LIBERATION LECTIONARY

Resurrection Power Rising

“You can fall, but you can rise also.”  -Angelique Kidjo

Daily Readings  

- on the power of the Resurrection as taught in the book of Colossians. Sunday readings reflect the honoring of Resurrection Day as a day of worship and praise. In the Christian tradition, we meet as congregations on the first day of the week because Jesus came back to life on the first day of the week. So during Resurrection Season, Sundays hold remembrance for this sacred return.

Sunday: Psalm 118.26-29 Blessed is she who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless all the congregation, from the house of the Lord. The Lord is God, and She has made her light to shine on us. With boughs in her hand, join in the festive procession up to the place of celebration. O God, you are our God, and we will praise you; you are our God, and we will exalt you. Give thanks to the Lord, for She is good; Her love endures forever.

Monday: Colossians 3.1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Tuesday: Colossians 3.2-3 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

Wednesday: Colossians 3.4 When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Thursday: Colossians 3.5-11 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming.[a] In these you once walked, when you lived in them. But now put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and foul talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old nature with its practices and have put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scyth′ian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all.

Friday: Colossians 3.12-14 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience, forbearing one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

Saturday: Colossians 3.15-17 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, and sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Reflection: Rise Up

A few weeks ago we read John 20 for our daily scriptures. In John 20. 11-18, we have the story of Jesus speaking to Mary on the first Resurrection Day. When Jesus looks at Mary in the garden and speaks to her, she hears him plainly when he speaks her name. She was so overwhelmed with shock and grief that she could not see who was speaking to her, and she could not recognize his voice. 

Much like Mary, we need a rising word. We need to hear our names called by the King of Life. We need a realization that the God who built our breath is standing beside us asking us to share our griefs so that we can have our sorrows answered with divine solace. 

Mary was lifted from a fog of grief and given the good news. We have access to this same revelation, and we can relate to Mary’s journey. When in grief, we often recognize conspiracies more easily than comforts. We are on edge, convinced that hopelessness is the answer. 

When the garden is a graveyard, we need more time to sort out the voices that are threats from those that are trustworthy. Death and loss overtake us, slowly or suddenly, sadly and scarily. 

Can God show up and speak our name in these trials? Is God so geeked on life-giving that They have no concept of the power that death still wields across time and place? The ancient stories can certainly be encouraging, but we can’t always dig in and relate right away - when Lazarus comes back after being dead for three days, Jesus too. Our grandmothers ashes are still just that. Our mamas cancer has not reversed. Our brothers and babies siblings are being taken by violence and medical apartheid. We are walking through a garden of gravestones. Does God know that gravestones are appearing everywhere, even the grocery store? 

At a grocery store in Buffalo New York, on Saturday May 14th at 2:30pm local time, a heavily armed teenager drove in from his home hours away with the intent to murder Black people on livestream. The New York Times reports “He was wearing tactical gear and body armor, with a video camera fixed to his helmet. He was carrying an assault rifle, with an anti-Black slur written on the barrel.” The mixture of unsurprising and unthinkable is too weathering for words. We are in a season of weeping because of death, it doesn’t feel right to keep talking about life. People are mourning their loved ones. Someone is experiencing secondary trauma. Families acquainted with mass shootings are mourning with Buffalo; maybe some of them are working to stay emotionally clear from being triggered. This is dire. “People power” feels like a weak answer. Our enemies are sleepless. Our people are tired. 

We need death’s dismantler, we need the great defeater of corruption and decay. We need the one who weeps with us and also knows when to fight for us - even while we are unable. When we cannot hold on to promises of paradise and reuniting with everyone in the ancestral realm, we have a humble king who stands up for us when we are bowed down. He is the one who rises when we are in free fall. 

For every human who is hurting for the lives lost, in Buffalo, Sandy Hook, Orlando. Jesus calls our name. Whether or not we recognize him, Jesus asks us what our tears are for. He invites us to declare our burdens and suspicions. He does not block our mourning. He does not force us to mitigate our rage. He raises our voices, whether wailing or worshipful. He causes our daring to rise so that we can challenge oppression, demand justice and organize for change. He lifts up our power, like a parent carrying a child on their shoulders. He lifts up the power of the people. He blesses our power as a gift, a testimony from all of the struggles he has seen - so that the power of the people is often the same as God’s power. A power that cannot be diminished or destroyed.

For when we mourn together, we defy the divisive nature of death - and so we strip death of its power. When we cry out and refuse to keep silent about the evils which stalk us day and night -  we strip danger and racism of the power to damn us to death. This is the uprising of the resurrection. 

Resurrection is a reminder that Jesus did not only bring us life, he wrestled with death and evil and brought back the power for us to do the same. He faced betrayal, he was well acquainted with grief and loss, and he experienced deep pains. And when he got up, he brought up with him in the resurrection the resolve and confidence that we inherited from his rebirth. 

Resurrection is a rising up that represents God’s people empowered to never again be cut down by any threat.

Resurrection is a remembrance of God’s power rising so that we know where our empowerment is grounded. 

Read more on mass shooting in Buffalo from the New York Times

Music: Resurrection Playlists

YouTube Video Playlist

Apple Music Playlist

Meditation  

Still I Rise, by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt - But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, 

Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes?Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard - ’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise - That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame - I rise. Up from a past that’s rooted in pain - I rise. I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear - I rise. Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear - I rise. Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise. I rise. I rise.