LAND ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Good evening, Kaleo! My name is Erin my pronouns are she / her.

I’d like to begin with a land acknowledgment to honor the Native people that existed here before us. I honor the First Peoples of current-day downtown Phoenix, the Tohono O’odham (Thaw-naw-Awe-Thumb) Nation.

In the words of Lisa Sharon Harper: “They were and are here. We see you. We honor you. And we thank you for laying foundations of harmony, balance, truth, and honor. Thank you for stewarding the land where Creator settled your people. We bless you. We bless your elders: past, present, and emerging.”

CHICAGO RECAP

Sooooo…your girl is 34 years old now! Celebrated my birthday a few weeks ago and all I wanted to do was experience something. I think I’ve moved into an era of life where experiences are more valuable to me than gifts.

So for this birthday, I decided I wanted to bring Kendall to Chicago with me. The place I was born and raised…and I wanted to re-experience Chicago from a new lens and as a new person.

Chicago is where my parents were also born and raised.
Chicago is where they met in college.
My grandparents traveled to Chicago from Mississippi during the Great Migration.
It’s where a major part of my story begins.

Over the last few years, I’ve dug my hands deep into the roots of my family history. So when Kendall and I went to Chicago, I was excited to be hosted by the oldest living relatives on my mom's side Uncle Boosie and Auntie Pat. And when I say they hosted us, they hosted us!

We stayed in their 100 year old home with the original carpet and drapes. Every morning was a delicious home-cooked meal for breakfast and every night we came to another delicious home-cooked meal for dinner. They fed us until until they couldn't feed us no more!

The walls of their home carries with it a myriad of memories – family members that have passed on stayed there, ate there, played there, slept there, cried there.

Being that most of my growing up was in the suburbs, it was incredibly special to have the Southside experience. I felt like I was experiencing Chicago the way my Mom and Dad experienced it. The smells, the food, the struggles, the joys, the music, the summer breeze and porch-side observations.

My 84-year-old, Great Uncle (who has many names – Jimmie, Mo, Po-Mo, Boosie, Boo-Boo) but I just call him Unlce Boosie. Kendall and I sat with him on the porch as he shared stories of what it was like sharecropping in Mississippi.

They didn't make any money because all of the money went to the white folks that owned the land. He said they were so poor their Shack homes had no furniture. they slept on the wooden floor day and night. they had no electricity. they literally had nothing.

So one day he sat on the porch and reflected on what his life would be like if he stayed in that space, and he said to himself, “I gotta get the hell outta here.”

And so in the middle of the night, he escaped by hitching a ride with a friend and drove from Mississippi all the way up to Chicago.

With stories like these, my family – aunts, uncles, cousins, breaking bread, hugging, laughing, and sharing space…this trip was one of my favorites!

ST. SABINA

Our Chicago itinerary included Kendall and I joining my Auntie Glenda who is my dad's younger sister, along with her church, St. Sabina, as they marched for peace from gun violence on the streets of the south side of Chicago.

Now, I had always known my Auntie went to a church pastored by a white man.. but I never knew or understood why until I visited for myself.

This 74-year-old white man is no ordinary fellow. He is in fact Father Michael Pfleger who has pastored this non-traditional, spirit-filled, tongue-talkin’, justice-centered, Black activist, liberation-celebrating church on the south side for more than 40 years.

Mentored by the great Martin Luther King Jr., he has historically been a political agitator, truth-teller, advocate, activist, and ally.

When I tell you this Catholic Church is not ordinary, I really mean it!

At the entrance of the church, your eyes are immediately drawn to this piece of art that symbolizes a young black girl having her heart ripped from her chest by what appears to be a police officer with a gun.

And at their feet are the names of young boys and girls who have lost their lives to gun violence in their neighborhood.

The inside of this church also has what felt like a 50 ft mural of Black Jesus extending his arms for an open embrace.

And this church hosts a March for Peace from gun violence every Friday during the summer. Their church community is escorted by local police, and a big truck pumping music that preaches truth, safety, courage, and love.

So together, we marched for 2 miles and I watched this 74-year-old white priest run up to every person he saw, dab them up like he was from the hood, pray for those who asked for prayer, pass out materials with practical ways to resolve conflict, local job opportunities, and McDonald's gift cards for kids.

I felt like I was watching a movie. I’ve participated in many marches but this one was so powerful. This march was in the place where I'm from. This march is one that my grandmother would have marched in too. This was a march of solidarity.

A MARCH OF SOLIDARITY

It was moving to walk on the very streets many young people have lost their lives with no explanation, no detectives working on cases, no publicity, no media, no justice.

As Kendall and I walked with the St. Sabina community, we felt emotional walking alongside my cousin Jerryce, who lost her son to gun violence just one year prior while she was participating in the peaceful protest against gun violence.

I was trying to take in the cinematic joy of the young children dancing to the music, peaking through their blinds, smiling through their windows, dancing on their porches, honking their horns and waving with us in solidarity saying, “Yes, we are with you! We want peace too!”

When my cousin Jerryce's arms got tired from holding up the sign about her son, my Auntie Glenda, Kendall, and I took turns holding it with her. Every moment of this march felt like an act of solidarity. Southside solidarity.

I was seeing, smelling, and feeling the difficult truth that systemically White Supremacy has perpetuated violence in our neighborhoods, which has forced Black and Brown people out of their own neighborhoods into White neighborhoods where they also still experience violence.

I was experiencing the harsh reality that these are the spaces and places my parents didn't want us to experience, not because they wanted to separate us from our culture and story, but because they didn’t want us to see the pain they saw, the violence they saw, the killings that they heard about or witnessed themselves. I was drenched into the roots of my family history and my family story and I was grateful to be there.

I must say, it was also ironic to be escorted by police for this march, for they are also responsible for the violence we are protesting against. My body felt the irony as we were being escorted and somewhat protected by police, while simultaneously blasting music with lyrics about police brutality, freedom, and love.

When I tell you this felt like a movie, it was truly cinematic. What I loved most was that there was no heavy publicity, no news, no camera crew, just people….walking around putting up the peace sign and sharing the love of Jesus through presence, acknowledgment, and joy.

The greatest witness St. Sabina can be to each other and the people in their neighborhood is a witness of solidarity.

A DEATH OF SOLIDARITY

Jesus also understood, that the greatest thing he could do for the people who experience the most brutal forms of violence, is to stand and solidarity with them.

Our passage tonight is…

MATTHEW 16:21-28

Jesus Predicts His Death

21 From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”

23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life[a] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.

28 “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

New Testament Professor and Womanist theologian, Mitzi J. Smith says this:

How does a revolutionary leader prepare a colonized people for the death of their Messiah?

Jesus bluntly informs his disciples that some of their influential religious or community leaders (the elders, chief priest and scribes) will inflict great violence upon him and kill him (Matthew 16:21). The chief priest and elders will conspire with Caiaphas, the high priest, to surreptitiously arrest and kill Jesus (26:3-5). And Judas, a member of Jesus’ inner circle, together with a sword-and-club-carrying mob, will join the conspiracy (26:47).

“Religion” has never been free of political intrigue and violence. Even religious men and women mesmerized by power and privilege will annihilate persons who in any way threaten to diminish their position and advantage. Perhaps the chief priest, elders, and high priest, despite also being colonized subjects of the Roman Empire, have positioned themselves to partake of the spoils and privileges of empire. Perhaps they have convinced enough of the masses of ordinary poor people to act contrary to their own best interest and to join in a cause that favors only the rich and powerful.

The more I study Liberation theology, the more I understand that the way we view the death of Jesus determines the way we follow Jesus. If we view the death of Jesus as violent, necessary suffering, and bloody... then we leave room to make excuses for Christians who follow Jesus in a way that is violent, bloody, and excusing suffering as necessary.

Latino Professor, author, and scholar-activist Dr. Miguel A. De La Torre says this wrote a powerful article called, "What if Crucifixion is not salvific?" I've summarized his thoughts for you here:

In the 11th century, Anselm of Canterbury introduced a new interpretation of Jesus' crucifixion, replacing Origen's earlier idea that it was a ransom paid to Satan. Anselm proposed the satisfaction theory, where Jesus' death wasn't a ransom but a way to satisfy an angry God due to human sin, requiring the shedding of innocent blood. Abelard, a contemporary of Anselm, expanded this view by emphasizing God's love in sacrificing His only child for atonement and reconciliation, highlighting the depth of a father's love through a torturous and bloody act.

In this interpretation, God, symbolized as a snowflake, cannot tolerate sin. So, when Jesus bore all the world's sins on the cross, God turned away, leading Christ to cry out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Christianity emphasizes salvation through bloodshed. Humans can escape God's wrath by accepting Jesus as their sacrificial substitute. Without this acceptance, they face God's full wrath for their sins.

Whether we like it or not, this view of Jesus’ death has fueled the fervor of some Euro-Christians, leading to crusades, religious wars, persecutions, inquisitions, witch trials, colonialism, the genocide of non-believers, slavery, and the Holocaust.

Christianity’s fascination with blood made it the cause for most of the world’s bloodletting.

[The truth is] there is nothing redemptive in suffering. And here is the danger: when euroamericans [believe this] — especially those complicit with institutional racism, classism, sexism and heterosexism — [they] insist suffering and servitude is expected from those on their margins.

Maybe the question is not why Jesus had to be crucified — a question which leads to the glorification of suffering as redemptive — but [maybe the question is] what do we do with the fact that religious and political leaders tortured and killed him?

Is it possible that our focus on Jesus's crucifixion leaves us blinded to the reality of the violence from the people that killed him? Which then culturally perpetuates our fixation on those being oppressed as a form of rightful servitude, instead of critiquing and calling out police brutality that inflicts violence, instead of us fixing systems that causes gun violence.

This cultural fixation on the glorification of suffering is what led President Joe Biden to be corrected when he thought George Floyd was martyred instead of murdered.

The fixation should always be on the systemic problems that caused the violence, not the glorification of those who unjustly received it.

If this Jesus has become complicit with today’s religious and political authorities who support white Christian nationalism before a silent God, then it becomes the theological work for today’s crucified people to resignify the Jesus of the dominant culture by rejecting their bloody theology.

The cross is what it is: a symbol of sadism and evil. [What if] Jesus’ death is no more redemptive than his birth, life, his teachings, his miracles or his parables.

For those who believe, if he was instead to have died of old age, then his existence would still have been redemptive. Crucifixion’s only signification is the unjust death of a just person at the hands of religious and political leaders.

Gun violence is only signification is the unjust death of just persons – black and brown boys and girls and non-binary human beings young and old at the hands of religious and political leaders.

[I realize we have all grown up in many churches believing many things, but I'd like to propose to you, what if] Jesus’ death neither pays a ransom nor is a substitution for us. Crucifixion is an act of radical solidarity, specifically, Jesus’ choice to accompany in solidarity those dying on the crosses of religious and political oppression.

Perhaps, THIS is why Jesus rebuked Peter…because, Jesus understood if he was to truly liberate all, he must stand in solidarity with those experiencing the most brutal forms of violence at the hands of religious and political oppression.

Rather than romanticize the disenfranchised by claiming they “freely suffer … freely serve,” Jesus shared their suffering, their plight, so that they have someone who truly understands their pain, and so that God (if the incarnation is believed) can learn what it means to be human in an unjust world.

To pick up our crosses and follow Jesus is an invitation not to suffer but to stand in solidarity with the oppressed of the world, a solidarity which might cost us everything.

Friends, as Jesus followers, and spiritual people, may we continue to stand with those whose backs are against the wall. May we continue to sit on the streets with those who have no food. May we continue to break bread with those who have no home. And may we share spaces, places, homes, tables, and houses of worship to humanize those that have been dehumanized.

PRACTICING STILLNESS

Let’s take a moment to practice stillness and reflect on the things that we have heard. What does Jesus want us to know…what does He want us to do? AMEN.