Gather the Spirit
Sermon | November 22, 2020 | Rev. Julie Lombard
We gather our spirits to encourage one another in our pursuit of greater truth and meaning. To promote justice, equity, and compassion, in all aspects of life and living, we gather in peace and love for another Thanksgiving service. For that reason alone, I shared Rauschenbusch’s prayer for thanksgiving.
The Social Gospel was a protestant reform theology movement from the 19th and 20th century. It believed that humans are not so bad and God is not so mad, that cultural restoration is the Gospel, and social salvation is superior to individual salvation. 1https://tifwe.org/three-fallacies-of-the-social-gospel/11/19/2020 Let us hold that theology to heart this morning.
We realize this Thanksgiving will be different. We’ve been asked by many higher authorities to observe it in all new ways. Could this time be another opportunity for social salvation?
I am not just talking about changes such as the smaller gatherings that are recommended as we make the appropriate room for the pandemic and all it offers. I am talking about rethinking Thanksgiving on this 400th anniversary year of the Mayflower’s arrival.
2020 has given us some somber things to contemplate. We’ve been given extra time to ponder as we limit our outings in the wider world. This time to reflect may lead us to think back on previous holidays.
For some, an image of Pilgrims and Native Americans gathering together at a feast is what comes to mind. That is no accident; it is what we were taught. A fantasy as romantic as the memories we might have of sitting at tables in past years surrounded by family and friends. But even those memories are sweeter than their reality.
The thought of observing Thanksgiving as a day of mourning is not far out of reach for us this year. We are mourning all we’ve lost during this pandemic and the life we have put on hold or out of reach.
Native Americans have been protesting Thanksgiving for 50 years. They are leading us in a new direction to observe this holiday where mourning is an essential part. In doing so, they reject the myth and fake news told about that first gathering.
Like a battered spouse who takes shelter in a sanctuary far away from the abusive partner, they do not want to look back at the relationship through rose colored glasses. To do so defeats their truth of what really happened. It overlooks the cruelty and the abuse of power and privilege they endured and continue to endure.
Here we are, the anniversary of the Mayflower’s arrival marks 400 years of white supremacy in this land known for freedom. What have we learned? Have we moved beyond white fragility and achieved social salvation? Is there anything new we might find to nourish us now? Can we get through this holiday without feeling defensive or focusing too much on ourselves?
How might we grow our spirits from observing this day of mourning and thanksgiving- how might they co-exist? What are we willing to let go of in order to make room and sit down together around this thanksgiving and mourning table to have the conversation needed now?
Maybe we thought we might get a pass this year from having to think of all the family or human drama that comes with the holidays. Maybe this year, we wouldn’t have to sit and listen to that relative that drones on and on. You know the one… the one who is not aligned with your values. We will celebrate in peace, maybe too much peace and more than we desire. But what if I were to tell you that this year you are given a unique invitation: to see yourself as that outspoken relative at your table. Let us take this time to reflect on our part that we play in White Supremacy.
I cannot trace my heritage back to the Mayflower as many like to do, but that does not give me a pass. My skin color gives my privilege and power away. There is no pass for white folks. It doesn’t matter if my heritage is traced back to a less desirable European location, it does not deny the advantages I have had and will continue to have.
It is not enough for us to claim that we have had life easier. We must be walking billboards as we live out our values. Our silence is deafening. Our family wants to hear from us- and not the same old line they are used to hearing.
I am not talking about your parents or whatever family members that are absent from your holiday table this year, I am referring to our Native American siblings along with all people of color.
Humanity is watching as we live a lie. So many look to America- home of the free and the brave to guide them in a better direction. But all of our living out lies only shows that we can and must do better.
It is time to trace our history without romanticizing what we wish it was. Rather it is time to take a critical look at it. I also suggest that we look at it lovingly since everything grows better in the light of love.
“We didn’t know that then, the culture was different, and we’ve come a long way.” are the things we like to say about the past. It all sounds as feeble as the stories my parents use to tell me to explain away why smoking was so common place 50 years ago. “We didn’t know how bad it was…” as if ignorance and accepting the cultural norm gave us a pass on the truth of the matter. It has never been ok to harm oneself or another, or to steal or to lie. These are the vices and the sins that humans have been consumed with since time began.
There are so many myths about Thanksgiving that it becomes difficult to figure out what is real. But our hearts and souls know that what was done was wrong. Our ancestors cannot make it right, that is our task to do.
The Mayflower was not the first ship to arrive in the America so that first dinner we celebrate is merely a figment of our imagination. Maybe the pilgrims were more like us than we want to admit. Like them, we are making it up as we go along through this pandemic. Those separatists- the pilgrims- endured a more than 60 day sail for freedom before they ever set foot here. They had time to think, time to plan. Yet how did their new life here help them to change the way they lived?
The plan was not to leave from Plymouth, England. It was their third choice of departure. They weren’t trying to land in Plymouth, Massachusetts. They hoped to arrive elsewhere. Throughout their journey, they made adjustments about how to proceed.
They arrived to this land not long after “The Starving Time” which was the winter of 1609-10. A time when food shortages and fractured leadership plagued the new settlers in what we now know as Jamestown, Virginia.
Those on the Mayflower most likely heard the stories of what had happened to those people. That the Jamestown folks had lived through a siege by the native warriors that resulted in two of every three colonists dying. Between in-fighting, starvation, and the attacks from the natives who were trying to protect their sovereignty and sacred lands, how could the settlers be successful? Some claim that Shakespeare’s play the Tempest is an allegory of the European colonization. It was a common enough tale for Shakespeare to tell it. It’s a wonder that anyone was still willing to go.
The Mayflower Compact was a document written by white men- an agreement including the Puritans and the Strangers who were the adventurers and tradesmen on board. Nowhere did it include the inhabitants already in Plymouth. The compact proclaimed that they would use their own liberty; for none had power to command them. 2https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch17s1.html, 11/19/2020
With none having power over them, that gave them all the permission they needed to go off-script. It was a social contract, but not for all. It stated that they consented to follow the community’s rules for the sake of their survival.
The Puritans were people already used to having a spiritual covenant, so forging a civil covenant like the Mayflower Compact was natural next step. What was unnatural, to us, was the level of deep division present. They were so skilled at “othering” one another that it is rather surprising that they were able to agree upon anything. No wonder they left out the natives in the equation. In a world where power structures were so abusive, how could they reverse direction quickly? With names like ‘the separatists’, ‘the strangers’, and ‘savages’ it makes us realize how easy it was for them to not extend dignity to one another.
We fool ourselves into thinking that we are so unique and more divided than ever before, but the truth is the division was part of that first Mayflower promise. We need to rethink Thanksgiving and make a new covenant that promises that each being deserves dignity. Things such as race or gender ought not divide us and yet they do.
If we make a new promise, we cannot stay silent anymore about the injustice that exists. We must speak out and admit how our ancestors made mistakes that we are trying to make right now. Let this Thanksgiving not focus on the separation between us, rather let it help us to live in a new way and with a stronger bond.
Let us give thanks that because of the pandemic, we are not celebrating this holiday as we did during the 300 th anniversary – the pageantry was full of idolatry that the Puritans would have abhorred. This pandemic has enforced a new way of being. Let us not continue to live out the myth behind this holiday, rather let us be full of gratitude that we are called to start a new Covenant and celebrate this fall festival which honors all life and bounty.
May we give thanks for this time to ponder, for a time to chart a new plan and way of being. Let us give thanks for the many ways we can stay connected now. May we commit ourselves to what our ancestors could not do. They’re cry out for us to do and be better.
Blesses be. Amen.
References
| ↑1 | https://tifwe.org/three-fallacies-of-the-social-gospel/11/19/2020 |
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| ↑2 | https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch17s1.html, 11/19/2020 |