Monday - June 12, 2023
Jan Nunn
SCRIPTURE
Jeremiah 22:3.
`Thus says the LORD, “Do justice and righteousness, and deliver the one who has been robbed from the power of his oppressor. Also do not mistreat or do violence to the stranger, the orphan, or the widow; and do not shed innocent blood in this place.
WORDS OF HOPE
Today is celebrated as Loving Day.
Loving Day is the anniversary of a historic court decision for interracial marriage.
Every year on June 12th, it’s a global day of visibility, education, and community. People around the world observe Loving Day every year on June 12th in meaningful and personal ways. While all are welcome, it can be especially significant for interracial couples, multiracial families, mixed race and transracially adopted people, and those with similar lived experience.
Many share photos and stories on social media with #lovingday. Others bring people together through events for their community, friends, or family. You can also use Loving Day as inspiration for using your creativity, skills, or professional talents in a positive way. Like other important yearly observations, Loving Day can be an intentional time to stand in solidarity with communities that intersect with ours. (From Google)
I am so thankful for the Loving’s who were brave enough to fight the system to be able to marry each other in spite of laws that did not allow them to marry. What courage that took! We celebrate their bravery. As we see more of the rights of people being in jeopardy through our legal process, we need to continue to celebrate and uphold all the rights of people to love and marry and all rights of life! Our Christian responsibility is to “do justice.”
I had the privilege of riding the Equality Texas bus to Austin for the All in for Equality Advocacy Day at the Texas Capitol in March. I had the opportunity to visit the offices of legislators to make my voice heard on legislation that impacts LGBTQ+ Texans. It was amazing to try to convince legislators to NOT vote on hurtful bills introduced for the current session. Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to persuade enough of them. But we did try.
I also responded to some of the emails from local organizations who gave me links to send a prepared email asking them to please not vote on hurtful bills. We all must find ways to do what we can! The result of the bad bills that have passed may cause friends and people I have met to be forced to move from their homes in Texas to places where they can receive healthcare they need. This is a sad outcome! Whatever doing justice looks like, we must find out how to do what we can to do that. We cannot sit by and do nothing. Edmund Burke is credited with saying : “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Good people who do nothing hold responsibly for the bad things that happen. Please do not allow yourself to fall in that category.
Some people say the church should not be involved in politics. But things that are affecting the lives and wellbeing of God’s people are the very work of the church. If the church body must go to the places of law to fight for the lives of God’s people, it is absolutely necessary for us to do so!
PRAYER
God of all people, help us as your church people to know what to do to help the oppressed. Guide us to do justice.
DEVOTION AUTHOR
Jan Nunn
Cathedral of Hope Volunteer
Need Some Inspiration? Read our Daily Devotions
SCRIPTURE Isaiah 51:1 Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the Lord. Look to the rock from which you were hewn and to the quarry from which you were dug. WORDS OF HOPE Knowing where I came from is important, especially in my faith journey. Isaiah speaks of the “rock from which we were hewn” and in my case I feel that is my history being raised as a Jew. My family were Reform Jews. We didn’t keep Kosher and our brand of Judaism was what we would call Progressive today. My mother was raised Christian and she converted when she married my father. She did her best to become a Jewish Mother, sometimes almost stereotypically so. But, the unique blending of faiths gave me a surprisingly strong foundation to build on. What I tell people now is that since converting to Christianity and joining Cathedral of Hope I have become a better Jew. What I mean is, Jesus was teaching Judaism. He was a Jew. He is often referred to as “rabbi” in scripture if you are looking for proof. Jesus was the first progressive Jew, and that’s why his teachings resonate with me so strongly. As I head into the Lenten season, the ashes on my forehead remind me of the quarry from which I was dug and the dust which someday I will again become. It is not a bad thing to know our impermanence. It reminds us of that which is eternal and something that transcends all divisions and descriptions. PRAYER May we build our faith on a strong foundation and understand that God’s grace will support us in whatever we do. DEVOTION AUTHOR Hardy Haberman
SCRIPTURE Galatians 3.28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. WORDS OF HOPE Understanding On this Black History Month, we see a lot of division in our country, but we also are experiencing a time of quest for unity. If humanity is to come together, then it will be with the effort of humble people who try to understand one another. When you try to understand others, those same people will try to understand you. Most friendships that last happen because of the effort that was put into the relationships. Whatever you give is what you eventually get back. Someone who seeks to understand you is that much more likely to get your understanding than someone who shows little interest in your thoughts and feelings. The many who spend their lifetime trying to be understood often never get anywhere because if everyone is speaking at the same time, then there is no one listening. Wanting to be understood is not bad, but if your happiness depends on another’s approval, then what will you do when they criticize you? There are great people who are never understood in their own lifetime, and after they are re-discovered by the next generation, are spoken very highly of. The more you are able to understand others, the more you’ll be able to speak to your generation. Being understanding is not about what you know as much as it is about your attitude. By listening often, you show that you value others and teach others to do the same. It is extremely lonely when no one around you understands you, but it is not something you can force. If you never listen to others, then who will listen to you? Listening is not just about being silent; listening in making an effort to see what the other person is seeing. It does not mean that you must always agree or never have something to say. Instead, show that you care. This may mean that you have to wait a while to be understood, but don’t give up hoping that you will be one day. You may find only one person who truly understands you and you’ll be doing better than some great people who never found anyone who was able to. Always remember, God understands you, and you never have to go far to find God. PRAYER All knowing One, You are not understood by many, and yet, You love us. Help us to be as patient. When we are overlooked and criticized falsely, please remind us of our own worth. Bless You Spirit, because You know who we are. May we feel the love You have for us, and may we be at peace within ourselves. Bless You Jesus, the One who knows what it means to be misunderstood. Amen. DEVOTION AUTHOR Jonathon McClellan Order of St. Francis and St. Clare
SCRIPTURE Acts 7:33-34 Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt. – WORDS OF HOPE In the seventh chapter of the book of Acts, the disciple known as Stephen is brought before the Sanhedrin and made to testify. For the length of the chapter, Stephen tells God’s story of salvation from Abraham to Joseph to Moses, including Moses encounter with God on Mount Sinai. It’s a familiar story to us, especially if you’ve seen Cecil B. DeMille’s Ten Commandments or sang the song We Are Standing on Holy Ground while holding hands at the end of Cathedral of Hope’s worship service. For Black theologians, the concept of Standing on Holy Ground isn’t necessarily reverential or worshipful. For Howard Thurman, James Cone, and other Black theologians, “standing on holy ground” is not a call to retreat from the world, but it is an awakening to God’s presence in the midst of struggle, suffering, and resistance. God says to Moses that she has seen the oppression of Her people in Egypt. He has heard their groaning. They have come down to set the people free. The burning bush appears while Israel groans under Egypt’s whip. For the disinherited, standing on holy ground means reclaiming dignity when the world says you have none. The ground becomes holy, says Howard Thurman, when a person refuses to accept degradation and listens for the divine underneath the noise of oppression. For James Cone, Black suffering in a racist society is precisely where God speaks and acts. Holy ground is slave quarters, jails, protest marches, and halls where truth is spoken to power. The ground is holy because God shows up where pain is real. It’s where God identifies with the oppressed. I have seen them. I have heard them. I am coming to set them free. In the Black church tradition, holy ground is communal and embodied. And you don’t go tippy-toe on it; you testify on it. Shoes come off to acknowledge that God has already claimed this space. God is already present where liberation is being demanded. In these days where Minnesotans toes are freezing, that ice covered sidewalk is holy ground. Wherever Black men and women have stood before the baton and the dogs, that street is holy ground. The question is this: When and where are we being called to stand in solidarity with God, remove our shoes, and stand on holy ground. PRAYER Holy God, you see the suffering of your people and hear every groan, and you make holy the ground where courage, resistance, and hope take root. Open our eyes to recognize your presence in places of struggle, and give us the courage to stand in solidarity, to remove our shoes, and to refuse the lie that any person lacks dignity. Send us, as you sent Moses, to stand where liberation is needed, to testify to your justice, and to walk with you until all your people are free. Amen. DEVOTION AUTHOR Thomas Riggs
SCRIPTURE Mark 12:28-31 One of the scribes came near…and asked Jesus, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” WORDS OF HOPE If You Want to Love Others, Love Yourself Very Well Empathy—the ability to understand and to share the feelings of others—is essential to the development of the human condition. Respected anthropologist Margaret Mead knew this. When Dr. Mead was once asked what she considered to be the signs of the beginning of civilization, she pointed to a healed femur, the large thigh bone. It had been uncovered at an ancient archeological site. Someone had broken their femur, which meant certain death. They couldn’t run away from predators, forage for food, or go to water for drink. Someone had to care for them for the many weeks it took the femur to heal. Compassion, empathy, steadfast care are marks of civilization—humanity at its finest. Various spiritual traditions have known that too. For both Judaism and followers of Jesus, the greatest commandment is to love God and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. The healthy child that has been nurtured and loved has an innate gift of self-love, compassion, strength and empathy. Sometimes, childhood wounds can cause us to shrink under the weight of shame. When we are burdened by childhood experiences of doing wrong or being deeply wounded by others, this weight can be carried well into our adult life. This requires mindful self-compassion. Our intentional focus of healing ourselves through grounding, connection, seeking help, and letting go. When we are consciously caring for ourselves, both physically and emotionally, we strengthen our connection with our Higher Power and with others. From there, empathy, compassion and love can grow and flourish and we become healthier, attractive and more fulfilled human beings. Such work can transform a community, a nation, a world. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. uplifted the identity and value of people of color as equally worthy of respect and dignity. His wisdom was not merely about lifting the lives of black people. Dr. King aimed at liberating society and culture from oppressive beliefs and systems that kept civilization from flourishing. It is an ongoing journey and each of us plays a role we dare not forget. If you want to love God and others, love yourself very well. PRAYER Holy One, may I love myself well enough today so that my self-acceptance spills over to uplift the life of someone I know or meet. May it be so. Amen. DEVOTION AUTHOR Rev. Dr. Gary Kindley, LPC Pastoral Psychotherapist drgk.org
READING “We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.” Ella Baker “Justice cannot be attained until those who are not afflicted are as outraged as those who are.” Ella Baker WORDS OF HOPE Born in 1903 in Norfolk, Virginia, Ella Baker is known as the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement.* Her inspiration to stand strong in the face of oppression came early in life hearing the narratives about her maternal grandmother “Bet” Ross who was born into slavery in Halifax, North Carolina. One impactful story was how her grandmother refused to marry the man her slave owner had chosen as her husband, an act of personal integrity and resistance she would pay for with a beating and a sentence of hard labor in the fields. But it did not break her. She could always rally herself to attend to the celebrations at the plantation and dance until the early hours of the morning--evidence that her spirit was unbowed. Her mother set an early example of activism in her work with the Black Baptist Women’s Missionary movement, women who aspired to the values of strength, humility, piety, and selfless service. The values imprinted themselves in Ella and her siblings traveled with her for meetings. In high school and college at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, Baker would distinguish herself, graduating as Valedictorian and already engaging in resistance against unjust policies. In a time when the voices and vision of male leaders overshadowed women, she became a power and presence. In the 1920’s she traveled to New York to engage in social justice work and was swept up in the fervent artistic and intellectual life of the Harlem Renaissance. She held offices in the NAACP whose 117 th anniversary we celebrate today, becoming the highest-ranking woman as National Director of Branches, but she felt the organization was too bureaucratic and out of touch with the lives of ordinary black people. Later she helped organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. After the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, catalyzed by Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger, Baker co-founded In Friendship to help support activism in the South and provide for the needs of those who had been incarcerated in protests. She did not forget “the nameless cooks and maids who walked endless miles for a year to bring about the breach in the walls of segregation.” Throughout her life she dedicated herself to the economic struggles of ordinary people, securing voting rights, nonviolent resistance, and organizing at the grass roots level. Developing young people’s gifts and skills for leadership was another of Baker’s passions. Rather than encouraging the young black college students who had protested segregated lunch counters in Greensboro, NC, to join SCLC, as Rev. Dr. King envisioned, she invited them to a meeting at her alma mater Shaw University, a gathering which would lead to the formation of The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Such notables as Diane Nash, Marion Barry, and John Lewis were among these next generation leaders and all found her extraordinarily compelling. Howard Zinn, another of the respected elders of SNCC, remembers that one day as protesters were being released from jail, he saw Baker not exercising her rhetorical skills in the media spotlight, but sitting alone at a table, talking to each person, asking What do you need? Do you need a meal? Medical Care? Funds for being off work? In SNCC they spoke of her as Godmother and Fundi, a Swahili term that translates one who passes along skills from one generation to another. In a time when many political leaders are practicing erasure of the past of people of color and LGBT+ folks, let it be an act of resistance that here we resurrect the memory of this remarkable leader of the Civil Rights movement. PRAYER Grandmother, let your voice and vision come to us today, guiding us in the path of justice and non-violent resistance. Amen. DEVOTION AUTHOR Dr. Pat Saxon
READING … Don't speak of love while practicing hate with tools of fear…. Rev. Gerald Dillenbeck WORDS OF HOPE I looked at the prompt for today’s devotion, “All the News That’s Fit to Print Day,” and thought to myself, “Well, this is going to be a very short reflection.” It is easy to make a list of what I consider “news” that is unfit for print; what do I consider print-worthy news? What do I consider “good news”? My thoughts went immediately to the Good News given to us in the Gospels of Jesus. Perhaps the most important good news that Jesus shares is the words of The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-10), spoken during his Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Shortly after his baptism and temptation in the wilderness, Jesus spoke the words to a crowd, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” These words mark the beginning of his life as a preacher. The Sermon on the Mount, however, is said to be his first sermon. This led me to try to understand the difference between preaching and sermonizing. The two actions are used synonymously by many. Some say, however, that the distinction is that both are persuasive speaking, sermons are specifically delivered by a clergy person in a religious context. I then found an explanation that seemed to clarify things a little more for me. Preaching is intentionally persuasive and plays to our emotions. Sermons, on the other hand, are intended to convey information, facts, without the specific intention of eliciting an emotional response. I don’t know how accurate this distinction is, but it makes sense to me as to why Jesus’s words in Matthew 5 are called a sermon. They are informative words that Jesus is imparting to the crowd. They are the good news, the news worth printing. In these words of the Sermon on The Mount, or The Beatitudes, Jesus makes eight statements. He doesn’t use “scare tactics.” Jesus doesn’t speak of consequences. He simply makes eight statements. As we read them today, they are eight powerful statements, eight powerful statements that, if you think about it, are the sum of all of Jesus’s teaching throughout his ministry. Would the world perhaps feel a little more gentle and a little more hopeful if those who support public display of the Ten Commandments instead wanted to display, and more importantly to believe and live by, Jesus’s words from the Sermon on the Mount? PRAYER Dear God, let us give thanks for all those who were and are living examples of Jesus’s words and teaching, those who exemplify peace, pureness of heart, those who show mercy and a hunger for righteousness, those who mourn, those whose resilience rises as meekness. Today we remember with gratitude especially Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, James Varick, Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington, Mary McLeod Bethune, Marion Anderson, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ruby Bridges, Fannie Lou Hamer, Barack Obama and all those brothers and sisters of color whose lives have made our world a better place for all of us. Amen. DEVOTION AUTHOR Kris Baker Order of St. Francis and St. Clare