Moses

We saw "Harriet" tonight.
It was truly amazing.
Always a hero to my wife and me, the story of this remarkable woman is inspiring today, even as it was for generations before us.
After escaping to freedom in 1849, she brought 70 people out of slavery by 1860 and led a raid with an African-American unit of the union army at Combahee Ferry to free more than 700 more in June of 1863.
She was a woman of faith.  She believed that the Lord spoke to her and led her.

I am always inspired by folk who stand up to evil, who speak truth to abusive power and who work to abolish inequities among us out of an active faith.
This little, 5' tall woman who was born a slave, towered over others around her and did so in order to bring freedom to human beings who should never have been enslaved.
It was God's justice.

No wonder they called her "Moses."
Faith over fear and faithfulness to God and Neighbor over self drove her to do remarkable things.
She will always be remembered for it.

We are in a time in which we need people of faith to stand and move in faithfulness.
We need folk to stand up to evil systems that hold the many down, back and out for the sake of the few.
We need folk to speak truth to power and demand equal justice for all.
We need folk to work to abolish inequities and the systems that promote them.
We need a movement committed to the living of Jesus' Agape Love in the world, this world, here and now.
We need reform or revolution.

Until everyone has the same opportunities in wages, employment, education, housing, healthcare, transportation, civil and human rights, we must demand that from our leaders and each other.

It took a civil war to break an economic system based on racism, and it was costly.
I pray that we will willingly adopt an economic system that demands equal opportunity for all now.

All strains of American Civil Religion, masking as "Christianity" need to be brought to their end, for they are a product of and support to the evils of empire.
We must embrace the justice, the sustainability, the peace and Shalom of the teachings of Jesus and live them, in order to be followers of Jesus.

Until we do, we are ALL subject to an oppressive, unjust, corrupt system based on hatred, greed, lust for power and desire for status.  Both oppressors and the oppressed are trapped under a system that kills souls and the soul of our nation.

People of faith, faithful to Jesus' Way, need to stand and speak, demonstrate and exemplify Jesus' Way.

For the sake of Pharaoh and the people under Pharaoh, for the sake of those trapped under an unjust system that destroys their lives and holds them down, back and out, for the sake of the soul of  our nation, we must find our path to freedom from this insidious abomination and be courageous and faithful enough to take it, and then work toward the liberation of others from their bondage to the evils of empire.

Thank you, Harriet, for your most faithful example.
You, along with Gandhi, Bonhoeffer, King, Malcolm, Romero and numerous others are my heroes for your faithfulness to the ideals that Jesus taught, commanded and modeled regarding liberation from evil oppression, particularly through the living of Agape Love.

Pastor Jamie