Juneteenth; Our Freedom Song

 Juneteenth; Our Freedom Song

Juneteenth is a Freedom Song for every American. If ever there were a way to mark our obedience to God, it would be in abolishing slavery. It is as much a celebration for white folks as it is for black folks. On August 1,1858 Abe Lincoln said; “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is not democracy.” It took until this day, June 19,1865 for General Gordon Granger of the Union Army to announce General Order Number 3 proclaiming freedom for enslaved people in Texas.  Thus Emancipation became complete in America! 

Today is a cause of celebration for all Americans. Much more work to be done to assure the continuation of freedom and democracy for all. So much of our democracy remains under growing threat if we do not remain vigilant.

Our struggles for Justice are always accompanied with music. Whether it is in the Reformation, slavery in this country, or the Great Hunger in Ireland, music has accompanied every struggle for freedom. Anglican chant, the great hymns of the church, , Negro Spirituals, jazz and the blues, or Irish folk; all our music is sacred music. 

The formation of faith itself begins with a song. The Psalter is the Hymn Book of Jesus. 

Today, the Psalmist sings; 

“As the deer longs for the water-brooks, *
        so longs my soul for you, O God.
My soul is athirst for God, athirst for the living God”

My ministry began with a song. When I was first ordained, before marriage and family, I knew I needed three things to engage all the struggles of ministry; a roof over my head, a serviceable means of transportation, and a good hi-fi system. A few months ago we traded out our old TV for a new Roku TV and matching Roku speakers. We love old TV reruns and when that has run its course, we listen to good music on any station we choose on iHeart Radio. This allows us to settle down a bit and rest our souls after a long day of appointments and errands. Thus we can maintain something akin to sanity.

Without sanity there is madness. Jesus’ encounter with the demoniac in today’s Gospel is illustrative of the inclination in the human spirit toward legions of madness. From war in the Ukraine to shootings in Uvalde and now St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Vestavia Hills, Alabama there is an inclination toward violence within the human breast. Hatred has infected the human heart and we are loath to allow Jesus to cure our wanton madness. There is too much divisiveness, too much anger, too much hate and way too many guns. White supremacists would take away our freedom in a heartbeat unless we hold them in check. 

I for one want to live in a country where we love one another more than we love our guns. 

Like my Celtic ancestors before me, I go through life unarmed. The only weapon I have is the Gospel. That Gospel is stirringly articulated by Paul in today’s letter to the Galatians. My soul rejoices with the inclusive love of Christ for all in obedience to the God. Paul’s reading of that Gospel is compelling to our spirits. He writes; “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” 

Jew or Greek; that means any race, ethnicity or language.

Slave or free; that means all folks no matter how rich or poor.

Male or female; that means you are all one in Christ without regard to gender, orientation or sexual identity. 

All my life I have worked along side you seeking to become a more inclusive church. Bishop Shaw once imagined God embracing humankind in ever widening circles of inclusive love. 

This makes the rise in hate crimes all the more disquieting. There will always be an Ahab and a Jezebel seething with murderous threats against the prophets of God. Just like there are gun toting madmen ready to slaughter innocent children or the elderly at a church pot luck supper. Who wouldn’t recoil in terror?

Elijah fled in fear. After all, Jezebel said; “You’re next!” 

But God pursued the prophet. “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

God said “Go stand on the mountain and I will pass by.”

And God did pass by but God was not in the earthquake the fire or the flood. God was in the sheer silence or the “still small voice” as other translations put it. 

What are we to make of our encounter with God? How can we ever fully understand it. The best we can do is embrace the will of God and do what God would have us do and sing our freedom songs. Without that song we’re lost.

Basil the Great once wrote; “When the Holy Spirit saw that humankind was ill-inclined toward virtue and that we were heedless of the righteous life because of our inclination to madness, what did she do? She blended the delight of melody with Scripture in order that, through the pleasantness and softness of sound, we might come to righteousness unaware that wise physicians might heal the soul as we drink from Christ’s cup rimmed with honey. For this purpose, these harmonious melodies have been designed for us, that we, may in reality be educating their souls. ~freely adapted from Basil the Great.

Today we come to a day of great significance in the lives of Janet and David King, the choir and congregation of Trinity Church. It is time to commend them for their service to this church and providing us with “harmonious melodies” for all these years. As you prepare to retire we wast to say to you; “Thank you”. 

Thank you Janet. Thank you David. “Music is praying twice.”

No mediation on music would be complete it without remembering what Johann Sebastian Bach wrote of all his prodigious efforts;

“Music is an agreeable harmony for the honor of God and the permissible delights of the soul.” “I play the notes as they are written, but it is God who makes the music.” “The final aim and reason of all music is nothing other than the glorification of God and the refreshment of the human spirit.” ~J.S. Bach

We are deeply grateful to you for honoring God the way you have done with your music. May it always be part of our Freedom Song. Glory be to God.

In the Name of God the Most Holy, Undivided and Everlasting Trinity. Amen

Fr Paul

Below are the reading for the Second Sunday after Pentecost with thoughts and words highlighted that speak to my soul.

Second Sunday after Pentecost

The Collect:

O Lord, make us have perpetual love and reverence for your holy Name, for you never fail to help and govern those whom you have set upon the sure foundation of your loving-­kindness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

First Lesson: 1 Kings 19:1-4, 8-15a

Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there. But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.”  He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.

At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there. Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” Then the Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus.”

Psalm 42 and 43

1 As the deer longs for the water-brooks, *
        so longs my soul for you, O God.
2 My soul is athirst for God, athirst for the living God; *
        when shall I come to appear before the presence of God?
3 My tears have been my food day and night, *
        while all day long they say to me,
        “Where now is your God?”
4 I pour out my soul when I think on these things: *
        how I went with the multitude and led them into the
                              house of God,
5 With the voice of praise and thanksgiving, *
        among those who keep holy-day.
6 Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? *
        and why are you so disquieted within me?
7 Put your trust in God; *
        for I will yet give thanks to him,
        who is the help of my countenance, and my God.
8 My soul is heavy within me; *
        therefore I will remember you from the land of Jordan,
        and from the peak of Mizar among the heights of Hermon.
9 One deep calls to another in the noise of your cataracts; *
        all your rapids and floods have gone over me.
10 The Lord grants his loving-kindness in the daytime; *
        in the night season his song is with me,
        a prayer to the God of my life.
11 I will say to the God of my strength,
   “Why have you forgotten me? *
        and why do I go so heavily while the enemy
                              oppresses me?”
12 While my bones are being broken, *
        my enemies mock me to my face;
13 All day long they mock me *
        and say to me, “Where now is your God?”
14 Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? *
        and why are you so disquieted within me?
15 Put your trust in God; *
        for I will yet give thanks to him,
        who is the help of my countenance, and my God.

1 Give judgment for me, O God,
   and defend my cause against an ungodly people; *
        deliver me from the deceitful and the wicked.
2 For you are the God of my strength;
  why have you put me from you? *
        and why do I go so heavily while the enemy
                               oppresses me?
3 Send out your light and your truth, that they may lead me, *
        and bring me to your holy hill
        and to your dwelling;
4 That I may go to the altar of God,
   to the God of my joy and gladness; *
        and on the harp I will give thanks to you, O God my God.
5 Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? *
        and why are you so disquieted within me?
6 Put your trust in God; *
        for I will yet give thanks to him,
        who is the help of my countenance, and my God.

Epistle: Galatians 3:23-29

Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

Gospel: Luke 8:26-39

Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me”— for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss. Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.