Renewal Week Six
LIBERATION LECTIONARY ~ LATINE HERITAGE MONTH
Waiting On the Way
“We don’t have anything to fear. I don’t know today, I don’t know tonight whether I’ll actually get back to Ruleville, but all that they can destroy is the Fannie Lou that you meet tonight, but it’s the Fannie Lou that God holds, who will keep on living, day after day.” -Fannie Lou Hamer
Meditation: Prayers of the People
Day to day, there is always a reason to raise our cries to God. Whether through the lens of history, or in response to current events, the practice of prayer is our daily portion. Use these quotes and happenings in history and from this week to direct your meditation and prayer times as you walk through the prayers of God’s people through time and place.
“You have asked me to give a history of the motives which induced me to undertake the insurrection, as you call it, to do so I must go back to the days of my infancy,and even before I was born.” Nat Turner, born Oct 2, 1800 in Southampton, Virginia.
Nathanial was an enslaved man who led a rebellion of enslaved people on August 21, 1831. This uprising resulted in a new wave of oppressive legislation strictly prohibiting the education, movement, and assembly of Black people. 200 Black people were massacred by white mobs in some cases, and in other cases as a threat to the 75 fellow enslaved people who joined Nat. At least 57 of them were executed. When Nat Turner was caught, after hiding out for six weeks, he was executed. His body was cut apart and sold around the region for memorabilia. In February 1831, Nat saw a vision of warfare during an eclipse, he was convinced that he must raise up an army. His confession and narrative after he was captured struck terror in white people throughout the “slave states” at the time, and while gradual emancipation was considered as an outcome of his rebellion, the eventual result was even more strict laws repressing enslaved Black people. This rebellion is regarded by some as one of the early sparks that resulted in the United States Civil War.
“Having soon discovered to be great, I must appear so, and therefore studiously avoided mixing in society, and wrapped myself in mystery, devoting my time to fasting and prayer.” Nat Turner
Pray in your own way
Lord, we cry to you in our distress. Deliver our people from the deceitful tongue of white supremacy, bring ruin to the fortresses of our oppressors. Set us under your covering. And Lord, please fight our battles. Be strong and show up for us. Our people do not deserve death and execution. Our people need a freedom that reaches back even to times before we were born. Let us live the freedom our brother Nat fought for, let us live and not see any more of your beloved Black children die. Make all things new. O God. Death by white terror is old news. We are waiting for the way to new life, never ending. Send us that vision today.
“One day, I know the struggle will change.” Fannie Lou Hamer, born Oct 6, 1917 in Montgomery County, MS. Mother Fannie Lou was one of the most powerful organizers in the mid-century civil rights movement, and one of the most powerful Black women of faith who ever organized for radical Black political power. She founded and stewarded a community for working people who had been neglected by the local government because of their race and class. She was sterilized against her will by a racist doctor. She adopted children, youth and young adults, and lived a full life. She was threatened, beaten, targeted and pushed out (almost) of the work that changed the political landscape of Mississippi. Mama Fannie never gave up, and sang her way through struggle. She joined the ancestors at 59 years old. And we wish she would have stayed with us longer, but she earned her rest. “When I liberate myself, I liberate others. If you don’t speak out, ain’t nobody going to speak out for you.” Fannie Lou Hamer
Pray in your own way:
Spirit of Mama Fannie, you gave her the song “This Little Light of Mine” over and over again. You led her to sing songs while she suffered in jail. Make her song a reality. Give her songs to the people who follow in her footsteps, fight for political power and sense her spirit ever with us. As you rise up to your liberate your people, O God, will you give us the faith to believe like Mama Fannie - to know that someday the struggle will change.
October 4th, Thailand. A massacre of children and caregivers occurred at a daycare facility in the Na Klang district of Nong Bua Lamphu. After slaying dozens, the assailant went home and murdered his family, then killed himself. When asked how the assailant, who was known to be unstable, could have accessed the serious firearms, locals said “Strict gun laws can be bypassed with bribes or connections in the bureaucracy.”
Pray in your own way:
God of life, God of comfort, surround the suffering and those who grieve. Bring justice for the lives lost in Thailand and have your way in the hearts of everyone who is rightly enraged. We feel helpless in these times, O God, we need your governance. Do not let harm bypass and bribe its way into the places we have built to be safe. Protect your innocent children. Protect their lives. End violence and suffering. Let every new mercy bring us some hope, and send the Holy Spirit to both soothe pains and search hearts. Please Lord, hear our cry. Amen, Ashé.
The earth is groaning. Our own homes, hearts and minds are full of fury and fear. Storms, floods, landslides in the Philippines have taken 167 lives, 2 million people are displaced and impacted in various ways. Japan, China, Puerto Rico, Florida. Kentucky’s mortality count from recent flooding has risen to 40 lives lost. In any direction we look we will find a disaster. What are our practices for relief?
Dear Lord, just come on over here and get us, God. We cannot continue to count the loss and destruction - but we desire to lean into you. We desire to sense ourselves as part of the universe you have made. Give us your compassion, your patience, your wisdom, and your sense of surety in your own promise. Bring us the renewal we are trying to believe is on the way, light the way while we are in the waiting, which makes faith worth the risk.
Scripture Readings: Psalms 120, 121
Sunday: Psalm 120.1-2 “In my distress I cry to the Lord, that They may answer me: ‘Deliver me, O Lord, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue.”
Monday: Psalm 120. 3-7 “What shall be given to you? And what more shall be done to you, you deceitful tongue? A warrior’s sharp arrows, with glowing coals of the broom tree! Woe is me, that I am an alien in Meshech, that I must live among the tents of Kedar. Too long have I had my dwelling among those who hate peace. I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war.”
Tuesday: Psalm 121.1-2 “I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”
Wednesday: Psalm 121.3-4 “The Lord will not let your foot be moved; the One who keeps you will not slumber. The Lord who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.”
Thursday: Psalm 121.5-6 “The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day nor the moon by night.”
Friday Psalm 121.7 “The Lord will keep you from all evil; They will keep your life.”
Saturday. Psalm 121.8 “The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.”
Reflection: Latinx Liberation Theology
As we continue to celebrate Latiné Heritage Month, we are listening to theological perspectives from South America- which is the birthplace of a historic and contemporary liberation theology. As you read this reflective flow of collected quotes from multiple voices of Liberation Theology in the Latin Diaspora, bring your own reflections and descriptions of what a theology of liberation means for you. Our work is written in the tradition of Black Liberation theology, which is described as "God's presence in the world depicted through God's involvement in the struggle for justice," by Anthony Pinn, who teaches philosophy and religion at Rice University in Houston. Abolition Theology is another framework we align with, it has been summarized as the belief that Christianity must involve repair from carceral spirituality, because punishment is not a path to safety, and threats of punishment are not the basis of salvation.
Discussion Questions: How do these theologies of liberation interact with each other? How do they interact with your own sense of knowing God? If you developed a theology, how would you describe it?
“This is what liberation theology is—the effort to reclaim and develop the political dimension of Gospel faith in order to reinforce the struggle of the poor. The poor were the first subscribers of the Gospel. Jesus became poor. Until now, the political dimension of Christianity has reinforced the established powers. The bishop was always allied with the governor, mayor and other authorities.” Leonardo Buff, Brazil
“Overcoming the colonial mentality is one of the important tasks of the Christian community. In this way, it will be able to make a genuine contribution to the enrichment of the universal Church; it will be able to face its real problems and to sink deep roots into a continent in revolution.” Gustavo Gutierrez, Peru
“The core of liberation theology is rooted in the very nature of God. You see, there's an immediate relationship between God, oppression, liberation: God is in the poor who cry out. And God is the one who listens to the cry and liberates, so that the poor no longer need to cry out.
I tend more and more to use the category of "the one who cries out" rather than "the poor." Everyone cries out. A woman starting a new life, a marginalized Black woman, a child who can't go to school because of hunger—they're all crying out! My question is: Who listens to the cry of the poor, to the cry of women, the cry of those who are suffering?
Liberation theology is born from this effort to listen to the cry of the oppressed—even the rich person who cries out because they're in despair! The person who suffers from an empty life must also be liberated and listened to. God also listens to them! Jesus cried from the cross and God resurrected him. It is only passing through the cross, through the crying out, that God can say, "Everything is going to be OK." Leonardo Buff
Resources
ART: Ibrahim Bamidele - Peace // Bridges to the West // From the Light
Storms, Flooding, Drought in Asia
Climate Change in 2022 / Visual Aid from @futureearth