Doubling down on liberation
1 Samuel 1: 4-20
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
November 17, 2024 – Pledge Sunday
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| Photo of the sculpture "Freedom" by Zenos Frudakis in Philadelphia. From the left, a bronze figure is encased, the next is struggling to get free, the third is reaching out and leaning forward, and the fourth is completely liberated, stepping forward with arms outstretched and head lifted up. |
“If God is on the side of the oppressed and continuously working on behalf of the oppressed, how can you become closer to God?” When I saw that question in the Enfleshed materials for this Sunday, it gutted me. There’s no arguing with it, no equivocation. It’s like that quote from Stephen Colbert about being a Christian nation: “If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.”
But it’s more than “love the poor and serve the needy”. There’s a system at work designed to keep the poor and needy right where they are, which is an insidious fascism of its own. If people are falling through the cracks, it begs the question why are there cracks for people to fall through? We use words like “underserved”, “underprivileged”, “historically marginalized” to try to get closer to what’s going on. Rishi Kumar, a holistic urban farmer in Los Angeles, suggests we use “strategically undervalued”. He says it emphasizes the purposefulness of racism (and other isms as well). It puts the onus of responsibility on those who devise and who benefit from such a destructive strategy and thus undervalue whole communities of people for their own purposes.
In the lectionary passage from the Hebrew scriptures, Hannah is strategically undervalued in a patriarchal system. She is Elkanah’s first wife but treated like a second wife because the only way she can prove her worth is by producing a son which she has yet to accomplish. Even though her husband loves her and is sympathetic to her suffering—he gives Hannah a double portion of the sacrifice—he’s not a bad guy but he’s still pretty clueless about the harm patriarchy causes and how his intended words of comfort make a painful situation even worse. “Hey honey, I’m sorry you haven’t been able to do the one thing that makes your life worth living but am I not more than enough for you?” Notice she doesn’t answer him. The next time Hannah speaks, it is to God.
Hannah’s prayer to God is simple: if God gives her a son, she will give him to God. If God sees her suffering, in return she will give her son to help redeem the suffering of others. If God liberates her from her humiliation, she will give her son to the liberation of the dispossessed. For Hannah, this isn’t just about her pain, her struggles. She sees herself connected to all those who are devalued and dehumanized. Because when we give something to God, we know to whom God wants the gift to go.
When Hannah’s prayer is answered with the birth of Samuel, she offers to God a song of praise and exaltation, upon which the song of Mary is based in the gospel of Luke. It is a song of annunciation and denunciation: announcing God’s reign of justice and peace and denouncing human systems of greed and hubris. The dispossessed will receive God’s good things and the oppressors will go down to the dirt. Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
In Hannah’s song she sings,
“The weapons of the strong are smashed to pieces,
while the weak are infused with fresh strength.
The well-fed are out begging in the streets for crusts,
while the hungry are getting second helpings.
“God puts poor people on their feet again;
and rekindles burned-out lives with fresh hope,
Restoring dignity and respect to their lives—
a place in the sun!
For the very structures of earth are God’s.”
- The Message by Eugene Peterson
It is what is called the Great Reversal—God turning the world upside down. The first shall be last and the last, first. One reason why oppressors hang on so tightly to power is the fear that in this completely reversed social order they will be made to suffer like those they oppressed but even more so. Which ironically reveals that one, even they know what they are doing is wrong, and two, the oppressors have very little imagination. We don’t want to just trade places in an oppressive system; we have to want to change the system entirely in which everyone has what they need to live.
But we can’t just announce this new social order and denounce the old one, like a protest sign. We want queer liberation, not rainbow capitalism. People over profits. If you aren’t anti-racist, you are complicit. System change, not climate change. One that stays with me from the March for Our Lives in 2018: I want to leave high school in a cap and gown, not a body bag. While these slogans and statements galvanize our emotions and draw attention where it is needed, like Hannah’s prayer and song, they need to be followed with a daily commitment to defiance.
Menominee author and organizer Kelly Hayes writes, “Defiance must be woven into the daily fabric of our lives, rather than simply proclaimed at marches or on social media”. Chris Hedges wrote, “Rebellion…should be our natural state. [Faith]…is a belief that rebellion is always worth it, even if all outward signs point to our lives and struggles as penultimate failures. We are not saved by what we can do or accomplish but by…our steadfastness to the weak, the poor, the marginalized, those who endure oppression. We must stand with them against the powerful. …[The] struggle to live the moral life is worth it.”
Today is Pledge Sunday. Unlike most other budgets, a church budget can be an annunciation of God’s new social order and a denunciation of how we strategically undervalue the earth and human beings. A church budget can be an act of rebellion and defiance. A church budget can be our double portion to those in need of liberation. As well as our personal budgets.
It is what is called the Great Reversal—God turning the world upside down. The first shall be last and the last, first. One reason why oppressors hang on so tightly to power is the fear that in this completely reversed social order they will be made to suffer like those they oppressed but even more so. Which ironically reveals that one, even they know what they are doing is wrong, and two, the oppressors have very little imagination. We don’t want to just trade places in an oppressive system; we have to want to change the system entirely in which everyone has what they need to live.
But we can’t just announce this new social order and denounce the old one, like a protest sign. We want queer liberation, not rainbow capitalism. People over profits. If you aren’t anti-racist, you are complicit. System change, not climate change. One that stays with me from the March for Our Lives in 2018: I want to leave high school in a cap and gown, not a body bag. While these slogans and statements galvanize our emotions and draw attention where it is needed, like Hannah’s prayer and song, they need to be followed with a daily commitment to defiance.
Menominee author and organizer Kelly Hayes writes, “Defiance must be woven into the daily fabric of our lives, rather than simply proclaimed at marches or on social media”. Chris Hedges wrote, “Rebellion…should be our natural state. [Faith]…is a belief that rebellion is always worth it, even if all outward signs point to our lives and struggles as penultimate failures. We are not saved by what we can do or accomplish but by…our steadfastness to the weak, the poor, the marginalized, those who endure oppression. We must stand with them against the powerful. …[The] struggle to live the moral life is worth it.”
Today is Pledge Sunday. Unlike most other budgets, a church budget can be an annunciation of God’s new social order and a denunciation of how we strategically undervalue the earth and human beings. A church budget can be an act of rebellion and defiance. A church budget can be our double portion to those in need of liberation. As well as our personal budgets.
Benediction – enfleshed.com (adapted)
Go forth with your spirits raised up—
for the God of Liberation
is on the side of life and Love
and joins in Holy labors with those who are cultivating the kin-dom of God.
and joins in Holy labors with those who are cultivating the kin-dom of God.
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