Loading...We have been invited to ring the bell by our presiding bishop The Most Rev. Michael Curry. And so we will. In cooperation with Bishop Curry’s request I’ve asked that the bell be rung 40 times at the end of this sermon in honor of the conclusion of the 40 Days of Prayer Journey. At the Prayers of the People you will hear me add in the prayers from the devotional. Many here undertook this journey and will be familiar with those prayers.
Starting in July we read a daily devotion written by Cheri Mills of Simmons College. Cheri works at St. Stephens Church in Louisville. Each daily devotion starts with an excerpt from the Underground Railroad records of Robert Stills. Robert’s parents were slaves who were liberated during his lifetime. He helped other slaves who wanted to leave their owners and he recorded their circumstances.
I want to read a few excerpts for you. I am omitting the many accounts describing how beatings were a regular occurence when the masters returned home from worship on Sunday morning, including worship in the Episcopal church. [I invite you to read these short excerpts on your own.
https://bsk.edu/40-days-of-prayer2/
I borrow words of the staff of Christ Church Bowling Green who say it best: On August 20, 1619, “twenty and odd” Angolans, who had been kidnapped by Portuguese traders and stolen by English privateers, were sold to colonists at Jamestown, Virginia; traded, in fact, for food. Of these more than twenty women and men, Angela is the first enslaved person to be listed, by name, in the census. It is in her name that the “Angela Project”, a ministry of Simmons College of Kentucky, has worked to bring to light the impact of 400 years of slavery and its evolution in America.
For the last forty days, more than a dozen members of St. James Pewee Valley have engaged in a journey of prayer and study. We have read forty stories of enslaved people escaping to freedom via the Underground Railroad. We have heard the ways in which the descendants of enslaved Africans have been systematically oppressed, long after the 13th Amendment outlawed slavery in the United States. We have prayed for the liberation of the American descendants of slavery. We have been invited to repent of the ways in which we have perpetuated systems that dehumanize, subjugate, and marginalize.
Today marks the end of that 40 day journey as we commemorate 400 years of slavery in America. The bells ring out hope that the sins of the past might be forgiven, that healing might be possible, and that God might use us to bring hope to places that seem hopeless.
Ringing bells won’t bring about racial healing. It won’t undo the 400 years of systematic oppression, but it can be another step along the long journey of healing and reconciliation. By simply making noise, we overcome the tendency to remain silent, fearful to say the wrong thing, to admit complicity, or to lose one’s position of power or prestige.
Today we join with the faithful all over this land asking God to be present in Pewee Valley, Oldham County, in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and our Nation, as we seek to heal the pains of the past and look forward to a hope-filled future. (Thank you to the Rev. Steve Pankey)
Today is a liberation anniversary day for many. Today we read the story about one woman’s liberation from disability when Jesus seeks her out in the crowd to free her. His healing is answered by rebuke from those who benefit from the status quo. Today marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Paris in 1944, but when exactly was the end of the Third Reich?
Today is the anniversary of when the Nicene Creed when Christianity was liberated from Arian heresy. And yet church strife and separation continues to splinter those who claim unity in one Lord.
As modern enlightened Americans, we celebrate diversity and equality as the home of the brave, but today is the anniversary of Angela’s bondage on these lands, lands we say are free. Emancipation has many kinds of anniversaries. When the sound of the bells liberate us from our personal status quo may we be set free as those raised in Christ to love and to serve.
