A Juneteenth Prayer - Rev. Tyler Connoley
Well, Juneteenth is almost here. If you don't remember, June 19th is the day we commemorate when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas learned they had been freed months earlier. It's often called Freedom Day.
This year, the Rev. Darrell Goodwin, Executive Conference Minister in Southern New England, has asked us to make Juneteenth a day of prayer. If you're off work, I invite you to gather with friends or family or with your church, and pray for freedom. If you have to work, maybe take some of your lunch break to pray for freedom.
I'd also like to invite you to pray with me right now.
Jesus, you started your ministry with God's executive order to free those held captive, and to proclaim good news to those who are poor and oppressed. Later, you promised that truth would set us free, and reminded your followers that God's children are already free.
Still we're bound and enslaved to so many oppressive systems. We're not yet aware of the truth of freedom. Or we're not willing to follow God's executive order to free those we hold captive.
Today, I pray, free us from the lie that imprisoning others will make us safer. Give us courage to reimagine the prison systems and policing systems that enable and encourage white supremacy and wealth privilege. Give us the will to live in true communities of care.
Today, I pray, free us from the physical and mental walls we've put between us and our neighbors. Free us from the falsehood of borders you don't see. Give us instead more opportunities to love and be loved in the places we live now, regardless of where we were born.
Today, I pray, free us from the shackles on our minds that hold us bound to the fiction of masculine supremacy. Free us to embody the strength of our Heavenly Mother who loves each of us so fiercely, and calls us by the names of our hearts.
Free us from the restrictions we put on ourselves and others so we can fit in small boxes of gender and love. Help us be more like your family of friends and renegades that was too big to fit in a little house in the suburbs. This Juneteenth, this Pride month, help us live into the rainbow promise of life abundant that you told us we could have.
Jesus, free us to more life. Free us to more love. Free us, I pray, in your holy name. Amen.
Amen.
