June 14, 2024
Dear Church,
In worship this Sunday, part of our litany will be remembering the Emanuel 9 martyrs and recognizing Juneteenth. As a congregation, we are committed to examining and repenting from the ways we are entangled with systems of violence and supremacy based on race, gender, class, ability, and all the ways we categorize each other to separate people into labels of like us and not like us. These systems often ask us to forget our shared identity as children of God, beloved in our diversity. These systems often ask us to look away from pain and harm, and yet our tradition includes lament, and naming things as they are, even when that is challenging or destabilizing.
On June 17, 2015, Clementa C. Pinckney, Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel Lee Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, and Myra Thompson were murdered by a self-professed white supremacist while they were gathered for Bible study and prayer at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church (often referred to as Mother Emanuel) in Charleston, South Carolina. We repent of the ways the sins of racism and white supremacy continue to plague the church, we venerate the martyrdom of the Emanuel Nine, and we mark this day of penitence with study and prayer.
On June 19, 1865, General Order No. 3 was read in Galveston, TX. This General Order announced the end of enslavement in Texas, two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. From the National Museum of African American History & Culture: “Even though the Emancipation Proclamation was made effective in 1863, it could not be implemented in places still under Confederate control. As a result, in the westernmost Confederate state of Texas, enslaved people would not be free until much later.” We mourn the ways that freedom has been, and is, unequally applied, and the ways that the deep-seated history of racism and violence is woven into the fabric of the land we live on.
Here are some additional resources on the Emanuel 9 Commemoration (https://www.adlaelca.org/emanuel9) and Juneteenth (https://nmaahc.si.edu/juneteenth-digital-toolkit) if you’d like to learn more.
May we trust that God desires freedom, abundance, joy, and connection for all of us, as we turn again and again toward a God who is love.
In Christ,
Pastor Reed
Every Friday, we send an email to the congregation and any others who would like to learn more about the Grace community. The last four Friday emails are posted below.