Doubling down on liberation
1 Samuel 1: 4-20 New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE November 17, 2024 – Pledge Sunday 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
