Anthony &, Isabella arrived on the shores of this country along with at least 20 others in August of 1619 in an English vessel, The White Lion, having been taken captive from the Kingdom of Ndongo in west central Africa. They were sold to Sir George Yeardley (Virginia’s governor) and Abraham Peirsey (the colony’s supply officer & trade agent) in return for food and supplies.
In 1624, Anthony &, Isabella’s son, William, was baptized at the local Anglican Church in Hampton, Virginia. His baptized name is William Tucker due to the fact his parents worked on the land and were owned by Capt. William Tucker. No other records exist about this family or their second child.
William was baptized in a church like ours but was never seen as an equal part of the community, he was probably bought and sold to other farms, by Christians who believed they had a right to do so.
400 years ago, slavery came to this country. And we are still feeling the after affects from that evil trade – for behind slavery stands the economic affects of free labor based on the idolatrous notion that one’s skin color determined one’s destiny. Such white supremacy still haunts us for we have failed to excise it from our land.
And behind that bigotry, lies greed. For slavery and greed go hand in hand.
St. Paul considered greed to be idolatry – the worship of money or prosperity or the want of things as if it were God. But such earthly passions were to be put away.
“Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry)… seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self for in that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!”
Such earthly passions are idolatrous, taking the place of God. Our God in Jesus has set us free. We are to give up the greed and lust that swallows us up; we are not to be enslaved to sin nor are we to enslave others through our bigotry or greed.
Our Book of Common Prayer puts it this way: “Our duty to our neighbors is to love them as ourselves, and to do to other people as we wish them to do to us…To resist temptations to envy, greed, and jealousy; to rejoice in other people's gifts and graces; and to do our duty for the love of God, who has called us into fellowship with him.” (BCP p. 848)
Our duty is to love but greed works against love, for Greed tries to possess people for our own good.
"We learn the essential lesson: do not attempt to possess things, for things cannot really be possessed. Only make sure you are not possessed by them, lest your God change." ("Possessed by a Thing," Michael Battle, The Witness)
In our first reading, the teacher, Qoheleth in Hebrew, is there to teach that everything is vanity & too often our striving for things is but chasing after wind. We strive and toil for things, things we will leave behind us when we die.
“I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to those who come after me… yet they will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity.”
We seem to strive for that which will not truly give us life. This is vanity says Qoheleth.
“Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." Is how Jesus put it in our Gospel reading from Luke.
And Jesus tells a parable about a rich man, who has an abundance but instead of his duty to his neighbor, he ends up filling bigger and bigger barns but God says… “`You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God."
Greed – storing up treasures here on earth, rather than with God – such idolatry leads us away from God. Greed has us using people as commodities rather than loving them as beloved children of God.
The scriptures for today call us to live lives renewed with God’s love, not enslaving ourselves or others with greed where our lives chase the wind for a security that will never come, and loving our neighbors fully.
To turn away from such greed and idolatry, is to live generous lives.
Once upon a time, a monk, in his travels, found a precious stone worth a great deal of money. The monk kept it wrapped in a cloth in his traveling bag. As he continued on his way, he met a traveler, and offered to share his meager lunch with him. When the monk opened his bag, the traveler saw the jewel and asked the monk if he could have it to feed his family. The monk readily gave the jewel to him.
The traveler departed, overjoyed with the unexpected gift of the precious stone that would give him and his family wealth and security the rest of their lives. But a few days later, the traveler sought ought the monk at his monastery and gave him back the stone. "I have come to ask for something much more precious than this stone," he explained. "Give me whatever enabled you to give it to me."
To not hoard our treasure but to freely give, to see others as if they were Christ, to take without hesitation the first step in being reconciled with someone from whom we are estranged, to love and trust and console and raise up another regardless of the cost to us—this is what Christ calls us to live our lives, the compassion by which we will one day be measured by God.
Today let us open ourselves to hear God’s Word through prayer, caring for each other, and living generous lives. May we lament our history of slavery and the bigotry that lives on and strive to live our lives by the generosity of love we give to all people in our country and in all of God’s creation. May our lives not be chasing after the wind, but in treating others as we wish them to treat us. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment