LIBERATION LECTIONARY

Community in the Spirit

“Who made up these rules that Black boys have to obey?” - Usher, lead character in A Strange Loop, written by Michael R. Jackson

At Pentecost, God’s Holy Spirit founded the Church, a place where people of faith serve their communities out of respect and love. In God’s Church, there are rules about loving our neighbors and repenting when we cause harm. In God’s Church, there are no rules about everyone in the community looking the same or living the same way. Our lives look different: we are queer, curvy, tall, dark skinned, quiet, deaf and much more. Our homes look different. Many families have only one parent, some have more than two. Some households have two mommies or two daddies, some have young people and elderly people, some have no children. The Holy Spirit liberates the hearts and minds of God’s church so that we can love like God loves, so that we can love everybody God loves. 

Liberated community means looking at our differences and seeing the diversity of God. It means being excited that there’s nobody else quite like you, but knowing there are many people who welcome you and want to learn about all the ways we are both different and alike. This is how the Holy Spirit works. God delivers us from the binary of good and evil, love and hatred. We have been convinced that if we see a difference between us and something or someone else, then that means we are supposed to hate that difference, and sometimes call it evil. We are conditioned to hate what we don’t understand.

Community is our theme for week two of Pentecost in Pride month. Download the full devotional, Liberated Pride.

We have been deceived into thinking that judging people’s identities is not the same as hating them. The Lord wants to save us from that hatred. Jesus became all we hate so that we could love each other through him. The Holy Spirit is our teacher who shows us how to see through hateful ideas that people disguise as God’s rules for living. At Pentecost, God’s people are liberated from oppression under a haughty hatred and then united to each other by real divine love.

Meditation: Philippians 2.1-2 

“Therefore if there is any encouragement in Jesus, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship with the Holy Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.”

 Set this verse to memory this week and pray through it whenever you encounter a harmless difference between you and someone else.

Music: June Jams and A Strange Loop

celebrating the wonderful intersections of Pentecost, Black Music Month and Pride Month. 

Check out this performance from Broadway show A Strange Loop, written by a Black gay man, about a Black gay man. Black music is everywhere, and Broadway has been a place where the power, prowess and contributions of Black composers were exploited, reduced or ignored. Not so any more, well - at least less and less. Broadway is now a place where the story of an usher named Usher can become a Tony Award winning show. Strange Loop Tiny Desk

Our monthly playlists continue! This month we’ve got June Jams, celebrating Black gospel music, queer artists and multiple Black owned genres. Download from Apple Music now!

Daily Readings: from Joel 2

Sunday Joel 2. 28-30 “I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days. I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth”

Monday Joel 2.12-13 Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment.Tuesday Joel 2.14-15 Who knows whether he will not turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God? Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people.

Wednesday Joel 2.18-19 Then the Lord became jealous for their land and had pity on their people. In response to their people the Lord said: “I am sending you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a mockery among the nations.”

Thursday Joel 2.21-22 Do not fear, O soil; be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things! Do not fear, you animals of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green; the tree bears its fruit; the fig tree and vine give their full yield.

Friday Joel 2.23-24 O children of Zion, be glad, and rejoice in the Lord your God, for they have given the early rain for your vindication; poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the later rain, as before. The threshing floors shall be full of grain; the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.

Saturday Joel 2.25-27 I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army that I sent against you. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame. You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel and that I, the Lord, am your God and there is no other. And my people shall never again be put to shame.

Reflection: Juneteenth on Father’s Day

This weekend has been full of amazing events across the country celebrating the day in 1865 that enslaved people in Galveston, Texas first heard that the Emancipation Proclamation effectively ended slavery in their state. Juneteenth is a combination of June and nineteenth. 

Enslaved people stopped toiling all around the state and celebrated the news. Against the odds of violence and deception, as white people tried to force Black folks to remain enslaved, our ancestors fled plantations, suffered lynchings and attacks, so we could take hold to the freedom already deserved. Before this day was named Juneteenth, our people called it a day of Jubilee. This word refers to the season appointed by God when enslaved people were set free, lands returned to ancestral claimants, and debts were forgiven. We still need a Jubilee day today, and that is one of the reasons that we uplift the cause of Reparations during Juneteenth. 

Today is also Father’s Day. Many people have complicated relationships with their dads. Many church people have been in the awkward mindset of assuming the only way to relate to God is through their father figure. Your dad is not your God. God wants to liberate all of us from a mindset that our dads have to carry that weight. And in years when Juneteenth meets Father’s Day, we are reminded that God wants to deliver our families from the lies that delay our freedom. For years, our ancestors in Texas and many states around the country denied the federal order that released enslaved people from their so-called masters. 

For centuries, Black families were ripped apart for profit because of racism and capitalism. Years after that, Black households were incentivized by classist laws to separate - because caregivers who lived as solo parents could receive more government support. Shame was applied to single parent households after laws denied our rights to raise families as we pleased. Judgment was cast on us in order to delay our liberated communities. But our God has given a promise that all shame will be removed. We have received God’s word that no matter when we hear the news of liberation, we can move forward in it, we can celebrate it, and in every Beloved Community that has been liberated, we can claim our festival of Jubilee.