him . . .
8 Then your light will break out like the dawn, And your recovery will spring up quickly; And your righteousness will go before you; The glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; You will cry for help, and He will say, āHere I am. . .ā
10 And if you offer yourself to the hungry And satisfy the need of the afflicted, Then your light will rise in darkness, And your gloom will become like midday.
11 And the Lord will continually guide you, And satisfy your desire in scorched places, And give strength to your bones; And you will be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.
12 Those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins; You will raise up the age-old foundations; And you will be called the repairers of the breach, The restorer of the streets in which to dwell.
ā Isaiah 58 (NASB)
I donāt know about you, but I want to be among the ārepairers of the breach.ā I donāt want to live in a situation where I āhope for light, but there is darkness.ā (Isaiah 59:9) Instead, let me find myself looking far beyond the worldās darkness, looking to the Creator who demands justice, looking upward to claim the promise, ā . . . satisfy the need of the afflicted, Then your light will rise in darkness, and your gloom will become like midday . . . And your light will break forth like the dawn.ā
Images can affect us profoundly, leaving indelible marks on us, on the inside of us. When I saw on video the images and sounds of George Floydās murder, I knew that I would never forget what I saw on that day of terror, May 25, 2020. When even the date is indelibly marked in my mind, I know that what happened disturbed me to the core.Ā
This is true of most, if not all, of us. When images flash before our eyes ā shocking images ā they register immediately in us. We usually hold those events in our mindās eye and in our spirits for a long time, perhaps forever if the shock hits us hard enough. But when some time has separated us from the initial shock, we begin the welcomed process of forgetting. Passing time melts the shocking vision away, and it gradually becomes unnoticed, leaving the seat of our emotions with fewer harsh and weighty memories.
I read their names today, these eight names and hundreds more. The names represented persons whose stories touched my soul when they were killed. Yet, I had forgotten so many of them, could not remember exactly how they died or what led to their murders. No wonder the demonstrators and marchers for justice bear signs that read, ā#Say their names!ā
So that we will not forget! So that we will not forget our unspeakable history and thus risk repeating it!
The history of murder on the streets of American cities, large and small, is long and distressing. The moans of mourning can be heard still if we listen carefully, yes the moaning of todayās atrocities, but also moans echoing across the tragic history of slavery. Through history, through time, they moan and mourn.
It is worth remembering, as Black liberation theologian James Cone (1938ā2018) points out, that the lynchings of African Americans and the crucifixion of Jesus share much in common: āBoth the cross and the lynching tree were symbols of terror, instruments of torture and execution, reserved primarily for slaves, criminals, and insurrectionists ā the lowest of the low in society.ā
Yet, somehow in the midst of the horrific, there is God ā perhaps seen in the unshakable voices of demonstrators, perhaps seen in people of all colors marching together, perhaps seen in the messages of the brilliant art created on old buildings, bridges and underpasses, perhaps seen in the hope-filled eyes of a child creating a protest sign. God is present in these images.
In an article entitled, āHuman Cargo,ā Fr. Richard Rohr points to the writing of Barbara Holmes, who suggests that ācrisis contemplationā actually arose out of necessity during slavery, beginning in the Middle Passage when people were transported across the ocean as human cargo. In difficult times, contemplation becomes the soulās strategy of survival.
The poignant words of Barbara Holmes:
The only sound that would carry Africans over the bitter waters was the moan. Moans flowed through each wracked body and drew each soul toward the center of contemplation. On the slave ships, the moan became the language of stolen strangers, the sound of unspeakable fears . . . The moan is the birthing sound The first movement toward a creative response to, the entry into the heart of contemplation through the crucible of crisis.
Barbara Holmes
Holmes explains how the stolen slaves often formed a community. āYet, more often than not, these Africans were strangers to each other by virtue of language, culture, and tribe,ā she says. āTheir journey was a rite of passage of sorts that stripped captives of their personal control over the situation and forced them to turn to the spirit realm for relief and guidance.ā
The reality is that contemplative moments can be found at the very center of these kinds of crises ā in the holds of slave ships, on the auction blocks and in the brush arbors where slaves worshipped in secret.
In the words of Howard Thurman, āwhen all hope for release in this world seems unrealistic and groundless, the heart turns to a way of escape beyond the present order.ā For captured Africans, there was no hope except in common cause and through the development of spiritual fortitude.
The stark and inconvenient truth is that we are hearing the echoing moan of black and brown communities today, crying out āHow long, O Lord, must our people suffer?ā
Poet Felicia Murrell has written words of poetry that combine a deep awareness of Godās presence while clearly naming the collective trauma of police brutality and lynchings. We must set our wills to remember.Ā Of her poem, āSilence,ā Richard Rohr says, āThere is something about poetry that gives us permission to sit with the paradoxes of our pain, perhaps especially when addressing traumatic suffering.āĀ
He is right, so I invite you to read Felicia Murrellās challenging poem, reading her words slowly and contemplatively, āallowing your heart to break open to Godās love amidst the suffering of the world.ā
Silence
If youāre silent,
you can hear the forest breathe, the holy hush of the treeās limb.
āSilence,ā said Thomas Merton, āis Godās first languageā: the way it soaks into your skin, surrounds you, blanketing you like the forestās breath.
Silence: The cadence of the land at rest, the body asleep, the heart awake.
Silence: The deep rhythmic breathing of a mind slowed down, an ocean still, wet dew clinging to grass blade.
Silence: The sacred song trapped in a birdās breast before its firstĀ Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā chirp, the still of night across a desert landscape wrapped in a bone-aching chill before the sun rises to scorch its parched earth.
Silence: The lusty gaze of onlookers staring at the negro on the Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā lynching tree, neck snapped, life ended, feet dangling, back and forth, back and forth.
Silenced: Hands up, donāt shoot! Body thrumming with a heady sense of power. Hands in pocket, resting pose, knees embedded into a manās neck.
Silence, please.
I. Canāt. Breathe.
Silenced.
I challenge you to remember the names, to listen for the moans of mourning echoing across centuries, to hear the moans of present suffering and count the tears of those who mourn, to hear the voice of God who longs for justice. As it is written in the Book of Isaiah . . .
Therefore theĀ LordĀ waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For theĀ LordĀ is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him . . . you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you.
Isaiah 13: 18-19 ESV
I invite you to listen to āThe Moanā sung by Marion Williams.
Marion Williams moans her heart out, and then goes into a heartfelt, down home rendition of “Father I Stretch My Hands To Thee.” From the album, āMy Soul Looks Backā
Stand fast therefore in the freedom by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with aĀ yoke of bondage. Galatians 5:1 (NKJV)
What is it about freedom that scares us? What is it about freedom that causes us to refuse to offer it to everyone? Are we afraid that giving freedom to another person or group of persons will diminish our own freedom? What does freedom really mean to persons who are oppressed and to those who live inside the throes of injustice?
I have written very little lately about justice and accountability, the two words most used to describe Derek Chauvinās conviction. Icanāt help but mark this very moment on the ālong arc that bends toward justice.ā I feel compelled to call our attention to this week! Actually itās last week now, but you get the idea. Letās call it āthe week of the verdict.ā
The week of the verdict has come full circle from George Floydās murder on May 25, 2020 to the conviction of Derick Chauvin almost one year later on April 29, 2021. It was a week we will not forget. It brought up emotions in me and perhaps in most people. Most of what I felt mirrored the emotions I imagine George Floydās family feeling ā happy, calm, relieved, conflicted, hopeful, determined, vindicated. I also felt sad and helpless because the conviction did not end murders of black and brown brothers and sisters. And I felt joyful and hopeful because perhaps this flashpoint in the long history of racial injustice will help us turn the corner and finally see in our communities the justice we long for.
How can that happen? How can we turn the corner and move away from oppressive systems and oppressive people? How do we do that when just minutes after the verdict and less than ten miles away, 16 year old Ma’Khia Bryant was shot and killed by police in Ohio? It happened in the shadow of āthe week of the verdict.ā
Perhaps for us this is the week of the verdict ā the week when the verdict will be read on our failure to end the systemic racism in our communities! Isnāt it past time for us to stand up and stand strong and stand determined and woke? My friends, it is time! This moment in the history of injustice may well be the turning point we need to end racism!
I have said this many times: We cannot just reform injustice, we must transform it. The transformation that results in genuine, lasting justice must begin in the soul and in the heart where intentions are formed. I must lament injustice, confess my own complicity in it, repent of the white supremacy within me, own other forms of oppression and commit to the hard work of transforming injustice in my community and in my world. Only then will transformation happen in the systems that oppress people.
Only transformed people can love neighbors as Jesus loved us. My friend and sister blogger never fails to remind me to answer the ultimate question, āHow then shall I live?ā* She offers this scripture to us today.
We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us ā and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does Godās love abide in anyone who has the worldās goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?
1 John 3:16-17
She then reminded us that conditions in India are dire and the people languish.
In India, today the virus surges almost beyond control, hospitals are choked, people die in line waiting for a doctor. How can those of us rejoicing in vaccination, cautious travel, new gatherings, not ask how we can help?
How does Godās love abide in anyone who has the worldās goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?
And that is the soul-critical question we must answer. How then shall we live when all around us people suffer every kind of calamity ā every kind of violence, disaster, racism, discrimination, dehumanization? Every kind of heartache. How do we, in our suffering world, become the heart, hands and feet of Jesus?
Getting back to the lament of my own heart, that one thing that inspires my passion ā transforming the injustice of racism, xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia and all forms of evil exclusion and oppression. Transforming injustice! Setting our faces toward the hope of Beloved Community! This one thing I know, the steps of Jesus would have led him to the āhealingā of injustice in any form. On every day he walked on this earth, Jesus would be loving every person who was in need and he would be lamenting every injustice that caused harm.
How can we not lament? How can we not expend ourselves in the hard work of transforming injustice? How can we not care for, and pray for, and love our brothers and sisters who are in need? How can we refuse to work for the freedom of black and brown people, indigenous peoples, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants and asylum seekers, and to any person who is enslaved? How can we deny Godās desire for justice and peace?
How can we refuse freedom to black and brown people, indigenous peoples, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants and asylum seekers, and to any person who is enslaved? How can we deny them Godās peace?
ā Rev. Kathy Manis Findley
I do not have the answer for how we might do this. But I do have some convictions about it, especially about racism and white supremacy. One of my convictions is that dismantling racism begins in me, in my soul. And eradicating white supremacy begins when I look seriously at my own white supremacy. For you see, as long as white supremacy looks to me like a white-draped person burning a cross, I will never acknowledge that white supremacy is in me. As long as white supremacy looks to me like a man I might see on TV news with a truck, a confederate flag, a rifle and a mission, I can easily distance myself. I am not that white person; I am a different white person that would never tolerate racism.
Am I? Am I that different white person? Or are there ways I contribute to an unjust society? Are there ways I fail to seek Beloved Community? Are there thoughts and feelings within me that diminish other persons, persons not like me? Am I complacent about injustice? Am I complicit? Am I reticent? Am I avoiding, looking the other way?
As long as white supremacy looks to me like a white-draped person burning a cross in someoneās yard, I will never see that white supremacy is in me. As long as white supremacy looks to me like a man I might see on TV news with a pick-up truck, a confederate flag, a rifle and a mission, I can easily distance myself. I am not that kind of white person! Or am I?
Rev. Kathy Manis Findley
Racial injustice may currently be the most visible form of oppression, but we must remember that many groups of people are oppressed. Many people long for freedom from oppression. Only when we āseeā and āhearā all of their voices, will we be on the way to transforming injustice. I donāt know everything about oppression, and I donāt know exactly how to make a difference. I donāt really know how to join hands with my community and set about to transform injustice. I do know that I must begin with my own lament, for only lament can open my eyes to every manner of suffering and oppression.
So meet me on the mountain where we find the strength from God to persevere, and then descend with me to all the places where oppression enslaves people. Come with me to the people, and together, let us remove from them the yoke of bondage and offer them new freedom. And may Spirit Wind surround us with courage. Thanks be to God.
*āHow then Shall We Live?ā was the inspiring theme of the Alliance of Baptists Annual Gathering.
Born in Tuskegee, Alabama on February 4, 1913, she continues to be remembered in the hearts of the American people.Ā What a āherstoryā she lived! And how could I even begin to tell her story here?Ā What we think we know about Rosa Parks, in fact, is more like a fairy tale than an accurate picture of the person she was and the powerful transformation she brought in the quest for racial justice.
Rosa Parks was not one to dwell on one event ā one bus ride, one boycott, one street named after her ā she instead set her āeyes on the prizeā for the long haul. She was one persistent woman. She was a mentor to the young people who would ultimately see the prize of equal justice under the law. Rosa Parks was not just a woman to be remembered by holding down one seat on one bus on one day. Instead, she set her sights on the transformation of injustice and never stopped moving towards justice for all.
I cannot tell her story adequately, but I can point to some of her milestones . . .
In August of 1955, black teenager Emmett Till, visiting relatives in Mississippi, was brutally murdered after allegedly flirting with a white woman.Ā Tillās two murderers had just been acquitted.Ā Rosa Parks was deeply disturbed and angered by the verdict. Just four days after hearing the verdict, she took her famous stand on the Montgomery bus ride that cemented her place as a civil rights icon.Ā She later said this when the driver ordered her to move, āI thought of Emmett Till and I just couldnāt go back.ā
Rosa Parks sat in the black section, but when the white section filled up, the bus driver demanded that the four black passengers nearest the white section give up their seats. The other three black passengers reluctantly moved, but she did not. She recounted the scene: āWhen he saw me still sitting, he asked if I was going to stand up, and I said, āNo, I’m not.ā And he said, āWell, if you don’t stand up, I’m going to have to call the police and have you arrested.āĀ I said, āYou may do that.āā
Many people have imagined Rosa Parks on that bus as an old woman tired after a long day of work.Ā Yet, in her autobiography, My Story,Ā Parks writes, āPeople always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true.Ā I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then.Ā I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.āĀ
Rosa Parks endured significant hardships in her life, both during and after the boycott.Ā She was unjustly fired from her department store job. She received an almost constant stream of death threats, so many that she eventually left Montgomery to seek work elsewhere, ultimately moving to Detroit.Ā There she served as secretary and receptionist for Representative John Conyers, befriended Malcolm X, and became active in the Black Power movement.
In 1995, she published her memoir, Quiet Strength, focusing on her Christian faith.Ā She insisted that her abilities to love her enemies and stand up for her convictions were gifts from God:Ā
God has always given me the strength to say what is right. I had the strength of God, and my ancestors.
Rosa Parks died in 2005 at the age of 92 and she became the 31st person, the first woman, the second African American, and the second private citizen to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C.
More than 50,000 people came through to pay their respects.Ā
Her birthday is celebrated as Rosa Parks Day in California and Missouri.
Ohio and Oregon celebrate the day on December 1, the anniversary of her arrest.
One last milestone of her remarkable story . . .
In 1994, the Ku Klux Klan applied to sponsor a section of Interstate 55 near St. Louis, Missouri, which would mean the Klanās name would appear on roadside signs announcing the sponsorship. In 2001, the USĀ Supreme Court ruled that the state of Missouri cannot discriminate against the Ku Klux Klan when it comes to groups that want to participate in the adopt-a-highway program. Of course, while the name of the Klan is aesthetically disgusting to many people, this decision was a victory for free speech and equal protection under the law, right?
In the end, the Missouri Department of Transportation got sweet revenge! Sure, they couldnāt Ā remove the KKKās adopt-the-highway sign, but few would dispute the stateās ability to name the highway itself. So theĀ KKK is now cleaning up their adopted stretch of the highway named by the Missouri legislature and christened as āRosa Parks Highway.ā
Rosa Parks did not crave the spotlight. Nor did she care all that much about highways and byways bearing her name. She probably did want to be known as a person who persisted in the struggle for racial justice. She told us that in these words:
I would like to be known as a person who is concerned about freedomĀ and equality and justice and prosperity for all people.
You are remembered as such a person, Mrs, Rosa Parks! Happy birthday in heaven. You are our inspiration. You are one of our sheros,Ā our wonder woman!
Rev. Kathy Manis Findley The Hard Way Forward A sermon preached in virtual worship for New Millennium Church Little Rock, Arkansas October 11, 2020 Scripture: Exodus 32:1-14; Psalm 106 (selected verses)
Have you ever come to a point in your life when you had to take the hard way forward? You had no other choices! In fact, the phrase āthe hard way forwardā paints a an unvarnished picture of these tumultuous days, and the paints on the artistās brush are dark and foreboding.
What a journey 2020 has been! I have often called it a journey of lament ā a journey that has forced us to be in places we never wanted to be and to see things we never wanted to see.Ā
We look around and watch people in shock and dismay ā disillusioned and despondent. So many have been personally touched, even ravaged, by the deadly coronavirus, while others are overcome with fear of it. We have witnessed evil, racist assaults; watched police brutality and murder on our television screens; we have grieved over wildfires that threaten to swallow up forests, animals, homes and lives; and over it all we have felt contempt for the reprehensible leadership of an incompetent, insensitive, egocentric, self-serving president. I think itās safe to assume that many people in this broken nation feel hopeless and heartbroken.
I often ask:Ā God, are you still leading us on this hard journey?Ā Ā Or have you forsaken us? Do you have some kind of plan we do not yet see?
These months for so many people have definitely been a hard way forward. As we try to put one foot in front of the other on this journey, perhaps we can imagine ourselves walking with the people of Israel.
So let us listen and hear the Word of God in Holy Scripture
From Exodus, Chapter 32, (selected verses):
When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said,Ā āCome, make us gods who shall go before us.ā
āAs for this Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.āĀ
Aaron said to them, āTake off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.āĀ
So the people took off the gold rings and gave them to Aaron. He took the gold, formed it in a mold, and cast an image of a calf; and the people said,Ā
āThese are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!āĀ
When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before the calf and said, āTomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord.āĀ They rose early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices; and they sat down to eat and drink, and then rose up to carouse. [my word choice]
(Now the scene changes locations.)
The Lord said to Moses, āGo down at once! Your people have acted perversely . . . they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it. I have seen how stiff-necked these people are. Now leave me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them.ā
But Moses implored the Lord, and said,Ā āO Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?Ā Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people.
And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.
And from Psalm 106 (selected verses):
O give thanks to the LORD . . . for Godās steadfast love endures forever. Both we and our ancestors have sinned; we have committed iniquity, have acted wickedly.Ā They made a calf at Horeb and worshiped a cast image.Ā They exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass.Ā They forgot God who had done great things in Egypt, wondrous works in the land of Ham, and awesome deeds by the Red Sea.
Therefore he said he would destroy them ā had not Moses stood in the breach before him, to turn away his wrath.
This is the word of God for the people of God.
The story of the Israelites reminds us that our kindred sojourners also traveled some rough paths. The text gives a glimpse of just one snippet of their journey. We see the Israelites on their wilderness pilgrimage, complaining, as they often did ā and as we often do.
Apparently, Moses who had just received the ten commandments, stayed on Mount Horeb for a long time, patiently listening as God engaged him in a presentation of all manner of laws, rules and instructions. It took awhile ā 40 days and forty nights, a very long time. And the Israelites started complaining about it to the one Moses left in charge ā Aaron.
What has become of Moses?
What would he eat on that mountain, anyway?
This Moses, that brought us out here in this mess ā where is he?
And then their fateful request to Aaron:
You are the one who is here with us now ā make us something we can see. Make us something that will lead us forward, and we will follow it.
Now you probably remember that the Israelites had complained before:
Why did you bring us out of Egypt? To kill us with thirst? Why have you led us into this forsaken, dangerous wilderness? To kill us with hunger?
Their complaints may sound a bit like our own complaining during the terrible months of pandemic, racial unrest, political rancor, and all manner of upheaval.Ā
Hey God! Are you planning to obliterate this coronavirus, or not?
Are you still with us, God, or not?Ā
Have you brought us to this season for some purpose?Ā
Like the Israelites, we sometimes lose sight of our leader ā the God that would give us the courage to move. We are left as a wandering, unsettled people that simply cannot see our way forward.
As Wendell asked in last Sundayās sermon, āShouldnāt God do something?ā
Shouldnāt a God of enduring, everlasting love do something?
Now remember ā we are in good company with several holy bible people.Ā The prophet Isaiah, for one, who asked:
āHow long, O Lord And God actually replied to him:
Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the land is desolate and ravaged, until the land is utterly forsaken.
Not so reassuring!
The Psalm singer asked, too, in Psalm 94.
How much longer will the wicked be glad? How much longer, Lord? How much longer will criminals boast about their crimes?
They crush your people, Lord; they oppress those who belong to you. They kill widows and orphans, and murder the strangers who live in our land.
Who stood up for me against the wicked? Who took my side against evil?
If God hadnāt been there for me, I never would have made it. The minute I said, āIām slipping, Iām falling! Your love, God, took hold and held me fast.ā
Like those holy bible people, we ask ā in our impatience and fear ā āHow long, O Lord?Ā
And even as we ask, we have a wee inkling that Godās love is still holding us in safe arms of grace.Ā George Matheson was a Scottish clergyman and theologian who lived in the late 1800ās. He was blind by the age of 18. Matheson wrote something quite profound about Godās love ā the text of the hymn, āO Love That Will Not Let Me Go.ā The hymn text formed in his mind during a ādark night of the soulā he experienced, a deeply emotional and spiritual crisis. He tells us about it in his own words.
My hymn was composed in the manse on the evening of the 6th of June, 1882. Something happened to me which was known only to myself, and which caused me the most severe mental suffering. The hymn was the fruit of that suffering. It was the quickest bit of work I ever did in my life . . . the whole work was completed in five minutes, and it never received at my hands any retouching or correction. All the other verses I have ever written are manufactured articles; this one came like a dayspring from on high.
In a time of emotional anguish, Godās creative grace rose up in George Matheson and he wrote about the kind of divine love that would never let him go. I think we owe Rev. George for reminding us about Godās unwavering love. The hymn text is most assuredly Gospel Good News that people throughout the centuries have desperately needed to remember
As you and I walk this journey, we need to know that Godās love will hold us fast, but sometimes we donāt know it. Like George Matheson, we could use a visit from the Dayspring from on high!
In truth, we need assurance ā that no matter how hard the way forward, Godās love will not let us go.Ā Threatened by a deadly virus, Godās love will not let us go.Ā In our most disconsolate moments, Godās love will not let us go.Ā When we courageously stand up to denounce racism, white supremacy, police violence and all manner of evil that surrounds us, Godās stubborn love will never let us go!
But that kind of love also places before us a holy mission undergirded with the foundational principle that evil cannot be reformed, it must be transformed ā transformed within us before it can be transformed in the world, and transformed in the way described by Dr. King:
Only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strengthĀ to fight vigorously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit.
You might be wondering what any of this has to do with the Israelites and their golden calf, or the psalm singer who sang something about Godās steadfast love enduring forever, or the idea that someone might possibly stand in the breach for us.
My friends, each of us are traveling through these days with at least some fear and anxiety. It is a hard way forward, and as some clever people have said, āThe light at the end of the tunnel is probably a freight train!āĀ
Still, we are inheritors of the hope and grit of so many others who have journeyed hard roads before us ā walking, marching, sometimes crawling ā at times standing tall, at other times falling face-down in the dust of a hard rocky ground.Ā We have navigated perilous roads and turbulent waters in this season. Yet we walk on, just as those who walked before us and who walk beside us.
I recently saw a news report about a little girl walking with her family among crowds of protesters. She stops at a makeshift memorial to George Floyd. As she pauses there, we can read the sign she carries ā a hand printed cardboard sign that says:
My daddy plays with me. My daddy reads to me. My daddy tucks me in at night. Please donāt kill my daddy.
The little girl walks on with her family.
Tamika Palmer walks on too, tears flowing freely. Tamika Palmer, Breonnaās mother, vows she will never stop walking forward towards justice for the daughter she lost.
It strengthens us to remember those who walked before us in years past and those who walk with us today who are those sparkling examples of hope and grit: Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Oscar Romero, Fannie Lou Hamer, Prathia Hall, Greta Thunberg, Rev Dr. William J. Barber, II, Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King,Jr., Dorothy Day, Bishop Michael Curry, Nelson Mandela, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Dr. J. Alfred Smith, Jr,. US Representative John Lewis, Rev. Pastor Judge Wendell Griffen and countless others whose names we revere, as well as so many whose names we do not even know.
Walking, marching, protesting, advocating, praying, writing, speaking, weeping ā throughout centuries and to this very time. Compelled by prevailing, persisting injustice, they walk on ā we walk on ātaking the hard way forward.
So having eavesdropped on a people constructing a golden calf to worship, will we allow their story to call our attention to our own idols? Those idols we have made for ourselves out of our own Egyptian gold?Ā āIdolsā might just be the next sermon point, if I used sermon points!
Itās tempting to mistake our own creations for our God. Itās tempting to shape our self-made idols into an image that soothes our anxiety, feeds our anger and our egos, and convinces us it will demolish whatever is evil around us.Ā I donāt know about you, but I can get obsessed at times. My tasks, my work, my advocacy sometimes rise up out of my obsessions. I donāt like that, but have to admit the truth.
So I have to ask myself: Is my work to dismantle injustice part of Godās call and my holy mission, or have I made it my idol?
Whatever that thing is that we have made from Egyptās gold is not our god. That thing we idolize may symbolize strength and power. It may personify bravery. It may embody rebellion or protest.Ā But as close as we draw to it and place it at the center of our lives, we must understand that it will not lead us to transformation, just as the Israelitesā golden calf could have never led them to the land of promise.Ā
Instead it will shackle us in our impatience, audacity and self-importance. It will shackle us because of our insistence on following our own way instead of Godās way.Ā
Here is another honest confession:Ā It is tempting for me to let hate become my idol, to allow my desire for retribution to goad me into facing off against injustice with hate. But Godās way is always love.Ā
Is it possible that our idol is our hate for people, people who may actually deserve it like white supremacists, neo-Nazis, violent police officers, men wielding projectiles and tear gas, corrupt politicians and leaders? Do we rise up against such people with hate as our weapon, while all the time, God calls us to love our enemies!
The hard way forward is the way of higher ground that invites us to turn away from the idols created by our lesser angels and walk forward in the persistent love that will never let us go.Ā
The hard way forward knows the pain of fear and doubt, but still chooses to follow cloud and fire through the desert-landscape and on to freedom.Ā The hard way forward is to live into Godās abiding, never-ending love.
For you see, seekers of justice who marched the hard way before us faced firehoses and dogs because they longed for holy transformation and because they trusted that Godās love would not let them go. Seekers of justice protesting in the streets of Louisville and in other cities in these hard days face tear gas, police brutality, violent government intervention because they long for holy transformation and because their faith whispers to them, āGodās love will not let you go.ā
You and I, in whatever ways we are dismantling injustice, MUST take the hard way forward ā facing censure, criticism, indifference, ridicule, disrespect, even violence, because we long for holy transformation and because deep-down, we believe in our hearts that Godās love will never let us go.
That hard way forward is the path to transforming injustice! Doing the same things weāve done the same way weāve done them might bring some manner of reform. But we must not settle for reformation. We must set our eyes on transformation.Ā
One last caveat: the change we seek may never be realized even if we are brave enough to take the hard way forward, because the saved up baggage we carry weighs us down ā the anger we hold on to, the hatred we feel, the impatience that makes us volatile, the fear that besets us, the hostility we refuse to let go of. Isnāt it time for you and me to kneel before God, confess our sins and accept the healing grace that wipes away our tears and transforms us into a new creation?
Kneeling at the altar of repentance, we will stand up straight and tall and brave ā and most importantly, forgiven ā and we will take the hard way forward, knowing in our souls that we cannot just act to reform evil, we must resolve to transform it.Ā
So let us bravely and confidently take the hard way forward, knowing that God is standing in the breach on our behalf and that the Dayspring from on high visits us, giving light when we walk through the darkness and the shadow of death, and guiding our feet into the way of peace.
Let us take the hard way forward, proclaiming from the depths of our being that no matter how dark and difficult and long the journey is, Godās love will never let us go. Amen.
I invite you now to spend a few moments of reflection and prayer as you listen to a benediction of choral music in the video below. May you listen in the music for the whisper of God, for Christās blessing of grace, for the brush of Spirit wings.Ā
And as you leave this time of holy worship, persevering on the hard way forward,Ā may the God of love go with you and fill you with gentle peace through every tribulation,Ā so that your soul may rise up in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
This morning, I prayed a prayer of lament. Lament was the only prayer in my spirit. It is difficult to express the deep sorrow I felt yesterday when I learned that no charges were brought against the police who shot six bullets into Breonna Taylorās body.
Shortly after midnight on March 13, 2020, Louisville police officers used a battering ram to enter the apartment of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician who had dreams of a bright career ahead.Ā She and her boyfriend had settled in to watch a movie in her bedroom on that tragic night. Police came to her door and minutes later, she was fatally shot. Her death sparked months of protests in Louisville.
Yesterday, six months after the fatal shooting ā six bullets ā a grand jury indicted a former Louisville police officer on Wednesday forĀ wanton endangerment for his actions during the raid.Ā A grand jury delivered the long-awaited answer about whether the officers would be punished. No charges were announced against the other two officers who fired shots, and no one was charged for causing Breonna Taylorās death.
For me, there was only lament. I imagine that for Breonnaās family, there was the deepest kind of lament. For her mother, lament was the only response she could express as she wept uncontrollably. And, even for the protesters who filled the streets, I believe there was lament.Ā
Theologian Soong-Chan Rah explains in his book, Prophetic Lament, that in the Bible lament is āa liturgical response to the reality of suffering and engages God in the context of pain and suffering.ā He goes on to say that it is a way to āexpress indignation and even outrage about the experience of suffering.ā Racism has inflicted incalculable suffering on black people throughout the history of the United States, and in such a context, lament is not only understandable but necessary.
Perhaps white Christians and all people of faith have an opportunity to mourn with those who mourn and to help bear the burden that racism has heaped on black people. (Romans 12:15) Ā Ā ā Jemar Tisby, The Color of Compromise
In the end, many people see only the rage, anger, impatience, violence of the protesters. Can we also see their lament for Breonna, as well as for centuries of racially motivated murder ā beatings, burnings, lynchings and murder committed by police officers?Ā
People of faith ā white people of faith ā will we try to understand the rage of our black and brown sisters and brothers? Will we join them in righteous anger? Will we mourn with them? Will we lament when lament fills their souls and overflows in cries for justice?
We must, in the name of our God who created every person in Godās own image!
Last night, I heard an interview with Brittany Packnett Cunningham on MSNBC. Her words were eloquent pleas for justice. She spoke about how persistent and all-encompassing racism is in our country and about the murders and the protests and the political rancor that fuels it. She acknowledged racismās strong, unrelenting hold on this nation, a hold that is virtually impossible to break. And she said something I have said for a long time, āRacism cannot be reformed. It must be transformed.ā
To me that means a transformation of the heart and soul that compels each of us to lament, to comfort, to speak truth in governmentās halls of power, to stand openly against any form of racial injustice.
May God make it so.
Will you pray this prayer of lament with me?
O God, who heals our brokenness, Receive our cries of lament and teach us how to mourn with those who mourn. Receive even our angry lament and transform our anger into righteous action. Hear the anguish of every mother assaulted by violence against her child. Hear the angry shouts of young people as shouts of frustration, fear and despair. Grant us the courage to persist in shouting out your demand for justice, for as long as it takes. When deepest suffering causes us to lament, grant us Spirit wind and help us soar. If we resist your call for justice, compel us to holy action. May our soulās lament stir us to transform injustice, in every place, for every person, whenever racism threatens,Ā for this is your will and our holy mission. Amen.
I watched the news last night before bed. Not such a good idea! Halfway into the broadcast, I felt a pervasive sense of despair and became very nauseous. Iām feeling it again as Iām writing this. It was the very real and very current events that were so upsetting: hurricanes bringing destruction in Louisiana; California wildfires threatening yet again; protests after the tragic and unwarranted shooting of Jacob Blake; 17-year old Kyle Rittenhouse, who took to the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin during protests, using a military-style rifle to kill two people; a president who is intent on meeting street protests with military violence; a president who gathers a crowd of supporters, not socially distanced and most not wearing masks; and the coronavirus hovering over it all to make situations even more devastating than they already are.
I turned off my bedside lamp and, in the darkness, pondered the news I had just seen. I could not sleep with the sorry, worry, desperation and helplessness I felt. There was not one thing I could do to change my world. My world seemed out of my control, engulfed in all of the events of our time. I wondered . . . how will we live with natural disasters, protests in the streets, killing, violence, military style weapons, police out of control, political rancor, a deadly pandemic and a seeming disregard for human life? How will I live with it? What can I do to change it? In these times, we see before our eyes people getting very sick, people dying alone in nursing homes and hospitals because of COVID restrictions, people isolated and lonely for months, people divided by political polarization, people being killed by police, people protesting for racial justice, people pushing back hard, enshrined in their white supremacy, people losing their homes, people fighting out-of-control wildfires, people losing their jobs, people tired from working with so many hospital patients, people afraid to go back to school, people feeling angry and frustrated, people feeling complete despair. Most of all, people are hoping beyond hope for better days ahead.
My mind thought of nothing of any consequence I could personally do to reverse all of this destruction and despair. My heart memory, though, remembered some things God instructed us to do long ago. God addressed instruction to, āmy people who are called by my name.āĀ
āI am called by Godās name,ā I thought. āI know exactly what to do!ā Of course, I could honor God by standing up for justice ā engaging in political activism, contacting government officials to demand change or participating in peaceful protests. I could honor Godās creation by doing more to care for the earth. I could honor God by loving my neighbor and caring for those who have suffered loss.Ā
People of faith have Godās marching orders that dispatch those called by Godās name to practice all manner of good works. And this we must do. But the critical admonition from God that my heart recalled last night is found in Second Chronicles 7:14. If you are called by Godās name, you will likely know these words well.
If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. (NRSV)
But wait, Second Chronicles 7:14 doesnāt apply to us. It was for Israel. Our Biblical interpretations must have a solid contextual underpinning. Right?
Of course, many Scriptures taken out of context have done great damage. The context of Second Chronicles is that when God brings judgment on Godās own people, Israel, as a result of their sins, that God would also heal their land. And God would re-establish their blessings when they would pray and āturn from their wicked ways.ā
We may look around at all the destruction around us and say, āMy sin did not cause any of this.ā I donāt have military weapons. I didnāt shoot anyone. I donāt set wildfires, I always wear my mask in public. I certainly cannot stop the ominous storm surge of a hurricane.
True enough! Most of us didnāt sin by doing any of these things. Yet, we should remember two things: 1) While we did not commit those particular sins, we do not fully know the harm inflicted by other sins we may have committed; and 2) We cannot begin to know the transformative power of our sincere, repentant, intercessory prayer.
Instead of entertaining such deep and helpless despair, instead of feeling physically nauseous with worry, I think I will follow the admonition of the Chronicler who gave me Godās call to pray. Of course, the admonition in its historical context truly was for Israel, but if we intend to use the Holy Scripture to guide our lives, we cannot ignore a passage that begins with āIf my people.ā
Perhaps my prayers and yours will bring transformation, in our spirits and in our world.
liminal in American English (ĖlÉŖmÉŖnÉl ; ĖlaÉŖmÉŖnÉl )
ADJECTIVE
1.Ā Relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process.
2.Ā At a boundary or transitional point between two conditions, stages in a process, ways of life, etc.
āLiminalā used in a sentence:We are in a transitional and liminal time: this makes everything unsettled and awkward, and most of us feel tremendous unrest and a sense of urgency.
I choose to mark this particular time in history as a liminal time that demands my courage to stand ā to stand in solidarity with every person who is demanding an end to racial injustice. I cannot choose my partners in this struggle. Instead, I have to accept those that appear in my life, bringing with them a determined will to stand for justice.
I must understand that liminal time does not last forever. Liminal time is a place of transition, a liminal stage between justice and oppression, between life and death. So my choices and yours in this liminal time might very well affect whatās going on in the streets of American cities, in police precincts in every community and rural hamlet, in the halls of Congress and in the White House, in our hearts and in the hearts of those we could see as our āenemies.ā
Here is where I must focus. My heart must long for an end to injustice. So must yours, because Godās heart grieves over the mayhem in our streets and the violence that has its way when a white police officer murders a black man or woman, even a black child.
You and I must yearn for an end to racial injustice ā any kind of injustice and oppression ā because Godās heart yearns to see us living in holy unity as brothers and sisters.
These days have dramatically shown us our liminal time, and it is NOW.
I have a strong sense that this liminal time has brought the widespread unrest we are witnessing, and that unrest emerges directly from a deep desire for change and transformation. It must be now!
Those of us who remember, know that the Civil Rights Movement came to its boiling point when every marcher, every protester, every non-violent activist and every violent one knew when their liminal time had come. Some people, of course, did not like that time at all, but even those who resisted that movement towards justice knew in their hearts that it was the liminal time, the time of NOW.
The fight was fought by people who spoke and marched, prayed and worshipped, who resisted and stood their ground, who preached and sang their freedom songs. Ah, how those songs of the civil rights movement helped motivate people of all ages and races, from Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) activists and Freedom Riders to the thousands who marched on Washington, Selma, and Montgomery!
Yet not one person ā Civil Rights leader or non-violent protester ā could achieve civil rights alone. It required persons living in the poorest neighborhoods and their affluent neighbors across town. It took white folk and black folk, protestors and preachers, eloquent advocates and those who fought silently, lawyers and congresspeople and attorneys general and presidents. It required a community in solidarity. In fact, during the Civil Rights Movement, the creation of community was the quintessential coming-of-age story for Black people.Ā
Of that historically significant time, Father Richard Rohr writes this:
It was the particular time in history when nonviolent initiatives seeded with contemplative worship practices became acts of public theology and activism. You see, activism and contemplation are not functional opposites. Rather, contemplation is the heartās reflective activity that is always seeking the spiritual balance between individual piety and communal justice-seeking.
Who could have predicted that Americaās apartheid would fall as decisively as the walls of Jericho, when the people marched around the bastions of power carrying little more than their faith and resolve? How audacious it was to take just the remnants of a chattel community, the vague memories of mother Africa, and a desperate need to be free, and translate those wisps into a liberating vision of community. The idea of a beloved community emerged from the deeply contemplative activities of a besieged people ā the people of the Civil Rights movement. ā Fr. Richard Rohr
One would think that such a movement that was so powerful, so eloquent and so determined would see its dream become reality, and that such a stunning reality would last forever. So that every person, from that time to this, would live as beneficiaries of beloved community. But here we are in another liminal space of racial indignity, cities in chaos and families mourning the death of their loved ones in Minnesota, in Georgia, in Kentucky and beyond. We did not really believe we would be in this time and space, a time that would demand a civil rights movement of its own.
The in-between liminal spaces of Scripture are pregnant with Godās transformational possibilities:
Noah and his family rebuilding the world after the flood; Abraham holding the knife above Isaac; Jacobās struggle with the angel; Joseph in the pit; Moses and the Israelites at the edge of the Reed Sea; Israel in the wilderness; Joshua crossing the Jordan; Jesus suffering on the tree; the women at His tomb; the disciples waiting in Jerusalem.
Scripture indeed is fraught with liminal moments ā moments of imminent expectation, infused with both hope and doubt ā that lead to transformation and change. So change involves tension, and those of us who are longing for a paradigm shift that insists on justice, know that tension all too well.
Betwixt and Between ā neither here nor there. It would be safe to say that this liminal time is mostly uncomfortable and confusing. Liminal time is the time between what was and what will be. And not one of us can predict what will be, either in this struggle against injustice or in the uncertain waxing and waning of the deadly coronavirus. The convergence of virus and death and sickness and distancing with racial injustice, violence and protest is almost too much uncertainty for us to navigate.
In the end, I want to believe that this liminal time and every liminal space is the dwelling place of God, the place where God meets us and says, āI will never leave you or forsake you . . . And remember, theĀ Spirit of the Lord is upon you and has anointed you to announce Good News to the poor, to proclaim freedom for the imprisoned and renewed sight for the blind, to release those who have been oppressed. [my paraphrase]
Even in our current time of disconcerting fluid borders, God is with us in thisĀ liminal time. God is inseparably boundĀ with us in this moment, and it is in this liminal space where heaven and earth, life and death, joy and sorrow, ecstasy and despair, sleeping and waking, justice and injustice, commingle.
So hereās my challenge to myself and to all of us. What if we choose to experience this liminal time, this uncomfortable now, as a time for insisting upon full solidarity with all of our brothers and sisters? What if we choose to make this particular time ā with all of its pandemic and death, chaos and destruction, fire and protest, upheaval and violence as if no lives matter ā a liminal time for construction and deconstruction, choice and transformation? What if you and I choose to hold hands and march on in solidarity and community until we reach the mountaintop where injustice is no more?
A blending of two photos: One is an image of protesters in Minneapolis. The second image is a portrayal of people raising their hands to celebrate Pentecost.
This morning I have no words. I have tears. I have sadness. I even have some anger that the people I love whose skin is not āwhiteā are living in grief and frustration. I say only that injustice and oppression cling so close to my friends, today and in centuries past.
I hear my dear friends cry out for justice. I hear them using words to make sense of it all, and I hear their voices fall silent. Silent, with just these words, āIām tired.ā A dear friend posted the words on the left this morning. I want to see her face to face. I want to be together. I want to comfort her, hoping beyond hope that it is not too late for comfort.
I read this horrific headline this morning.
Prosecutors in Hennepin County, Minnesota, say evidence shows Chauvin had his knee on Floyd’s neck for a total of 8 minutes and 46 seconds, including two minutes and 53 seconds of which Floyd was non-responsive. Ā ā ABC News
Artists honor George Floyd by painting a mural in Minneapolis on Thursday, May 28, 2020. Artists began work on the mural that morning.Ā (Photo: Jacqueline Devine/Sun-News)
Today I find myself deeply in mourning for the violence that happens in our country. I find myself trying to share in the grief of my friend and knowing I cannot fully feel the depth of it. Today I find myself unable to emotionally move away from it all. Today I contemplate George Floydās cry, āI canāt breathe.ā
If there is any comfort at all, it comes as a gift of the artists pictured here. In an act of caring, they offer this mural at a memorial for George Floyd.
The names of other victims of violence are painted in the background.Ā The words, āI canāt breathe!ā will remain in our memories. Today we are together in mourning.
But tomorrow, I will celebrate Pentecost. I wonder how to celebrate in a time when lamentation feels more appropriate. I wonder how to celebrate when brothers and sisters have died violent deaths and when thousands of protesters line the streets of many U.S. cities. I wonder how to celebrate when protesters are obviously exposing themselves to COVID19.
Still, tomorrow ā even in such a time as thisĀ ā I will celebrate the breath of the Spirit. Tomorrow I will join the celebration that has something to do with being together, being one. To juxtapose the joyous celebration of Pentecost with the horrible picture of what we saw in cities throughout our country for the past few nights seems an impossible undertaking. What does one have to do with the other?
Perhaps they do share a common message. From those who protest, this message:
āWe bring our broken hearts and our anger for the killing of our people, for the murders across the ages of people who are not like you. You treat us differently than you treat the people who look like you. For as long as we can remember, you have visited upon us oppression, slavery, racist violence, injustice. And we are tired. We are spent. We are beside ourselves with collective mourning. We canāt breathe!ā
From those who celebrate Pentecost, this message:
āHow we celebrate the day when the Holy Spirit breathed upon those gathered together, with gifts of wind and fire!
How we celebrate the story told in the 2nd chapter of Acts!ā
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.
They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.Ā When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken.Utterly amazed, they asked: āArenāt all these who are speaking Galileans?Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language?Ā Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,Ā Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from RomeĀ (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabsāwe hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!āĀ Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, āWhat does this mean?ā
Some, however, made fun of them and said, āThey have had too much wine.ā
Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: āFellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say.These people are not drunk, as you suppose. Itās only nine in the morning!No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
āāIn the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and your daughters will prophesy, last days, God says,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy.āā Ā ā Acts 2:1-18 NIV
The people did not, in fact, have too much wine. Peter made it clear that wine did not empower the people who gathered in Jerusalem ā Ā āevery people under heavenā ā to speak and understand as they heard every word spoken in their own language. That would be a start, would it not, if we could speak the same language and truly understand ā people who have flesh-colored skin, and brown and bronze, and red and black . . . every skin color under the sun. If only we could understand each other.
And then, what if we could gather together, welcoming every person? What if we could truly gather together and wait for Spirit to fall upon us with empowerment like we have never known before? What if we allowed the Spirit to give us breath, together?
In the end, there is a tiny bit of joy in George Floydās tragic story. It is a joy much deeper than realityās sorrow. The artists completed their mural, and in the very center near the bottom, they had painted words that express the greatest truth of all.
Can you see it behind the little girl? āI can breathe now!ā
What if we welcome Spirit Breath that will change us? What if we embrace empowerment from the Holy Spirit to help us change our world? What if we end oppression and injustice, together? What if holy perseverance could inspire us to live and act in solidarity with our sisters and brothers, all of them?
What if we dare to give our soulās very breath to help bring about Beloved Community, together?
Together! Together!
May my God ā and the God of every other person ā make it so. Amen.
In the end, the Missouri Department of Transportation got sweet revenge! Sure, they couldnāt Ā remove the KKKās adopt-the-highway sign, but few would dispute the stateās ability to name the highway itself. So the
Here is where I must focus. My heart must long for an end to injustice. So must yours, because Godās heart grieves over the mayhem in our streets and the violence that has its way when a white police officer murders a black man or woman, even a black child.
I hear my dear friends cry out for justice. I hear them using words to make sense of it all, and I hear their voices fall silent. Silent, with just these words, āIām tired.ā A dear friend posted the words on the left this morning. I want to see her face to face. I want to be together. I want to comfort her, hoping beyond hope that it is not too late for comfort.
āHow we celebrate the day when the Holy Spirit breathed upon those gathered together, with gifts of wind and fire!
In the end, there is a tiny bit of joy in George Floydās tragic story. It is a joy much deeper than realityās sorrow. The artists completed their mural, and in the very center near the bottom, they had painted words that express the greatest truth of all.
God of the Sparrow š± By Kathy Manis Findley 