Juneteenth &c

In what is now known as Juneteenth, on June 19, 1865, Union soldiers arrive in Galveston, Texas with news that the Civil War is over and slavery in the United States is abolished. 

A mix of June and 19th, Juneteenth has become a day to commemorate the end of slavery in America. Despite the fact that President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was issued more than two years earlier on January 1, 1863, a lack of Union troops in the rebel state of Texas made the order difficult to enforce. 

Some historians blame the lapse in time on poor communication in that era, while others believe Texan slave-owners purposely withheld the information.

Upon arrival and leading the Union soldiers, Major Gen. Gordon Granger announced General Order No. 3: "The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere."

On that day, 250,000 enslaved people were freed, and despite the message to stay and work for their owners, many left the state immediately and headed north or to nearby states in search of family members who had been taken to other regions during slavery.

For many African Americans, June 19 is considered an independence day. Before 2021, nearly all 50 states recognized Juneteenth as a state holiday. On June 17, 2021, President Biden signed legislation officially declaring it a federal holiday. 

Above copy and pasted from This Day In History

++++++++++

Here's our Scripture for church today, Proper 7 Year C, designated for the Sunday closest to June 19 to June 25, inclusive, Track One.

Why two psalms, both Psalm 42 and 43, are designated for today, I do not know and I'm not going to research it to find out, but the framers of the Lectionary regarded the psalm set as appropriate response to the 1st Kings reading.

To the modern mind, the 1st Kings reading may not hearken good news about God and Elijah who killed all the false prophets, when today we might say just strip them of their prophet credentials and send them to apply for equally despised jobs as government bureaucrats. 

The essence of the 1st Kings reading, though, is the magnificent passage where Elijah does not discern the Lord in the wind or in the earthquake or in the fire, but in the Sound of Silence. 

Which of course takes me back to Simon and Garfunkel singing "The Sound of Silence", one of the most beloved bits of music of my years as a young man. 

The epistle reading, Paul to Galatians, is most appropriate for Juneteenth, "no longer slave or free" but also for "no longer male or female" and the general take-away that all are meant to be free and equal in God's domain. I don't know why it is that humans are bound to make their view of themselves superior to their view of other humans; it's part of the ungodly selfishness of our Being. Even in "Animal Farm" - - "four legs good, two legs bad" morphs to "four legs good two legs better" as the pigs learn to walk on two legs in their new roles as rulers as good as humans. 

The gospel? This is Mark's story, which Luke and Matthew change notably. Matthew has two demoniacs and a much shorter story. Luke has Mark's story, but where Mark has Jesus telling the healed demoniac to go tell folks how much the Lord (the Scholars Version has his "patron" - - Mark's NT Greek word is ὁ κύριό - - and Luke changes it to ὁ θεός, God. So it really isn't clear whether Mark meant Jesus to be speaking of himself or of God; but Luke clarifies it at least for his readers; then Luke reverts and has the demoniac telling how much Jesus had done for him. So, if we were doing this in Sunday School class we might wonder if this tells anything about Luke's Christology?

Anyway, the gospel reading is a great story for having whoever wrote Mark (and Luke) slamming the pigs: the Roman legions who are occupying the Holy Land after their 70 AD destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, the Romans, the stupid swine who run off and drown themselves, and Amen, let it be so.

Nobody is going to read all this, but my bone to pick is with the sixth to eighth century Gelasian collect, its theology that seems naive for our day and age, and, if discussed in Sunday School, could have found itself challenged and dismissed by the question of theodicy.

RSF&PTL

T 

The Collect

O Lord, make us have perpetual love and reverence for your holy Name, for you never fail to help and govern those whom you have set upon the sure foundation of your loving­-kindness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Old Testament

1 Kings 19:1-4, (5-7), 8-15a

Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, "So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow." Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there.

But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: "It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors." [Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, "Get up and eat." He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, "Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you."] He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God. At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there.

Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" He answered, "I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away."

He said, "Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by." Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" He answered, "I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away." Then the Lord said to him, "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus."

The Psalm

Psalm 42

Quemadmodum

1 As the deer longs for the water-brooks, * so longs my soul for you, O God.

2 My soul is athirst for God, athirst for the living God; * when shall I come to appear before the presence of God?

3 My tears have been my food day and night, * while all day long they say to me, "Where now is your God?"

4 I pour out my soul when I think on these things: * how I went with the multitude and led them into the house of God,

5 With the voice of praise and thanksgiving, * among those who keep holy-day.

6 Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? * and why are you so disquieted within me?

7 Put your trust in God; * for I will yet give thanks to him, who is the help of my countenance, and my God.

8 My soul is heavy within me; * therefore I will remember you from the land of Jordan, and from the peak of Mizar among the heights of Hermon.

9 One deep calls to another in the noise of your cataracts; * all your rapids and floods have gone over me.

10 The Lord grants his loving-kindness in the daytime; * in the night season his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.

11 I will say to the God of my strength, "Why have you forgotten me? * and why do I go so heavily while the enemy oppresses me?"

12 While my bones are being broken, * my enemies mock me to my face;

13 All day long they mock me * and say to me, "Where now is your God?"

14 Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? * and why are you so disquieted within me?

15 Put your trust in God; * for I will yet give thanks to him, who is the help of my countenance, and my God.

and

Psalm 43

Judica me, Deus

1 Give judgment for me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people; * deliver me from the deceitful and the wicked.

2 For you are the God of my strength; why have you put me from you? * and why do I go so heavily while the enemy oppresses me?

3 Send out your light and your truth, that they may lead me, * and bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling;

4 That I may go to the altar of God, to the God of my joy and gladness; * and on the harp I will give thanks to you, O God my God.

5 Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? * and why are you so disquieted within me?

6 Put your trust in God; * for I will yet give thanks to him, who is the help of my countenance, and my God.

The Epistle

Galatians 3:23-29

Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.

The Gospel

Luke 8:26-39

Jesus and his disciples arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me" -- for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) Jesus then asked him, "What is your name?" He said, "Legion"; for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.

Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you." So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.