THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION
The theological reflection this month is drawn from enfleshed.
LEARN
Choose one or more of the following:
READ
Book of the Month: Meditations of the Heart by Howard Thurman
“The King Philosophy” from the King Center. Includes the Triple Evils, Six Principles Of Nonviolence, Six Steps of Nonviolent Social Change and The Beloved Community
“The Case for Reparations” (article) by Ta-Nehisi Coates
“It is Time for Reparations” (long article) by Nikole Hannah Jones
“The Subversive Work of Kin-Dom Building” (article)
“The American Church’s Complicity in Racism: A Conversation with Jemar Tisby” (article)
WATCH
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry on the church’s work for racial healing. (5:46)
Learn about the Absalom Jones Episcopal Center for Racial Healing (3:18)
LISTEN
A Brave Space (podcast) with Dr. Catherine Meeks of the Absalom Jones Episcopal Center for Racial Healing. The sessions explore various topics that address the intersections between slavery, lynching, the prison industrial complex, the death penalty and 21st-century police killings and the ways in which these issues prohibit racial healing in America.
Are Private Schools Immoral? A conversation with Nikole Hannah-Jones about race, education, and hypocrisy. (34:17) Nikole Hannah-Jones and The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, discuss how integrated schools are good for white children and black children.
NOTICE
In Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God, Kelly Brown Douglas writes about kairos time. Douglas explains that, “…this time in the life of the country is a kairos time. Kairos time is the right or opportune time. It is a decisive moment in history that potentially has far-reaching impact. It is often a chaotic period, a time of crisis, However, it is through the chaos and crisis that God is fully present, disrupting things as they are and providing an opening to a new future – to God’s future” (Douglas, p. 206). What are you noticing around you that might indicate we are living in kairos time?
ENGAGE
Choose one or more of the following:
Discuss with members in your congregation the representations of Christ that you have seen in your lifetime? Where are alternative representations? How is the Holy Family represented in your congregation and do the images accurately represent the Holy Family’s origin?
Explore with your friends, family, and/or members of your congregation: what collective commitments and behaviors could you all make that would begin to foster Beloved Community?
Become involved with and support the work of Beloved Community Initiative in the Diocese of Iowa.
REFLECT
Consider all of the learning that you have done over the past year about race, oppression and diversity. What is the topic that stands out most to you? Why did this make an impact on you? What did you learn and how will that inform your day to day life?
PRAY
O, God, like Mary, we rejoice in you. Our souls magnify you, for you have done great things for us. You look with favor on all who serve Love. You uplift the overlooked and under-represented. You tear down the powerful from their thrones. You fill the hungry and redistribute the resources of the rich. The promises made to the ancestors of our faith are fulfilled. Blessed are all who believe. A new day is dawning. Christ is being birthed among us.
As we pray with all who have joined us in this study, help us remember that You take on flesh among us. We will see it in bold actions that confront evil. We will hear it in silences broken. We will feel it in full bellies and warm bodies, and comforting embraces. We will know it is You when it leads us to collective salvation. Help us go from here in courage. Love is on the way.
Amen.
(adapted from enfleshed, December 23, 2018)
