Black Heritage Month - Four
Liberation Lectionary ~ First Sunday of Lent
Life in the Season of Lent
“There is no reason for the establishment to fear me. But it has every right to fear the people collectively. I am one with the people.” Huey Newton
Kwanda - My World
Meditation & Prayer
Poem for Meditation: Invitation to Love, by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Come when the nights are bright with stars
Or come when the moon is mellow;
Come when the sun his golden bars
Drops on the hay-field yellow.
Come in the twilight soft and gray,
Come in the night or come in the day,
Come, O love, whene’er you may,
And you are welcome, welcome.
Prayer
God who is Love, Creator and Protector of Black Futures. Thank you for bringing us closer to you and to each other through this Black Heritage Month journey, in this season and beyond.
Help us to welcome each other as we enter a season of reflection and release. Help us to rejoice in the ways that you have made us, weak and strong, fierce and feeble. Able to be fearless, able to acknowledge that we are so often afraid. Deliver us from evil, O God. Deliver us from evil. Give us the communion gift of daily bread, served with the strong fruits of the Spirit.
We come to your table O God. As Dunbar writes, we come in the night and in the day. Meet us Holy Spirit of help, please come to the table too, whenever you may. You are welcome, welcome. We pray and reflect as we long for your presence. Amen.
Scripture & Lesson: A Welcome Choice
Read Deuteronomy 30
The prophet, leader and liberator Moses is ending a scroll length sermon, which makes up almost all of the book of Deuteronomy. He wanted to impress important points on the people before he goes to walk with the Lord and the ancestors. Moses wanted to make it plain that their Covenant with God would not depart when he moved on. He let them know that the presence of God means life. And listed all the possible outcomes of choosing the life of adversity.
Key Verses. Deuteronomy 30.15-20
“Now, I set a choice before you today: life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to Them, and to keep Their commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to steward.
But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.
This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to Their voice, and hold fast to Them. For the Lord is your life, and God will give you many years in the land They swore to give to your ancestors.”
For this week’s lesson, we turn to the prophetic message presented at St. John’s Church in North St. Louis. Minister Duana Russell Thomas gives a children’s lesson and sermon focusing on making the important choice between following God’s covenant or not.
The Minister says “Humans seem to struggle with making decisions. One study shows that we make 226 decisions per day just on what we are going to eat! Then we turn around and change our minds anyway. Or we just don’t follow through. So I have learned that decisions involve memory and emotion. It’s not just logic, pros and cons, maybe we are scared to fail, afraid of the unknown. In order for decisions to mean anything, they require more than just smart goals and follow through, they require commitment.”
This is a word that comes right in time with the beginning of Lent. Lent is a season of repentance and reflection that began last Wednesday, on a day we call Ash Wednesday. Today is the first Sunday of Lent.
Lent is a Christian tradition observed during the 40 days before Easter - or Resurrection Day. While many Christians do not observe Lent, some increase prayer and fasting: throwing out useless, negative or distracting objects and practices, and giving material possessions to people in need. Lent is also fraught with judgment of self and neighbor. Can this season be helpful in any way?
We believe that this season can be helpful. But dismantling the historically offkey and harmful aspects of Lent observation requires a choice, and a commitment. For many, faithfully observing Lent requires a forced sense of scarcity. We believe Lent can mean an attitude of God's sufficiency. Fasting and study, prayer and intentional acts of solidarity are a few ways we can move in ways that decrease our total dependance on self, and increase our rooted identity in God’s sufficiency.
There is a long history of preparing for Lent. Mardi Gras is connected to this season. Mardis Gras is also called Fat Tuesday, and the phrases are the same. Mardi is Tuesday in French. Gras is fat in French. It's the day before Ash Wednesday, when the Lenten fast begins. People who observe Lent would try to use up all the fat and oils, leavening, alcohol, meats and sweets in their homes, so they could keep the Lenten fast without temptations. This has historically made for quite a party! Mardi Gras celebrations, also called Carnival, happen around the world.
In many ways they are part of the reclamation of faith-rootedness which many Afro-diasporic and Global South communities hold as meaningful.
Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent and the day after Mardi Gras, reminds us that humanity is finite. Traditionally we speak the phrase "dust to dust", and wear ashes on our foreheads made from last year's Palm Sunday branches.
Lent reminds us to honor the limits that God created in us and called good. We might abstain from activities, food and drink, words, habits or belongings by which we tend to forget this truth. The God of Abundance is sufficient for all that we need and all we desire.
Observing Lent during Black Heritage, Black Love, and Black Futures Month, reminds us that humanity's finiteness is our divine power. The power of God is revealed in the power of the people, and we need each other to survive. Mama bell hooks wrote "healing happens in community." And we are the evidence of this, through our past, present and future thriving. Whatever you decide to do for Lent, may it lead you to deeper knowledge of God's sufficiency for your life. May it lead you to deeper love for the limits that God created in you, for your good. May you reflect and discover what you need to reduce. May you be refreshed by that process, and ready yourself to rejoice. For this season of reflection always ends in Resurrection.
Watch Minister Duana Russell-Thomas’s full kid’s lesson and sermon here on St. John’s Church’s youtube channel.
Music : from Black History Month Playlist
But I've been here before
Don't let your loss
Make you scared of changes
They're with you always
Through love, I know you're close
Make you scared of changes - They're with you always
You fight in the dark
But all you need is a little love, a bit of love
But I've been hurt in a world with unfriendly faces
If you try to go
Where you don't belong
You can lose yourself
What you runnin' from?
Even though you're lost
Know our spirit's one
Even though you're lost
Know our spirit's one