Readings:
Isaiah 58:7-10
1 Corinthians 2: 1-5
Matthew 5:13-16
Grief and Praise
I’d like to do something a little
different in the homily tonight, there are different stories and contexts I
want to share that are all woven together through this chorus of grief and
praise, and so I’d like to teach you a song, that we can sing together
throughout the homily, as we weave these stories together. You up for that?
You have the words on a half sheet of
paper, I’ll sing a couple lines then have you repeat it back to learn the tune.
This is a song by Auspry that I learned at a community song circle.
[teach Grief and Praise]
Grief and Praise, Grief and Praise
Oh it turns the world around
Grief and Praise, Grief and Praise
I was lost but now I’m found
I can feel it in my bones, yeah in my bones
Crack me open like a stone, yeah like a stone
So when you hear me say “Grief and Praise”
throughout the homily, I invite you to join me in this chorus.
There are a four different but intersecting
contexts to our liturgy this evening that I’d like us to focus on. The first is
the context of the faith tradition passed down through the centuries revealed
in our Scripture readings tonight. Jesus as a Jewish rabbi, knew well the
Hebrew Scriptures, particularly the prophets as he quoted them and their
teachings often. It is the passage from Isaiah tonight that gives context to
Jesus’ message about salt and light. Pairing the reading from Isaiah with this
Gospel prevents an individualistic interpretation and puts it into its proper
context of community, and more specifically a community that ensures the most
vulnerable are cared for and protected as the true path towards making God’s
light and love shine forth in the world.
There’s this great series of If/Then
statements - IF you remove from your
midst oppression, false accusation and malicious speech; IF you bestow your bread on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted; THEN light shall rise for you in the
darkness, and the gloom shall become for you like midday. We can’t just say,
“I’m going to let my light shine today” and then do nothing else. Non-action,
silence, and complicity in systems of oppression are the equivalent of
continuing to hide our light under a bushel basket, regardless of what we
profess with our lips. The light in us, this spark of the divine present in all
of creation, is what impels us to take action, to feed the hungry, clothe the
naked, shelter the unhoused, call out the lies and malicious speech that
surround us and enter into the struggle for liberation from all interconnected
systems of oppression.
And this is not easy work. It is work that
calls us to enter into the suffering, to be broken open, to shed tears of
grief. But it is also through these salty tears we shed that our hearts of
stone are broken open so that the light of Christ, the light of divine love,
can being to shine forth. As you gather around the altar tonight, you will be
encouraged to symbolize the tears you shed for the world by placing a pinch of
salt into the bowl of water before the altar, entrusting them to the community
gathered and the mystery of transformation we celebrate in the breaking and
sharing of the bread. The stories of the steadfast presence of God,
accompanying us, working for liberation in the context of great oppression and
suffering, stories of salt and light, these are our stories, the stories of our
ancestors, stories full of Grief and Praise.
Grief and Praise, Grief and Praise
Oh it turns the world around
Grief and Praise, Grief and Praise
I was lost but now I’m found
I can feel it in my bones, yeah in my bones
Crack me open like a stone, yeah like a stone
We are also in February, black history month,
a time to honestly acknowledge and repent for the horrors endured by the black
community at the hands of white supremacy and also celebrate the incredible
brilliance and triumph of their spirit and the many ways they have made a
positive impact in the world. Both are needed as we seek to live out the call
of the prophet, to remove from our midst all oppression, false accusation, and
malicious speech.
We need to tell the whole truth about the
complicity of white Christians in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the wealth
accumulated on the backs of enslaved Africans, the abuse and torture of chattel
slavery, and the silence and quiet complicity of all those who did nothing. We
need to keep looking at how these systems of racial oppression continue to
disproportionately harm the black community in the U.S. in basically every
category of human rights. We can’t be salt and light, if we don’t honestly face
this history and present reality.
And we also need to tell the whole truth about
the incredible brilliance, culture, and creativity of the many diverse people
from the continent of Africa, who were brought to this country against their
will and yet managed to keep alive that spark of the divine within them, resisting
oppression and liberating their communities and continuing to foster and
encourage that same spirit of brilliance, culture, and creativity of their
ancestors. As we sit in the context of black history month, we sit in the
reality of grief and praise.
Grief and Praise, Grief and Praise
Oh it turns the world around
Grief and Praise, Grief and Praise
I was lost but now I’m found
I can feel it in my bones, yeah in my bones
Crack me open like a stone, yeah like a stone
Today is also the feast of St. Josephine
Bakhita, patron saint of survivors of human trafficking, as she herself was a
survivor of slavery in the 1800s. Her feast was chosen as the World Day of
Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking. So we take time today to
reflect on her story, an important part of black Catholic history, and connect
it to our current reality that holds both grief for the millions of people in
our world who are still enslaved through forced labor and sexual exploitation
and also praise for the many who have been able to escape, reclaim their
freedom, and pursue their dreams.
St. Bakhita was born in the Darfur region of
South Sudan in 1869. At the age of seven she was kidnapped by Middle Eastern
slave traders and re-sold multiple times throughout her childhood and
adolescence. She was sold so many times she forgot her original name, and was
given the name Bakhita by her slaver owners which meant “fortunate one.” She
eventually ended up in Italy and was entrusted to the care of the Canossian
Sisters while her owners were away on business. Living with the sisters she
came to learn more about God and was able to put words to this Spirit that
accompanied her and kept her alive during the brutal years of slavery. With the
help of the Sisters and the patriarch of Venice she was granted her freedom and
officially joined the order of the Canossian Sisters in 1896, choosing the name
Josephine for herself. She lived and ministered with the Sisters the remainder
of her life, sharing her story with all who would listen. She embodied the
teachings of the prophet, caring for the poorest around her, shining the light
of love brightly with all whom she encountered.
While the legal slave trade that existed in
the time of Bakhita has since been abolished, an illegal slave trade still
exists in our world today in the form of human trafficking. Economic and gender
based systems of oppression continue to treat people like commodities to be
used, bought and sold for an individual’s profit or pleasure. St. Bakhita was
targeted as a young girl, only 7 years old, and unfortunately children are
still targeted today both for sexual exploitation and labor. It is estimated
that one in four victims of human trafficking is a child. These aren’t just
children living in foreign countries, that are our children, right here in this
community who are being targeted.
I have been heart broken and inspired by the
stories of survivors who were first trafficked at ages as young as 4 or 5, many
by family members or trusted adults, and have since found the strength not only
to heal themselves as adults but to advocate on behalf of others, and I
continue to be outraged that this evil and abuse continues to persist in our
communities and our world. St. Bakhita’s story like the story of so many
survivors of human trafficking is one filled with deep grief and pain, but also
hope and praise for the possibility of healing, restoration, and new life. May this reality crack us open to let the
light shine through and heal the broken body of Christ through Grief and
Praise.
Grief and Praise, Grief and Praise
Oh it turns the world around
Grief and Praise, Grief and Praise
I was lost but now I’m found
I can feel it in my bones, yeah in my bones
Crack me open like a stone, yeah like a stone
Finally we are living in the context of our
own community’s story, one of transition and visioning as we take this 2020
year to reflect on who we are, where we have been and where we are going. We
are a community that over the years has experienced and shared together moments
of deep grief for communal losses and transitions and also deep joy and praise for
renewed life and hope. I believe this to be an important part of community, to
be able to bring our whole selves just as we are, to accompany one another
through the difficult moments of life as well as the celebratory ones.
To live the calling of our faith as Isaiah reminds
us is to reach out beyond the boundaries of this community to feed the hungry,
clothe the naked, shelter the unhoused, and remove all oppression and malicious
speech from our presence. It is by
entering into these painful realities, accompanying one another as siblings in
Christ, that THEN as the prophet reminds us, THEN we will make real the presence
of God on this earth and our light shall shine through. And that is something
to praise God for, that the spark of the divine in each of us grows and is
illuminated in and through community, loving and serving one another through
the good times and the bad, through both the grief and the praise.
Grief and Praise, Grief and Praise
Oh it turns the world around
Grief and Praise, Grief and Praise
I was lost but now I’m found
I can feel it in my bones, yeah in my bones
Crack me open like a stone, yeah like a stone
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