We love to
remember dates, don’t we? We love to say, “Just so many years ago today, such
and such happened!” Our British friends are currently remembering that 67
years ago last Wednesday the daughter of King George VI became Queen Elizabeth
II upon his death. And next July Fourth, it will be 243 years since our own
Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Second Continental Congress; and
you know that we’ll remember that
date! Sometimes we remember entire years because of their significance. 1492,
for example, is one of those years. In that year, Christopher Columbus first
set foot on the shores of a Caribbean island and opened our continent to
European expansion. 1938 is another example. In that year, Hitler began to
systematic eliminate the Jewish population of Nazi-occupied territory. Exact
days aren’t as important as the effects that the events of these years have had
on history. In both 1492 and 1938, the world changed forever.
1619 was a
year like that. Exactly 400 years ago, an event took place that has affected
our country ever since. In that year, the first Africans were brought to our
shores and sold into slavery. In 1619, John Rolfe of the Jamestown colony wrote
that a Dutch ship had “brought not anything but 20 and odd Negroes,” who were
traded for food and supplies and then enslaved. Before the political entity
that we now call “the United States of America” was even imagined, it was permanently
shaped by this event that took place 400 years ago.
Slavery as a
legal institution lasted nearly 250 years after this event of 1619. Before it
was abolished, half of our country took up arms against the other half; and all
because of slavery. The Southern economy was built on cotton, and the backbreaking
work of picking that cotton was done by slaves; so the South had an economic
interest in perpetuating the institution of slavery. Men, women, and even
children were kidnapped in Africa and sold on our shores to put money in the
pockets of their owners. I am ashamed to admit that many preachers taught that
slavery was both begun and blessed by the Bible! On the basis of ancient
stories in Genesis that are ambiguous at best, those preachers taught that
Africans were the sons and daughters of men who had been cursed by God, and so
those Africans were fair game to be enslaved. They pointed to New Testament
letters that advised slaves to be obedient to their masters.
They should
have known better. The Bible is nothing if not a story of liberation from
slavery! Why, the foundational story in the Bible is one about freedom! When Pharaoh
enslaved the Hebrews and made their life a living hell, God took the part of
those slaves. When Pharaoh forced the Hebrews to make bricks to build his
cities, God said, “No more!” and he sent Moses to free this ragged bunch of
illiterate slaves that God had chosen as his own people. Moses faced the most
powerful man in the world; and because he had God on his side, Pharaoh went
down to defeat. And Luke tells us that when Jesus gave his very first sermon
back in his hometown of Nazareth, he chose this text from Isaiah to read: “The
Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to
the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of
sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the
Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19, quoting Isaiah 61:1-2)
God wants us
to have nothing to do with enslaving other people, especially not for our own
benefit! And to make doubly sure that we don’t miss the point, right in the
middle of the law that God gave to Moses at Sinai – right there in the book of
Leviticus – is the law of Jubilee. That law says that every fifty-years in the Jubilee
year, you have to free your slaves and give them their land back. Did you have
to sell your family’s land to pay a debt? Don’t worry – you’ll get it back in
the year of Jubilee. Maybe you had to sell a family member, or even yourself to
pay off that debt. It’s OK – the year of Jubilee is coming, and everyone will
be liberated. Slavery isn’t God’s will. Freedom is God’s will, the freedom that
breaks chains and opens locks and throws doors wide open! “Proclaim liberty
throughout the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof.” That’s Leviticus 25:10;
and it is inscribed on no less than our own Liberty Bell.
Writer
Dawson Taylor remembers sitting with Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa
when Taylor was a college student. (This appeared in the UCC Still Speaking
Daily Devotional of February 9, 2019.) He confesses that he doesn’t remember
much of what Tutu said. But he remembers this as vividly as if it were
yesterday. “Never give the Bible to oppressed people,” said Tutu, “and expect
them to remain oppressed.” The slaves on southern plantations knew the Bible
because their owners had forced them to convert to Christianity from their own
native religions. Those owners believed that Christian slaves would be more
submissive and easier to control. Well, the joke was on them; because those
slaves learned about the God of liberation who sent Moses, Joshua, and Jesus to
his people. After those slaves were forced to pick cotton boll by boll in the
blistering heat of the American South, they went back to their cabins and sang,
“Go down, Moses! Let my people go!” They sang about crossing the Riven Jordan
while dreaming about crossing the Ohio River to freedom. They didn’t sing about
a God who told them to listen to their masters; they sang about a God who led
them out of slavery to freedom! When, in 1863, Abraham Lincoln signed the
Emancipation Proclamation, they proclaimed it the Year of Jubilee come at last!
With the
benefit of 20-20 hindsight, we know that 1863 wasn’t really the end of slavery
in the United States. It may have been the end of legalized slavery; but to this day, too many people still live in
virtual slavery. They may not be picking cotton in the fields of the American
South; but they are still being exploited to fatten the wallets of others. Some
of them are migrant workers, toiling seasonally in our country’s fields to help
with the harvest. Others work long hours in illegal sweatshops – yes, even here
in our own country. And we have heard a lot recently about the victims of sex
trafficking – women and children who are abducted and made to serve the desires
of others. They may not be legally owned by other people; but they are slaves
in every other sense of the word.
Do we have a
word of grace to say to them? Indeed, we do. We know that God’s deepest desire
is that all people might be free from whatever holds them captive. We are
Jubilee people; and we are ready to help in whatever way we can to liberate
people from the chains that hold them. We may not always know how to do that. But
I’m pretty sure that Moses didn’t know exactly how God was going to use him to
lead the Hebrews out of Pharaoh’s grip, either! So, this morning, I invite you
to be true Jubilee people, ready to speak a word of freedom wherever it is
needed. In Christ, God has freed our souls from fear and death. Let’s be ready
to free those whose bodies are still in bondage, too. Thanks be to our
liberating God!
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