Sermons from Mission Hills UCC San Diego, California Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] June 18, 2023 “Juneteenth is Our Story” Luke 4: 16-21 - Common English Bible Jesus went to Nazareth, where he had been raised. On the Sabbath he went to the synagogue as he normally did and stood up to read. 17 The synagogue assistant gave him the scroll from the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: 18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me. He has sent me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to liberate the oppressed, 19 and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.[a] 20 He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the synagogue assistant, and sat down. Every eye in the synagogue was fixed on him. 21 He began to explain to them, “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled just as you heard it.” One of my first classes in seminary was Old Testament 101. Many of our other classes the first week began with story sharing, getting to know professors and classmates, but not Dr. Merrill. He walked into the classroom, placed his thick binder of lecture notes on the podium, and said, “Let us bow our heads in prayer.” From this first interaction, we knew he was serious about his task of preparing pastors to preach from Holy Scripture. No other professor had begun class with prayer. After his amen, he opened his binder and said, “And now we begin at the beginning.” We all waited to hear his deep and melodious voice, “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth…” Dr. Merrill had a wonderful Bruce Ramet kind of voice. Instead, he said, “A wandering Aramean was my father.” We looked at each other with confusion. He started in the 26th chapter of the fifth book – Deuteronomy. I wanted to tell him that’s not the first book in the Bible, but he probably knew that. In fact, we didn’t reach Genesis, chapter one, verse one, until the next semester in Old Testament 102. The phrase “A wandering Aramean” dates back 2,000 years before the Common Era and, according to some scholars, is one of the oldest phrases given human breath.[1] Remarkably, it is found in fragments of some of the earliest writings ever found, dating back 1,800 years BCE, making it literally, or at least close to it, the first thing ever written that is in the Bible. Genesis wasn’t written down until more than a thousand years after that! “A wandering Aramean was my father” was a key phrase that shaped a people around a common narrative. But first, the word “wandering” sounds kind of quaint. We may imagine wandering as strolling through the cobblestone streets of an old European city or popping in and out of antique stores. Who is a wanderer? Maybe a traveler full of dreams written in a journal while sipping coffee. But the Hebrew word for wandering is actually closer to one who is destitute, desperate. The Common English Bible makes this clear: “My father was a starving Aramean.” To hear that line was to know that the story to follow tells us who we are. Our origin story is Deuteronomy 26, verse 5, our father was a starving Aramean who “went down to Egypt, living there as an immigrant with few family members, but that is where he became a great nation, mighty and numerous. 6 But the Egyptians treated us terribly, oppressing us and forcing hard labor on us. 7 So we cried out for help to the Lord, our ancestors’ God. The Lord heard our call. God saw our misery, our trouble, and our oppression. 8 The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, with awesome power, with signs and wonders 9 [and] brought us to this place and gave us this land—a land full of milk and honey.” And then the story continues, “10 So now I am bringing the early produce of the fertile ground that you, Lord, have given me.” This story leads us into instructions about tithing. Can you believe it? The oldest writing in the Bible leads to what we call stewardship! It is about responding to what God has done in our lives, but specifically demonstrated through tithes that support “immigrants, widows, orphans, and Levites,” meaning the ones who served as priests. Get this. The earliest form of tithes tied to one of the oldest stories includes making sure immigrants “can eat in your cities until they are full.” The Bible says so, literally, in Deuteronomy 26: 12. Not flown to another city and dumped at the door of a church. But I’ve gotten off track. It’s an invitation to stewardship but also expresses yearning for liberation. The oldest story in the Bible is not only about us but about our God who frees people suffering from cruel treatment and forced labor and also a promise that one day people would live in a land flowing with milk and honey. And in fact, reflecting back, now they were. In our country, it took a Civil War, waged for the soul of our nation, that killed more than 600,000 soldiers and even more citizens, to end the enslavement of people. Unfortunately, this is not only the oldest story in the Bible but one continually repeated. How could anyone think God would approve of anyone enslaving or being enslaved. Despite this clarity, yet President Lincoln said, “my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.” Which side seems quite clear. Just use the words of scripture and replace Egyptians with slaveowners. Slaveowners “treated us terribly, oppressing us and forcing hard labor on us. 7 So we cried out for help to the Lord, our ancestors’ God. The Lord heard our call. God saw our misery, our trouble, and our oppression. 8 The Lord brought us out… with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, with awesome power, with signs and wonders 9 [and] brought us to this place and gave us this land—a land full of milk and honey.” Except the story in America didn’t end this way – yet. No milk and honey. No 40 acres and a mule. Compensation was given to those who dared offend God by claiming the right to own people as property to do with whatever they wished. They were paid for their “loss of labor” but those who were forced to labor were only given new ways to be enslaved, lynched, segregated, and brutalized. That is, those who were even informed of their freedom from bondage. Out in the hinterlands, in places like Texas, people continued to defy God’s design for human freedom. They knew of the Emancipation Proclamation. They knew the Confederacy had been brought down in humiliating defeat, they lost and surrendered, but they kept it a secret as long as they thought they could get away with it. Enter Juneteenth and General Granger’s now-famous Order No. 3. I told the story last year about Juneteenth that General Granger had not been given the task of going around sharing the news of emancipation. He and his company were on their way to secure the Mexican border from the invading army of Napoleon. The French were establishing colonies in Mexico so the southern border had to be secured from the French. It was while they were on their way for that assignment that a terrible storm hit, bad enough to cause their ships to seek shelter. The storm forced the transport ships to anchor in Galveston Bay on June 18, 1865. The next day they went ashore and discovered thousands of people still enslaved, working in the ports and houses and fields. And so, Order No. 3 was written.[2] But what if there had been no storm? When would word of emancipation, freedom, reached Texas? You know how storms are sometimes called Acts of God? I’ve never liked that. But at least in this case, I’m glad for such an Act of God storm – you know, “God’s strong hand and outstretched arm, with awesome power, with signs and wonders” that forced a ship to find shelter on the shore of Galveston Bay. “The Lord heard our call. God saw our misery, our trouble, and our oppression. 8 The Lord brought us out…” Juneteenth may be a new federal holiday but it’s an enactment of one of the oldest stories in the Bible. This story makes me think that sometimes we need to thank God for the storms that pass through our lives. Sometimes we need to thank God for storms that take us off track, never knowing where we might be led or what we might be called to do. Never knowing who is waiting for us. Or as Marla would ask, where is the gift in this storm? This summer we will follow the grand sweep of stories that shape who we are in the Judeo-Christian tradition, starting with the call of Abram and Sarai to pick up and move by stages to a land which would be revealed. That was last week’s reading from the lectionary. Today, Sarah laughed at the absurdity that she, a 90-year-old woman without any children and her 100-year-old husband would one day have so many descendants, it would be just as easy to count sand on a beach than the generations that would follow. Just look though. Count all the adherents of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, billions on the earth, just counting today, and you will see it was no laughing matter. Next week Hagar, then Rebekah, the fighting twins Jacob and Esau, sisters Leah and Rachel, Jacob wrestling in the night, Joseph sold by his 12 brothers, slavery in Egypt, Moses and freedom and complaining in the wilderness, the 10 commandments and golden calves, and finally the promised land. This is our story for we are all descendants of a certain wandering Aramean, we are all part of a biblical narrative that calls forth freedom and liberation, whether our own or as participants with God. Just like Juneteenth is all our story – the story of our nation yet called to live more perfectly into freedom for all by each of us taking a stand today:
And then we shall all be free. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2008/dec/23/religion-christmas-bible-deuteronomy#:~:text=%22A%20wandering%20Aramean%20was%20my%20father.%22%20It%20goes%20back,2000%20BC%20and%20probably%20before. [2] Jayne Marie Smith, Sojourners, June 17, 2021
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