5th Sunday in Lent
Scripture
Isaiah 43: 16- 21
I have framed the question above for you to consider. It is obvious, that the use of slavery and tools of oppression can bind and blind a people and nation. In which it once did and probably still does; hold captive the people that were once called ‘barbaric’ and ‘evil’. The Natives of life flourishing, self-sustaining lands; living peacefully and reverently with nature and humanity. We have come a far way since those perilous times, and it is the hearts of strong children, women and men; though the spirit of a Great Divine that we have ‘streams in the desert’.
Today we have forgotten our past, in neglect, we look to the future, abandoning our rich glorious heritage, we now look to ‘a white god’ for our (religious, social, ethnic and personal) identity. Such colonial absurdity! I stand in solidarity with Jamaican singer ‘Sizzla’; when he sings “a white god will not save us from a white man oppression”. As we reminisce on the past, looking to the future, to avoid the disastrous mistakes of the past. We need to remember God’s promise to us, ‘that there will be a stream in the desert’. But we are the hands and feet of God! So it is primarily an “I and I” phenomenon, as the Jamaicans would put it (God In Us).
As we come face to face with oppression and anxiety especially when we are in the same room with a white man (someone we perceive to be superior), we need to remember our voice, and God’s Voice in us. We have a voice too! Staring into the problem with the eyes of determination and not defeat, we find who we are. The climate catastrophe, our greed and religious injustice of skin colour are mental graves of the past which we are choosing to take into the future. A deconstruction is what we need to rebuild a healthy society for generations to come, not the value of white consumerism and white industrialization! We can now learn from the shackles and chains that once held us captive. We can use those chains build a barrier around our lakes and reserves and rich forests. We can use those chains to build bridges to unite people of the same story. We can Overcome Evil, by being brave enough to tell a story that is ours.
– Christopher Latchman, Guyana Presbyterian Church
Prayer
Black Jesus we pray
For the earth we are destroying by our need to have more than we need. (Our Greed)
For the unity of our people and the deconstruction of western ideas which bind. (our liberation)
For justice and peace among all nations who are products of slavery and human trafficking to this day. (End of Slavery and corruption)