Year A - Proper 6, June 18, 2023
Serpents and Doves
God, O lover of Souls, bless us with wisdom and compassion, the toughness of the serpent and the tenderness of the dove. Amen.
That is a partial quote from the sermon/essay “A tough mind and a tender heart” by The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Tomorrow, June 19th, is the celebration of our second Independence Day, Juneteenth, sometimes called Freedom Day. Juneteenth commemorates the day when Union troops arrived at Galveston, Texas in 1865 to finally enforce the Emancipation Proclamation issued. Enslaved Americans of African descent had been free for two years, yet hundreds still labored as slaves under the oppression of land owners unwilling to follow the law.
Our government finally recognized Juneteenth as a National Holiday in 2021, though black communities have had celebrations since 1866. The Omaha NAACP has sponsored a Juneteenth parade in North Omaha for fifty years, expanded to include the Freedom Festival.
Juneteenth is new for most Americans. I grew up knowing Juneteenth commemorates abolishing slavery and was connected to the end of the Civil War. In Louisville, Kentucky, there was a big street fair in the black neighborhood and black classmates had family gatherings that looked a lot like Memorial Day. My family, being white, never attended; it would be rude. Why it would be rude wasn’t discussed, but in my head a White Southerner tromping into a Black Southerner’s celebration about the abolition of slavery would be an intrusion. Racism was the black community’s scourge, I believed.
Then I moved out of the South and discovered very few people knew about Juneteenth, even in black communities. That is a huge problem. It helped me realize racism is primarily a problem for whites, we victimize Americans who are black and perpetuate the social sin begun in slavery. If Memorial Day reminds us of the cost of the Civil War, Juneteenth displays what the death of our soldiers paid for: freedom. Not only for enslaved Americans, but for millions of biracial Americans and for the immigrants establishing new states like Nebraska. Protecting slavery in the Constitution will always taint July 4 as Independence Day, but Juneteenth redeems it.
As Christians in America, as Anglican Christians in America we are called to keep up the work of that redemptive act. I often tell you we must know our past to craft our future here at Trinity. The same is true of our Republic. Celebrating Juneteenth in North Omaha is the joyful part of facing our past with slavery. Coming to terms with its origin in our American history of dehumanizing hate takes courage seeking reconciliation. Christ does not ask us for shame, but action.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s sermon on our epistle passage today helps us hold the joy, defeat the hate, and seek justice and equity:
“[Jesus] knew that his disciples would face a difficult and hostile world, where they would confront the recalcitrance of political officials and the intransigence of the protectors of the old order. He knew that they would meet cold and arrogant [people] whose hearts had been hardened by the long winter of traditionalism. So he said to them, ‘Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves.’ And he gave them a formula for action, ‘Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.’ [Jesus expects] us to combine the toughness of the serpent and the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart.”
Our call to unite with our fellow citizens in bonds of love, respecting the dignity of every human being, requires toughmindedness to overcome treating white nationalism as an irritant, and routing it out as evil: a threat to the gospel and to America. Our dovelike softheartedness must be turned toward correcting the murderous inequities of our society: discover why black mothers die more frequently in pregnancy and childbirth than anyone else; why do black people get longer prison sentences than their white accomplices; question and solve the dramatic distance between the graduation rate of Central high school white or wealthy students and the black or poor students. A tough mind, like the serpent, will be unafraid in looking for our role in the problem, a soft heart, like the dove will sacrifice for true change.
Easy answers and half-baked solutions are not sufficient. Though Christ’s teaching may be hard, it is always right. I leave you with one last quote from our Civil Rights saint:
“I would not conclude without applying the meaning of the text to the nature of God. The greatness of our God lies in the fact that he is both toughminded and tenderhearted. He has qualities both of austerity and of gentleness...his toughmindedness in his justice and wrath and his tenderheartedness is his love and grace. God has two outstretched arms. One is strong enough to surround us with justice, and one is gentle enough to embrace us with grace.” Amen.
Strength to Love, MLK, “A Tough Mind and a Tender Heart”
Dean Vanessa Clark+