This past Monday, for the first time ever, the people of Minnesota officially and legally recognized Juneteenth as a state holiday.  As you know, the day commemorates the emancipation of enslaved African American people.  Deriving its name from combining June and nineteenth, it is celebrated on the anniversary of the order by Major General Gordon Granger proclaiming freedom for enslaved people in Texas on June 19, 1865 (two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued).

As Christians, we are committed to truth-telling, compassion, justice, and love.  We come alongside our African American brothers and sisters to celebrate Juneteenth.  But more than that, we recommit ourselves to be agents for change, recognizing that God’s dream for truth, compassion, justice and love has not yet come in equal measure to all in this country or in this community. Even God’s Church has much for which to repent with regard to our apathy and sometimes complicit actions with regard to racial injustice.  As Jesus ministered to all those whom society pushed to the margins, so do we stand with the same.  St. Paul asserts that “for freedom Christ has set us free.” And so, we Christians, recognizing that none are free unless and until all are free, recommit ourselves to work hard for justice and equality.

Quoting from Amanda Gorman’s inaugural poem The Hill We Climb:

But one thing is certain.

If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children’s birthright.

So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left.

We will rise from the golden hills of the West.

We will rise from the windswept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution.

We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the Midwestern states.

We will rise from the sun-baked South.

We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover.

And every known nook of our nation and every corner called our country, our people diverse and beautiful, will emerge battered and beautiful.

When day comes, we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid.

The new dawn blooms as we free it.

For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it.

If only we’re brave enough to be it.

May it be so.

~Father Art