Renewal Week Three
LIBERATION LECTIONARY ~ LATINE HERITAGE MONTH
Renewal by Revolution
“Looking at the past must only be a means of understanding more clearly what and who they are so that they can more wisely build the future.” -Paulo Freire
Meditation - It Is
Latine Heritage Month is September 15th thru October 15th. As we begin 30 days of celebration, appreciation and honor for Latine and Hispanic peoples, we remember that neither Blackness nor Latine identity are monoliths. This week’s meditation is from Kiah Glen, a Muslim poet who is Afro Latino.
It is arroz con gandules. It is pastelillos out the grease. It is malta and platano chips. It is sun-warmed coconuts. It is coquis in summer. It is “bendición,” when you answer the phone. It is loud hellos and long goodbyes.
It is my mother telling the salon owner we will never come back, because her daughter doesn’t have “pelo malo” and how dare you. It is “But you don’t look, Latina. You just look, Black”.
It is Puerto Rican Day Parades with my madrina. It is Three Kings Day with cousins. It is Marc and Celia and cleaning on Saturdays. It is always my Mama’s warmth and her carrot cake
It is “We aren’t coming to your wedding”. It is “But we are ALL Latinos, don’t make it about race”. It is “Latinos aren’t Muslims” and “Afro-Latinos aren’t real”.
It is the first Quran in Spanish that makes me cry. It is ¡Feliz Ramadan! It is Eid Mubarak mi amor.
It is hijabs for Christmas. It is Insha’Allah muñeca to my daughter. It is bacalao for iftar
It is salsa dancing in my khimar. It is all of these things. It is so much more. It Is
by Kiah Glen
Reflection
We are in the last days of summer, and renewal season has been rough for many of us thus far. Material needs and mental health emergencies, uncertainty about the future of work, friendships, loss of loved ones. It can get very difficult to manage the need to function at top capacity and the real need to rest. When life feels confusing, spiritual practice is a place that we can turn to seek clarity amidst chaos. But what happens when your renewal journey causes you to question your spiritual practice, or your theology as a whole? Earlier this summer we had a visit from our friends Don Abrams and Calvin Taylor, who lead the initiative Pride in the Pews. As Don and Calvin visit with Black Christians who believe that queer people are sacred to God, they have seen the use of theology born in a racialized context used by Black churches to speak damnation on queerness. Black people are the manifested brilliance of the creativity of God. All Black people, against all odds, have overcoming in our DNA. Motherland to Diaspora, Afro-descendence means revolutionary existence in the face of anti-blackness, histories of trafficking and current threats of racism, misogynoir, and all forms of terroristic whiteness. So it is eerie to think of how controlled we are by theologies and doctrines with empire origins.
Our faith comes from occupied Palestinians, not the imagination of a British king who felt like getting a divorce. Our vision of human origins must be in sync with our vision of the future. The colonial ideal of Christianity makes space for Blackness in neither of these. European Reformation had nothing to do with the identities of Black and brown people. Modern denominationalism refused welcome to queer people and disabled people. We cannot cling to traditions that do not speak God’s love and power to all people. One of the most fundamental experiences of rebirth in our faith is baptism. In this season of renewal, we are searching ourselves, finding and reforming our real religious roots.
Now is the time for the movement of progressive Christians to dismantle connections to the empire and renew ourselves in intimacy with God. We must let go of the ethics that stalled liberation movements. We must release the dependence our churches have on uniformity in belief over alignment in purpose. We are people of faith, liberation-lens Christians. We are not colonizers, and that might be the most confusing thing about people in “westernized”, exclusively english language speaking systems that continue to challenge the status quo. The more we try to build a better world, the more we realize how hard it is to find tools that have not been tainted. With all of the conversation around colonizing, massacre and monarchy, we believe this season is an opportunity for us to look inward, to understand our theologies as works in progress. We are answering the call of our ancestors to follow God, not just anyone who claims to know Them.
For many protestant Christians around the world, the history of our denominations is tied to the oppressive rule of the British empire. The church as euro-centric history tells it is connected to an emperor named Constantine. The so-called Protestant church history is linked to the decisions of a king named Henry, the legend of a queen named Elizabeth I, and every relative who represented the succession of their throne. The Royal Family, validated as a moral order by the church, was presumed by many to be a symbol of hope and prosperity. The image of the monarchy was projected to be that of imperial benevolence. This most recently flowed from queen Elizabeth II, groomed to be a woman of class and character who ages into a lovable granny - obscuring the fact that the British empire has always been intensely violent.
The British empire once controlled 25% of the world’s landmass: this has deep and ongoing impact on Asian, Latin and African diasporas. Nearly one in five people around the world were British subjects. Among the tribes in Kenya which resisted British oppression, an era of uprising called Mau Mau saw the entire Kikuyu nation, 1.5 million people, forcibly displaced to detention camps.
The Queen of England’s full title is “Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of her other realms and territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith”
The god of Great Britain is imperialism, the fruit of that spirit is racism, terrorism, gendered classism and global anti-Blackness. This god is not our God. Our God came to bring favor to the oppressed. God came to give us power to join the work of creation, renewal, and imagination, and this is why we fight. Because the real royal family is vast, ancient, and full of people once considered last that God put first. “God save the queen” is a smoke screen. The true God who promised to end all empires has already given power to all oppressed people through the ages.
Caroline Elkins, a professor of African American Studies, writes on the subject of empire and violence. We recommend her interviews and published writings.
Daily Scripture Readings
Sunday: Revelation 21.5-6 “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.”
Monday: Isaiah 40.1-5 “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’”
Tuesday: Isaiah 40.6-9 “A voice says, ‘Cry out!’ And I said, ‘What shall I cry?’ All flesh is grass; their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers; the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers; the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’
Wednesday: Isaiah 40.10-15 “See, the Lord God comes with might, their arm rules; their reward is in hand, and their recompense present. God will feed their flock like a shepherd, gather the lambs in their arms, carry the lambs in their bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep. Who has measured the waters of the sea in the hollow of God’s hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? Who has directed the spirit of the Lord or as a counselor has instructed them? Whom did the Lord consult for enlightenment, and who taught them the path of justice? Who taught God knowledge and showed them the way of understanding? Even the nations are like a drop from a bucket and are accounted as dust on the scales; see, he takes up the isles like fine dust.”
Thursday Isaiah 40.17-22 “All the nations are as nothing before God; they are accounted by as less than nothing and emptiness. To whom, then, will you liken God, or what likeness compare with them? An idol? A workman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts for it silver chains. As a gift one chooses mulberry wood—wood that will not rot—then seeks out a skilled artisan to set up an image that will not topple. Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is God who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them like a tent to live in,”
Friday Isaiah 40.23-26 “who brings princes to naught and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing. Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when God blows upon them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble. To whom, then, will you compare me, or who is my equal? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these? The Lord, who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name; because they are great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing.”
Saturday Isaiah 40.27-31 “Why do you say, O Jacob, and assert, O Israel, ‘My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God?’ Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. God does not faint or grow weary; with understanding that is unsearchable. God gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted, but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”